Secret Heirs And A Forever Family

But she was not any other woman. She was his wife. His pregnant wife. How could he possibly ravish her when she was both bulky and yet impossibly fragile? Her skin looked so delicate—the blue tracery of her veins visible beneath its porcelain fragility—as if to even breathe on her might leave some kind of mark. And against her tiny frame, the baby looked huge—as if what her body had achieved was defying both gravity and logic, something which continued to amaze him. He’d even taken to working solely from home these past weeks, cancelling a trip to New York and another to Paris, terrified she was going to go into labour early even though there were still three weeks to go.

‘Let’s get inside,’ he said abruptly. He unlocked their new front door and stood back to let her pass and their footsteps sounded loud in a house which was still largely empty, save for the few pieces of furniture which had already been delivered. But at least it wasn’t cold. Despite the bite of early spring, the estate agent must have put on the heating—knowing that today was their first visit as official owners. The door swung closed behind them and he realised that she was still looking at him with confusion in her eyes.

‘Why have you put the house in my name, Renzo? I don’t understand.’

‘Because you need to have some kind of insurance policy. Somewhere to call home if—’

‘If the marriage doesn’t work out?’

‘That’s right.’

She nodded as if she understood at last for her face had whitened, her eyes appearing darkly emerald against her pale skin.

‘But you said—’

‘I know what I said,’ he interrupted. ‘But I didn’t factor in that the situation might prove more difficult than I’d anticipated.’

‘You mean, my company?’

‘No, not your company,’ he negated impatiently, and then suddenly the words came bubbling out of nowhere, even though he hadn’t intended to say them. ‘I mean the fact that I want you so damned much and you don’t seem to want me any more. The fact that you’re always just out of reach.’

Shocked, Darcy stared at him. So she hadn’t been imagining it. It had been lust she’d seen in his eyes and sexual hunger which made his body grow tense whenever she walked in the room. So why hadn’t he touched her? Why did he keep coming to bed later and later while keeping their days ultrabusy by whisking her from property to property until at last she’d fallen in love with this East Sussex house which was only eight miles from the sea?

The truth was that he hadn’t come near her since that night in Rome, when she’d told him everything about her mother. She felt her stomach clench. Actually, not quite everything—and hadn’t she been thankful afterwards that she hadn’t blurted out the whole truth? Imagine his reaction if she’d told him that, when he was already repulsed by what he knew, even though he’d done his best to hide it. And it was funny how the distance between a couple could grow almost without you realising. They’d been wary in each other’s company. As the space between them had increased, she’d found the presence of her Italian husband almost…forbidding.

But if she had read it all wrong, then where did that leave her? If he hadn’t been making value judgments about her, then why was she being so passive—always waiting for Renzo to make the first move? Yes, he was an alpha man with an instinctive need to dominate but it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that he was simply being cautious around the baby she carried in her belly. He’d never had a pregnant lover before. He had taught her so much—wasn’t this her chance to teach him something?

She walked over to him and, without warning, raised herself up on tiptoe to press her lips against his—feeling him jerk with surprise before sliding his arms around her waist to support her. Their tongues met as he instantly deepened the kiss but although Darcy could feel herself begin to melt, she forced herself to pull away.

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Not here. Not like this. Let’s go upstairs. I need to lie down.’

‘To bed?’

She took his hand and began to walk towards the stairs. ‘Why not? It just happens to be about the only piece of furniture we have.’

An old-fashioned boat bed had been delivered to the master bedroom, her only instruction to the removal men being that the thick plastic covering the mattress should be taken away and disposed of. The wooden-framed structure dominated an otherwise empty room and on its king-size surface lay the embroidered coverlet she’d found when she and Renzo had been rooting around in one of Rome’s antiques markets. She hadn’t asked for it to be placed there but now it seemed like a sign that this had been meant to happen.

‘Get undressed,’ she whispered as she pulled off her overcoat and dropped it to the ground.

His eyes were fixed on hers as he removed his jacket, his sweater and trousers. Soon their discarded clothes were mingled in a heap beside the bed and at last Darcy stood in front of him. She was naked and heavily pregnant and feeling more than a little awkward, yet the look of desire in his eyes was melting away any last trace of shyness.

‘I feel…bulky,’ she said.

‘Not bulky,’ he corrected, his voice husky. ‘Beautiful. Luscious and rounded—like the ripest of fruits about to fall from the tree.’

She shivered as he spoke and he took her into his arms.

‘You’re cold,’ he observed.

She shook her head, still reeling from his words and the way he’d looked at her as he said them. ‘No, not cold. Excited.’

‘Me, too.’ He gave a low laugh as he unfolded the coverlet and shook it out over the mattress.

‘It almost looks as if we’re planning on a picnic,’ she said, her voice suddenly betraying a hint of uncertainty.

‘That’s exactly what I’m planning. I’m going to feast on you, mia bella.’ But his face suddenly darkened as he pulled her into his arms and their bare flesh met for the first time in so long. ‘I’m out of my depth here, Darcy,’ he groaned. ‘I’ve never made love to a pregnant woman before and I’m scared I’m going to hurt you. Tell me what you want me to do.’

‘Just kiss me,’ she whispered as they sank down onto the mattress. ‘And we’ll make it up as we go along.’

He kissed her for a long time. Tiny, brushing kisses at first and then deeper ones. And for a while, there were hard kisses which felt almost angry—as if he was punishing her for having kept him away for so long. But his anger soon passed and the kisses became exploratory as he licked his way inside her mouth and they began to play a silent and erotic game of tongues.

And then he started to touch her as Darcy had ached for him to touch her night after lonely night, waiting in vain for him to come to bed. At first he simply skated the palms of his hands down over her, as if discovering all the different contours and curves which had grown since last time they’d been intimate. No area of skin escaped the light whisper of his fingertips and she could feel every nerve ending growing acutely sensitised. Slowly, he circled each breast with his thumb, focussing his attention on each peaking nipple and putting his mouth there to lick luxuriously until she was squirming with frustrated longing. She wanted him to hurry yet she wanted him to take all day. But the rhythmical movements of his hand relaxed her completely, so that she was more than ready for his leisurely exploration of her belly when it came.

Their gazes met as his fingers splayed over the tight drum, his black eyes filled with question. ‘This is okay?’ he breathed.

‘This is more than okay,’ she managed, her voice growing unsteady as he slipped his hand down beyond to the silky triangle of hair, fingering her honeyed flesh so that she gasped with pleasure and the scent of her sex filled the air.

She reached for him, her pleasure already so intense that she could barely think straight as she tangled her fingers through his thick black hair, before hungrily reacquainting herself with the hard planes of his body. His shoulders were so broad and powerful; his pecs iron-hard. She loved the smattering of hair which roughened the rocky torso. Her fingertips skated lightly over his chest, feeling the rock-like definition of his abs. She thought his skin felt like oiled silk and she traced a lingering path over the dip of his belly before her fingers curled around the hardness of his erection, but he shook a cautionary head and pulled her hand away.

‘It’s been too long,’ he said unevenly.

‘You’re telling me!’

‘And I need to do it to you right now before I go out of my mind—the only question is, how?’

In answer, Darcy turned onto her side, wiggling her bottom against his groin in blatant invitation. ‘Like this, I think.’

‘But I can’t see you.’

‘Doesn’t matter. And it never used to bother you. Go on.’ She wiggled again and he groaned and she could feel how big he was as his moist tip positioned enticingly against her wet heat. ‘You can feel me now and look at me later.’

He gave a low laugh and said something softly profound in Italian as he eased inside her. But the moan he gave was long and Darcy thought she’d never heard such an exultant sound before.

‘Okay?’ he bit out, holding himself perfectly still.

‘More than okay,’ she gasped.

‘I’m not hurting you?’

‘No, Renzo, but you’re frustrating the hell out of me.’

His laugh sounded edgy but he began to move. In slow motion, he stroked himself in and out of her, his palms cupping her heavy breasts, his lips on her neck—kissing her through the thick curtain of curls. Darcy closed her eyes as she gave into sensation, forgetting that this was the only time they ever seemed truly equal. Forgetting everything except for the pulse points of pleasure throbbing throughout her body and the inexorable building of her orgasm as Renzo made love to her. Insistent heat pushed towards her. She could feel it coming—as inevitable as a train hurtling along the track—and part of her wanted to keep it at bay, to revel in that sweet expectation for as long as possible. But Renzo was close, as well—she could sense that, too. She’d had him come inside her too many times not to realise when he was near the edge. So she let go. Let pleasure wash over her—wave after sweet wave of it—until his movements suddenly quickened. He thrust into her with a deeper sense of urgency until at last he quivered and jerked and she felt the burst of his seed flooding into her.

Afterwards he lay exactly where he was and so did she. His skin was joined to hers, his body, too. It felt warm and sticky and intimate. Darcy just wanted to savour the moment and her deep sense of contentment as she waited for his verdict on that deeply satisfying interlude. Still remembering the dreamy things he’d murmured when they’d started to make love, part of her anticipating just what his next words might be. But when they came, it felt as if someone had ripped through that lazy contentment like a knife ripping through delicate silk.

‘So… Was that my reward, I wonder, cara mia?’ he questioned softly.

She pulled away from him, aware of the sudden pounding of her heart and the general indignity of turning to face a man when any kind of action was proving laborious. Especially when you were completely naked beneath the gaze of a pair of eyes which looked suddenly distant. She told herself not to read unnecessary stuff into his words—not to always imagine the worst. He told you he wanted you and that he’s been lusting after you…so go with that.

‘I’m afraid I’m not with you,’ she said lightly.

‘No?’ He turned onto his back and yawned. ‘You mean that wasn’t your way of thanking me for buying you a home of your own? For finally getting the independence you must have craved for all these years?’

Darcy froze as the meaning of his words sank in and suddenly all that vulnerability which was never far from the surface began to rise in a dark unwanted tide. Groping down over the side of the bed, she managed to retrieve her overcoat and slung it over herself to cover her nakedness.

‘Let’s just get this straight.’ Her voice was trembling. ‘You think I had sex with you because you made me an overgenerous offer I hadn’t actually asked for?’

‘I don’t know, Darcy.’ His tone had changed. It rang out, iron-hard—like the sound of a hammer hitting against a nail. And when he turned his head to look at her, his eyes were icy. Like the black ice you sometimes saw when you were out on the roads in winter. Or didn’t see until it was too late. ‘I just don’t get it with you. Sometimes I think I know you and other times I think I don’t know you at all.’

‘But aren’t all relationships like that?’ she questioned, swallowing down her fear. ‘Didn’t some songwriter say that if our thoughts could be seen, they’d probably put our heads in a guillotine?’

His eyes were narrowed as they studied her. ‘And if I promised to grant you leniency, would you give me access to your thoughts right now?’

Darcy didn’t react. She could tell him the rest of her story—and maybe if it had been any other man than Renzo she would have done so. But he had already insulted her by thinking she’d had sex with him just because he’d bought her this house. To him, it all boiled down to a transaction and he didn’t really trust himself to believe anything different. He thought of everything in terms of barter between the sexes because he didn’t really like women, did he? He’d told her that a long time ago. He might want her but he didn’t trust her and even though she could try to gain that trust by confessing her biggest secret, surely it was too big a gamble?

‘I’m just wondering why you seem determined to wreck what chance we have of happiness,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘We have a lovely new home and a baby on the way. We’re both healthy and we fancy each other like crazy. We’ve just had amazing sex—can’t we just enjoy that?’

Black eyes seared into her for a long moment until eventually he nodded, his hand snaking around her waist and pulling her closer so that she could feel the powerful beat of his heart.

‘Okay,’ he said as he stroked her hair. ‘Let’s do that. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just all very new to me and I don’t do trust very easily.’

Silently, she nodded, willing the guilt and the tears to go away. All she wanted was to live a decent life with her husband and child. She wanted what she’d never had—was that really too much to ask? She relaxed a little as his hand moved from her hair to her back, his fingertips skating a light path down her spine. Couldn’t she be the best kind of wife to him, to demonstrate her commitment through her actions rather than her words?

He leaned over her, black fire blazing as he bent his face close. ‘Are you tired?’

She shook her head. ‘Not a bit. Why?’

His thumb grazed the surface of her bottom lip and she could feel his body hardening against her as he gave a rueful smile. ‘Because I want you again,’ he said.

CHAPTER TEN

DARCY’S FIRST INKLING that something was wrong came on a Monday morning. At first she thought it was nothing—like looking up at the sky and thinking you’d imagined that first heavy drop of rain which heralded the storm.

Renzo was in London unveiling his design for the Tokyo art gallery at a press conference—having left the house at the crack of dawn. He’d asked if she’d wanted to accompany him but she’d opted to stay, and was in the garden pegging out washing when the call came from one of his assistants, asking if she was planning to be at home at lunchtime.

Darcy frowned. It struck her as a rather strange question. Even if she wasn’t home, Renzo knew she wouldn’t have strayed much further than the local village—or, at a pinch, the nearby seaside town of Brighton. All that stuff they said about pregnant women wanting to nest was completely true and she’d built a domestic idyll here while awaiting the birth of their baby. And hadn’t that nesting instinct made her feel as though life was good—or as good as it could be? Even if sometimes she felt guilt clench at her heart unexpectedly, knowing that her husband remained ignorant of her biggest, darkest secret. But why rock the boat by telling him? Why spoil something which was good by making him pity her and perhaps despise her?

Placing the palm of her hand over the tight drum of her belly, she considered his assistant’s question. ‘Yes, I’m going to be here at lunchtime. Why?’

‘Signor Sabatini just asked me to make sure.’

Darcy frowned. ‘Is something wrong? Is Renzo around—can I speak to him, please?’

The assistant’s voice was smooth but firm. ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible. He’s in a meeting. He said to tell you he’ll be with you soon after noon.’

Darcy replaced the receiver, trying to lose the sudden feeling of apprehension which had crept over her, telling herself it was only because that fractured phone call felt a little like history repeating itself which had made her nervous. At least it hadn’t been the same assistant who had stonewalled her attempts to get through to Renzo to tell him she was pregnant. That assistant had suddenly been offered a higher position in a rival company, something which Darcy suspected Renzo had masterminded himself. He’d seemed to want to put the past behind them as much as she did. So stop imagining trouble where there isn’t any.

But it didn’t matter how much she tried to stay positive, she couldn’t seem to shake off the growing sense of dread which had taken root inside her. She went inside and put away the remaining clothes pegs—something her billionaire husband often teased her about. He told her that hanging out washing was suburban; she told him she didn’t care. She knew he wanted to employ a cleaner and a housekeeper, and to keep a driver on tap instead of driving herself—in the fairly ordinary family car she’d chosen, which wasn’t Renzo’s usual style at all. The private midwife who lived locally and could be called upon at any time had been her only concession to being married to a billionaire.

But she wanted to keep it real, because reality was her only anchor. Despite Renzo’s enormous power and wealth, she wanted theirs to be as normal a family as it was possible to be. And despite what she’d said when he’d railroaded her into the marriage, she badly wanted it to work. Not just because of their baby or because of their unhappy childhoods. She looked out the window, where her silk shirt was blowing wildly in the breeze. She wanted it to work because she had realised she loved him.

She swallowed.

She loved him.

It had dawned on her one morning when she’d woken to find him still sleeping beside her. In sleep he looked far less forbidding but no less beautiful. His shadowed features were softened; the sensual lips relaxed. Two dark arcs of eyelashes feathered onto his olive skin and his hair was ruffled from where she’d run her hungry fingers through it sometime during the night. She remembered the powerful feeling which had welled up inside her as the full force of her feelings had hit her and she wondered how she could have failed to recognise it before.

Of course she loved him. She’d been swept away by him from the moment she’d looked across a crowded nightclub and seen a man who had only had eyes for her. A once-in-a-lifetime man who’d made her feel a once-in-a-lifetime passion, despite the fact that he could be arrogant, tricky and, at times, downright difficult. And if fate—or rather pregnancy—had given her the opportunity to capitalise on those feelings and for passion to evolve into love, then she had to make the most of it. He might not feel the same way about her but she told herself that didn’t matter because she had more than enough love to go round. She planned to make herself indispensable—not just as the mother of his child, but as his partner. To concentrate on friendship, respect and passion and reassure herself that maybe it could be enough. And if sometimes she found herself yearning for something more—well, maybe she needed to learn to appreciate what she had and stop chasing fantasy.

She spent the next hour crushing basil leaves and mashing garlic, trying to perfect a pesto sauce as good as the one they’d eaten in Rome on the last evening of their honeymoon. Then she picked a handful of daffodils and put them in a vase and had just sat down with a cup of tea to admire their yellow frilliness, when she heard the front door slam.

‘I’m in here!’ she called. She looked up to see Renzo framed in the doorway, her smile and words of welcome dying on her lips when she saw the darkness on his face. She put the cup down with a suddenly shaking hand. ‘Is something wrong?’

He didn’t answer and that only increased her fear. His hands were white-knuckled and a pulse was beating fast at his temple, just below a wayward strand of jet-black hair. She could sense an almost palpable tension about him—as if he was only just clinging on to his temper by a shred.

‘Renzo! What’s wrong?’

He fixed her with a gaze which was cold and hard. ‘You tell me,’ he said.

‘Renzo, you’re scaring me now. What is it? I don’t understand.’

‘Neither did I.’ He gave a harsh and bitter laugh. ‘But suddenly I do.’

From his pocket he took out an envelope and slapped it onto the table. It was creased—as if somebody had crushed it in the palm of their hand and then changed their mind and flattened it out again. On the cheap paper Renzo’s name had been printed—and whoever had written it had spelt his surname wrong, she noted automatically.

His lip curved. ‘It’s a letter from your friend.’

‘Which friend?’

‘Shouldn’t take you long to work that one out, Darcy. I mean, it isn’t like you have a lot of friends, is it?’ His mouth twisted. ‘I never really understood why before. But suddenly I do.’

She knew then. She’d seen the look often enough in the past not to be able to recognise it. She could feel the stab of pain to her heart and the sickening certainty that her flirtation with a normal life was over.

‘What does it say?’

‘What do you think it says?’

‘I’d like to hear it.’ Was she hoping for some sort of reprieve? For someone to be writing to tell him that she’d once told a policewoman a lie—or that she’d missed school for a whole three months while her mother kept her at home? She licked her lips and looked at him. ‘Please.’

With another contemptuous twist of his lips he pulled out the lined paper and began to read from it, though something told her he already knew the words by heart.

‘“Did you know that Pammie Denton was a whore? Biggest hooker in all of Manchester. Ask your wife about her mam.”’

He put the note down. ‘It’s pointless asking if you recognise the writing, since it’s printed in crude capitals, but I imagine Drake Bradley must be the perpetrator and that this is the beginning of some clumsy attempt at blackmail. Don’t you agree?’ he added coolly.

Her normal reaction would have been to shut right down and say she didn’t want to talk about it because that had been the only way she’d been able to cope with the shame in the past, but this was different. Renzo was her husband. He was the father of her unborn baby. She couldn’t just brush all the dirty facts under the carpet and hope they would go away.

And maybe it was time to stop running from the truth. To have the courage to be the person she was today, rather than the person forged from the sins of yesterday. Her heart pounded and her mouth grew suddenly dry. To have the courage to tell him what maybe she should have told him a long time ago.

‘I’d like to explain,’ she said, drawing in a deep breath.

He gave her another unfathomable look as he opened up the refrigerator and took out a beer and Darcy blinked at him in consternation because cool and controlled Renzo Sabatini never drank during the day.

‘Feel free,’ he said, flipping the lid and pouring it into a glass. But he left the drink untouched, putting it down on the table and leaning against the window sill as he fixed her with that same cold and flinty stare. ‘Explain away.’

In a way it would have been easier if he’d been angry. If he’d been hurling accusations at her she could have met those accusations head-on. She could have countered his rage with, not exactly reason—but surely some kind of heartfelt appeal, asking him to put himself in her situation. But this wasn’t easy. Not when he was looking at her like that. It was like trying to hold a conversation with a piece of stone.