Christmas With A Tycoon: The Italian's Christmas Child / The Greek's Christmas Bride

Suddenly she wondered what she was doing. Did she really want a man of Vito’s dissolute proclivities in her life and Angelo’s? Common sense warned her not to make snap judgements and to give Vito a chance for Angelo’s sake. Her son would want to know who his dad was. Hadn’t she wondered all her life who had fathered her? Hadn’t that made her insecure? Made her feel less of a person than others because she didn’t know that most basic fact about herself? No, Angelo deserved access to the truth of his parentage right from the start and that was what Holly would ensure her son had, no matter how unpleasant seeing Vito again proved to be.

Vito was a total scumbag, Holly reminded herself afresh while wondering why she was experiencing the strangest sense of...elation. Why was her heart pounding and her adrenaline buzzing? Her guide opened a door and stood back for her to enter. My goodness, he had a big office, typical scumbag office, she rephrased mentally. She would not be impressed; she refused to be impressed. And then Vito strode in through a side door and she was paralysed to the carpet because he simply looked so drop-dead amazing that she could not believe that she had ever slept with him and that he was the father of her child.

Her mouth ran dry. She felt dizzy. Butterflies danced in her tummy as she focused on those lean, darkly handsome features, and she knew that Pixie would have kicked her hard. Total scumbag, she told herself, but her brain would not engage with that fact and was much more interested in opening a back catalogue on Vito’s sheer perfection. To look at—perfect to look at, she rephrased doggedly, striving to get back to the scumbag awareness. Drugs...sex with hookers, she fired at herself in desperation.

‘The hat and the holly were an original calling card,’ Vito drawled, the dark, deep accent tautening every muscle in her already tense body. ‘But I did remember your name. I didn’t need the prompt.’

Holly turned the red-hot colour of a tomato because she hadn’t expected him to grasp the reasoning behind her introduction that easily.

‘It would have been much easier to phone me,’ Vito assured her silkily.

‘And how could I have done that without your phone number?’ Holly asked stiffly, because she was determined to make no reference to the fact that she had left her phone number with him and that he had decided not to make use of it. Discussing that would be far, far too humiliating.

‘Well, maybe you shouldn’t have run out on me before I got back to the cottage that day.’ Vito smiled suddenly, brilliantly. It almost stopped her heart dead in its tracks as she stared at him. But it had not sat well with Vito that a night he had considered exceptional should have meant so much less to her that she’d walked out without a backward glance. Her reappearance satisfied him. He now felt free to study her with acute appreciation. She was wearing the most ordinary garments: a sweater, a shortish skirt, a jacket and boots, all black and all unremarkable but the glorious hourglass curves he cherished could not be concealed. His dark eyes flamed gold over the swell of her breasts below the wool and the lush curve of her hips before flying up to her full pink mouth, little snub nose and huge blue eyes. Shorn of the schmaltz and the sparkle and in full daylight, Holly was passing the test he had expected her to fail and for the first time in Vito’s life, failure actually tasted sweet. He shifted almost imperceptibly as the hot swell of an erection assailed him and he almost smiled at that as well because his diminished libido had seriously bothered him.

‘How did you find out who I was?’ Vito enquired.

‘Yes, that’s right...you lied. You gave me a false name,’ Holly was prompted to recall as she struggled to fight free of the spell he cast over her just by being in the same room.

‘It wasn’t a false name. I didn’t lie. I was christened Vittore Sorrentino Zaffari,’ he told her, smooth as glass. ‘Sorrentino was my father’s surname.’

That smoothness set Holly’s teeth on edge. ‘You lied,’ she said again. ‘You deliberately misled me. What I don’t understand is why you did that.’

‘You must appreciate that I am very well known in the business world. I prefer to be discreet. You coming here today in such a manner...’ Vito shifted fluid brown fingers in an expressive dismissive gesture. ‘That was indiscreet.’ From his inside pocket he withdrew a business card and presented it to her. ‘My phone number.’

Holly put the card into her jacket pocket because she didn’t know what else to do with it. Indiscreet? Coming to see him in the flesh was indiscreet?

Dark golden eyes fringed by inky black, unfairly long lashes surveyed her and her tummy flipped, her heart rate increasing. ‘Holly...I have the feeling that you don’t understand where I’m going with this but I must be frank. I like to keep my private life private. I certainly do not want it to intrude when I’m at the bank. My working hours are sacrosanct.’

My word, he was literally telling her off for approaching him at his place of work, for coming to see him where other people would see her and notice her. A sense of deep humiliation pierced Holly because it had taken so much courage for her to come and confront him with the news she had. His case was not helped by the reality that she had seen a photo of him and his ex-fiancée, Marzia, posing outside the Zaffari Bank in Florence. Evidently, Marzia had enjoyed such privileges because she was someone he was proud to be seen with in public. Holly just could not get over Vito’s nerve in daring to talk to her like that. Did he really think she was the sort of woman who would let a man talk down to her?

Her blue eyes widened and raked over him but it was pointless to try and put him down that way because she couldn’t see a single flaw in his appearance. His dark grey suit fitted him like a tailored glove, outlining his height, breadth and long, powerful legs. And looking at him inevitably sent shards of mortifying memory flying through her already blitzed brain. She knew what he looked like out of his suit, she knew what he felt like, she also knew how he looked and sounded when he... No, don’t go there, she urged herself and plunged straight into punitive speech because he had to be punished for putting such inappropriate thoughts into her head.

‘I can’t believe you’re talking down to me as if you’re a superior being,’ Holly bit out tightly. ‘Why? Because you’ve got money and a big fancy office? Certainly not because you’ve been shopped for taking drugs and sleeping with hookers!’

There was a flash of bemused surprise in Vito’s brilliant dark eyes before he responded. ‘That was a case of misidentification. I was not the man involved.’

‘Of course you’re going to say that,’ Holly retorted with a roll of her eyes. ‘Of course you’re going to deny it to me but, as I understand it, you never once denied it in public.’

‘I had a good reason for that. I never respond to tabloid journalists and I was protecting my family,’ Vito returned levelly. ‘I assure you...on my honour...that I was not the man involved and that I profoundly disapprove of such activities.’

Holly remained unimpressed. How did she credit that he had honour? How was she supposed to believe him? He had been protecting his family by remaining silent? How did that work?

‘I do believe it would be wiser to take this meeting out of my big fancy office to somewhere more comfortable,’ Vito continued, his smooth diction acidic in tone. ‘I have an apartment in London. My driver will take you and you can relax there until I can join you for lunch.’

Knocked right off balance by that suggestion coming at her out of nowhere, Holly actually found herself thinking about the offer of lunch. Telling him about Angelo in an office setting felt wrong to her as well, and then a little voice in the back of her brain that sounded alarmingly like Pixie told her to wise up and think about the invitation he had made. And at that point the coin finally dropped for Holly and she grasped how Vito had chosen to interpret her sudden reappearance in his life. She wanted to kick herself for not foreseeing that likelihood, but she wanted to kick him even harder for daring to think that he could have a chance with her again. Certainly not with what she now knew about his partying habits!

‘I haven’t come here for another hook-up,’ Holly stated with an embarrassed force that made her voice rise slightly. Behind her mortification lurked a great well of burning resentment.

Did he really think that she was so desperate for sex that she would travel all the way to London for it? How dared he assume that she was that keen, that easy? Well, she certainly hadn’t taught him that she was a big challenge the night they first met, Holly conceded grudgingly. But, my goodness, that one night must have been as good on his terms as he had said it was if he was willing to do it again. Or maybe he was simply a sex addict? Anything was possible. When Holly had snapped back at him about his money and his fancy office and his debauched partying, she had also picked up on his surprise. He had assumed she was a quiet, easy-going little mouse but Holly wasn’t quiet when her temper was roused. And right now her temper was rising like lava in a volcano. The past fourteen months had been very challenging, and working all day after a sleepless night had become her new norm. Having no way of contacting her son’s father, who had handicapped her by giving her a false name, had only added to her stress.

Vito tensed. ‘I didn’t say anything about that. No expectations...’ he murmured silkily, lean brown hands sketching an eloquent arc in the air as if to nullify her suspicions.

‘Of course you have expectations...but, in this case, I’m afraid it’s not going to happen. You had your chance and you blew it!’ Holly snapped back, striving to hang on to her temper.

His brows drew together. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Holly rolled her eyes, her lush mouth compressed. ‘A timely little reminder that if you had really wanted to see me again I did leave you my phone number.’

‘No, you didn’t,’ Vito insisted.

Holly tensed even more, angry that she had let that reminder fall from her mouth. ‘I left a note thanking you for your hospitality and I printed my phone number at the bottom of it.’

Vito groaned. ‘I didn’t find a note when you left. Where did you leave it?’

‘On the shelf in the fireplace.’ Holly shrugged dismissively, keen to drop the subject.

‘If there was a note, I didn’t see it,’ Vito assured her.

But then he would say that, wouldn’t he? Holly thought, unimpressed. Of course he had found the silly note she had left behind and he had done nothing with it. And in doing nothing he had taught her all she needed to know about how he saw her. She had gone over the events of that morning in her mind many, many times. She was convinced that Vito had gone out for a walk to get a break from her. For him the fun of togetherness had already worn thin. He had ignored her note most probably because he’d been relieved to find her already gone. He had seen that night as a casual one-night stand that he had no desire to repeat.

‘Whatever. It’s pointless to discuss it after the amount of time that has passed. But let me spell out one fact,’ Holly urged thinly. ‘I didn’t come to see you today for anything...er...physical. I came to see you about something much more important.’

At her emphasis, Vito raised a level dark brow in cool query mode, his wide sensual mouth tightening with impatience. And she could feel the whole atmosphere turning steadily colder and less welcoming. Naturally. She had taken sex off the lunch table, as it were, and he was no longer interested in anything she might have to say to him. And why would he be interested? She was poor and he was rich. He was educated and she was more of a self-educated person, which meant that she had alarming gaps in her knowledge. He was hugely successful and a high achiever while she worked in dead-end jobs without a career ladder for advancement. It was incredible, she finally conceded, that they had ever got involved in the first place.

‘More important?’ Vito prompted, his irritation barely hidden.

Defiance and umbrage combined inside Holly. She had held on to her temper but it was a close-run battle. His assumption that she was approaching him for another sexual encounter had shocked her, possibly because she had persuaded herself that they had shared something more than sex. Now she saw her illusions for the pitiful lies that they were, lies she had told herself to bolster her sagging self-esteem while she was waddling round with a massive tummy.

‘Yes, much more important,’ she confirmed, lifting her chin and simply spilling out her announcement. ‘I got pregnant that night we were together.’

Vito froze as if she had threatened to fling a grenade at him. He turned noticeably pale, his strong bone structure suddenly clearly etched below his skin by raw tension. ‘You said you were on the pill—’

Holly wasn’t in the mood to go into the intricacies of missed pills and antibiotic treatment. ‘You must know that every form of contraception has a failure rate and I’m afraid there was a failure. I got pregnant but I had no way of contacting you, particularly not when you had given me a fake name.’

Vito was in shock. Indeed Vito could never recall being plunged into such a state of shock before. Everything he had assumed had been turned upside down and inside out with those simple words... I got pregnant.

‘And do you usually reintroduce yourself with a very evocative Santa hat and a sprig of holly when this happens?’ he heard himself snap without even mentally forming the words. ‘Is this some sort of a scam?’

Holly’s small shoulders pushed up, along with her chin. ‘No, Angelo is not a scam, Vito. He was born eight months after that night.’

‘You come here without a word of warning and throw this announcement at me like a challenge,’ Vito ground out in condemnation, no fan of major surprises in his life, as yet not even capable of thinking of what she was telling him. The prospect of having a child had long struck him as a possibility as remote as the moon. He had known fatherhood was on the cards somewhere down the line if he married Marzia but he had also known that neither of them were in any hurry to start a family.

‘No, I did not. If I challenged you it would be an awful lot tougher!’ Holly shot back at him furiously. ‘Tough was waitressing until I was eight months pregnant and being in labour for two days before I got a C-section. Tough is working as a childminder and a shelf-stacker and never getting enough sleep. You wouldn’t know tough if it leapt on you and bit you...because in your whole blasted spoilt-rotten life you have had everything handed to you on a plate!’

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