Behind the Castello Doors

Throughout their conversation she had been intensely aware of him. Her eyes seemed to have a magnetic attraction to his tall, imposing figure as he leaned against the fireplace. His close-fitting black trousers moulded his muscular thighs, and his white shirt was made of such fine silk that she could see the faint shadow of dark chest hairs beneath it.

She lifted her head and flushed when she met his hooded gaze, embarrassed that he had caught her staring at him. He was probably used to women being fascinated by him, she thought ruefully. The livid scar on his cheek did not detract from his incredible good-looks. Ruggedly handsome, he possessed a dark, smouldering sensuality which evoked a curious sensation in the pit of her stomach—an ache of longing for something she did not understand but that she sensed this man, with his earthy virility, could appease.

What was the matter with her? she asked herself impatiently, as a shockingly vivid image came into her mind of being kissed by Cesario Piras. She could not help wondering what it would be like to be crushed against his broad chest and feel his lips on hers. She knew she was sexually naive for a woman of nearly twenty-four, but after her father had walked out when she was a child—leaving her and her seriously ill mother to fend for themselves—she had found it hard to trust any man. She had dated a few men, but nothing had ever been serious and she’d never felt any desire to take things further than a goodnight kiss at the end of an evening.

She sensed instinctively that Cesario would want more than a few chaste kisses. He would be passionate and demanding, and undoubtedly a skilled lover.

Horrified by her wanton thoughts, she hastily sought to break the silence that stretched between them. ‘Hopefully it won’t take long to arrange the test. We’ll probably only need to stay for a few days.’

Cesario shrugged. ‘I wish for you to remain here until the results of the test are known, which I believe can take a week or more.’

He could not take his eyes off the baby. He felt a sense of incredulity that she might possibly be his, but if she was then there was no question he would deny responsibility for her.

‘If it is proved that Sophie is my child, she will live with me here at the castle,’ he stated decisively.

‘Live here!’ Shock, followed almost immediately by a sense of wild panic paralysed Beth’s vocal cords so that her voice emerged as a faint gasp.

‘Where else would she live?’ Cesario queried, sounding surprised by her reaction. ‘If Sophie is a Piras, then the Castello del Falco is her home and her heritage.’

‘But I am Sophie’s legal guardian. I promised Mel I would be a mother to her baby. And I live in Hackney,’ Beth added desperately, clutching Sophie tightly to her, as if she feared Cesario would snatch the baby from her arms.

‘If I am her father she will have no need of a guardian.’

Cesario’s eyes narrowed speculatively on Beth’s tense face.

‘You clearly went to a lot of trouble to find me,’ he said after a moment, ‘and you were prepared for Sophie to undergo a DNA test. What do you expect me to do if it is established that she is my child? Surely you do not think I would simply allow you to take her back to England?’

‘I …’ Beth floundered, not knowing how to answer. The truth was she had assumed that Cesario Piras would want nothing to do with his daughter. Perhaps the fact that she had been abandoned by her own father had made her cynical. But a man who had had casual sex and carelessly did not use protection did not seem likely to accept responsibility for the baby who had resulted from a one-night stand. Cesario hadn’t even told Mel his name, she thought disgustedly. If it hadn’t been for the newspaper photo the identity of Sophie’s father would have for ever been a mystery.

‘It didn’t occur to me that you might want to be involved with your baby,’ she admitted.

‘Then why go to the effort of tracking me down?’

Cesario’s granite stare was so unnerving that Beth hurriedly looked away from him. ‘I hoped to persuade you to make a financial settlement for Sophie,’ she muttered.

She felt her face flood with colour. The statement sounded so cold-blooded, but she was innately honest and could not deny the truth. The idea of asking for money was abhorrent to her, but the harsh reality was that she could not afford to bring up Sophie on the low wage she earned from her cleaning job. She was a qualified nanny, but after she’d been unfairly sacked from her last position she had lost confidence and became wary of looking for another placement. Even if she could find a better job, the cost of childcare, rent and bills would leave nothing for all the things she wanted Sophie to have: music lessons, ballet classes, new clothes rather than hand-me-downs—all the things she had longed for when she had been a child.

The atmosphere in the library had become tangibly tense. Beth darted Cesario a nervous glance and discovered that his granite gaze had turned to steel: cold and hard and edged with a mocking contempt that caused her stomach to cramp.

‘So you want money?’

‘For Sophie,’ she insisted sharply, stung by his scornful tone. ‘If it is proved that she is your child, then it’s only fair that you should contribute towards her upbringing.’

‘And, as her legal guardian, you assumed you would have control of any allowance I might provide.’ His lip curled. ‘I understand now why agreeing to bring up your friend’s daughter after you had learned that Sophie’s possible father was a billionaire was such an attractive proposition,’ Cesario drawled.

‘It had nothing to do with that,’ Beth denied hotly, appalled by the implication. ‘What a horrible thing to suggest. My only consideration is for Sophie. I love her—and I loved Mel,’ she said thickly. ‘We were best friends. More like sisters. I didn’t expect her to die, but she did. I intend to keep the promise I made to her to take her place as Sophie’s mother, but I don’t think it is unreasonable to ask for a little financial assistance so that I can give Sophie a happy childhood.’

‘If Sophie is my child then she will want for nothing,’ Cesario said harshly. ‘But you will be superfluous. You will no longer be required to act as her guardian and you’ll be free to return to England.’

Fear gripped Beth. ‘What do you mean—superfluous?’ she asked shakily. ‘I’ve cared for Sophie since the day she was born. I took her home from the hospital. One day, when she’s older, I will tell her about her real mother, but for now I’m the only mother she knows and nothing on this earth could persuade me to give her up.’

Cesario was almost convinced that the tremor of emotion in her voice was genuine. Almost—but not quite. He could not forget the fact that Beth had sought him out because she wanted a financial settlement for her friend’s child. He was still stunned by the possibility that Sophie might be his, but if she was then he had a duty towards her, and there was no question in his mind that she should do anything other than live in Sardinia with him.

As for Beth Granger. To his annoyance his gaze was drawn to her face and he felt an unbidden flicker of compassion when he noted the shimmer of tears in her green eyes. For a heartbeat they stared at one another, before she dropped her head and a swathe of her gleaming brown hair fell across her cheek.

A hot, fierce throb of desire flared in Cesario’s groin, taking him by surprise so that he drew a sharp breath. For a few crazy seconds he imagined leaning down and slanting his lips over Beth’s, tracing their moist softness with his tongue.

The thoughts in his head were totally inappropriate, he told himself angrily. Fighting a strong urge to reach out and tuck the silky strands of her hair behind her ear, he strode over to the door.

‘A discussion on the child’s future is premature until a DNA test has been done,’ he said coolly. ‘Until then I hope you will be comfortable at the Castello del Falco. I will instruct my staff to prepare the nursery. Teodoro will escort you upstairs and ensure you have everything you need. But now I must ask you to excuse me while I return to my guests.’

CHAPTER THREE

SHE needed to leave the castle immediately, get back to Oliena, arrange a transfer to the airport and book the next flight back to England. If she disappeared now Cesario would never be able find her. And without a paternity test there would be no risk of him trying to take Sophie away from her.

Beth’s head was spinning with frantic thoughts, but she forced a smile for Cesario’s butler as he ushered her out of the library and motioned that she should follow him up the stairs.

‘There’s been a change of plan. I’ve decided to return to my hotel tonight,’ she told him in a falsely bright tone. ‘There’s no need for anyone to go all the way down to Oliena to collect my things. If you could just call me a taxi, I’ll leave now while the baby has fallen back to sleep.’

Teodoro’s inscrutable expression did not alter. ‘A member of staff has already been dispatched to your hotel and will return with your luggage shortly. Signor Piras gave orders for the nursery to be made ready for the infant. If you would like to follow me, I will escort you there.’

Without another word he resumed his unhurried pace towards the ornately carved oak staircase which wound up to the upper floors of the castle. She was trapped, Beth realised fearfully. The taxi driver who had brought her here had only spoken a few words of English and she did not speak Italian. Even if she could find a phone number for a taxi firm her chances of making herself understood were minimal.

But the thought of staying at the castle made her stomach churn with nervous tension. When she had made the trip to Sardinia it hadn’t crossed her mind that Cesario would want his baby. Maybe she had been wrong to assume that every man was as unreliable as her father, she thought heavily. She had expected Cesario to argue against having a DNA test. And if it had been proved that he was Sophie’s father the most she had hoped for was that he would offer her a small allowance to help with the cost of bringing up his child.

Reluctantly acknowledging that she had no choice, Beth followed the butler up the stairs. Sophie was hers, she assured herself. Mel had appointed her as the baby’s guardian. But would a court decide that Sophie’s father had more right to bring her up than a guardian? She paused as a wave of dizziness swept over her and grabbed the banister rail for support. Her legs felt wobbly and she could not seem to draw enough oxygen into her lungs.

It was the same feeling she’d experienced a few times before, when she’d had to climb the five flights of stairs up to her flat because the lift in the tower block had been vandalised yet again. She took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. There was no point in worrying about anything at the moment. Nothing could be decided until the results of the DNA test were known.

The nursery was at the end of a long passageway on the second floor. Beth had guessed that it would simply be a guest bedroom furnished with a cot, for the use of any visitors to the castle with a baby. She certainly had not expected this, she thought in astonishment when Teodoro ushered her into the room.

Spacious and airy, the room was painted a delicate primrose-yellow which complemented the pale oak furniture. A beautiful antique cot stood in the centre of the room and a maid was adjusting the exquisite cream lace bedding. She looked round when Beth entered the room and stared curiously at Sophie, before Teodoro spoke to her in Italian and she quickly left the room.

‘Carlotta will bring you anything you need. Just pull on this rope here to call her,’ he explained to Beth.

‘Thank you.’ She walked slowly across the cream velvet carpet and paused in front of a wooden rocking horse. She had seen pictures of luxurious nurseries like this one in glossy magazines featuring houses owned by wealthy celebrities. Everything here was the finest quality. But this room had not been designed as a showpiece. She sensed that love had gone into the creation of this nursery, and as she looked down at Sophie, who was asleep in her arms, an unexpected feeling of peace swept over her.

‘It’s a beautiful room,’ she said softly. Something about the nursery puzzled her. Maybe it was simply her imagination, but she felt a presence that she could not explain. She glanced at the butler. ‘It feels as though a child used to sleep here not that long ago.’

‘It was Signor Piras’s son’s room.’

Beth could not hide her shock. His son! ‘So, is Mr Piras married? Do his wife and son live at the castle?’

‘Not any longer.’ Teodoro gave her a brief nod. ‘If there is nothing else, signorina, then I will leave you. The door over there leads to an adjoining bedroom, which has been prepared for you. I will have your bags sent up as soon as they arrive.’

Evidently the subject of Cesario’s wife and child was not something the butler was prepared to discuss, but Beth had dozens of questions she longed to ask and felt a surge of frustration as Teodoro departed from the nursery. She wished she had been able to discover more about Cesario before she’d left England. He was the head of one of Italy’s largest banks and she had expected to find a detailed profile about him on the internet. But all she’d unearthed was one paragraph explaining his family history and the fact that the Piras and Cossu banks had merged a few years ago. Cesario’s personal life had not been mentioned, and it was a shock to now discover that he was married. Where were his wife and son? she wondered. Why didn’t they live at the castle with him?

Her arms were aching from holding Sophie. Aware that the baby would wake again soon and need a bath and feed, she tried to dismiss the enigmatic master of the Castello del Falco to the back of her mind as she laid Sophie in the cot and went to inspect the room where she was to sleep.

Her room was smaller than the nursery, but no less charming, with pale walls and soft green curtains and bedspread. She would love a cup of tea, Beth thought wearily. And something to eat would be good; the hollow feeling in her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten anything since the piece of toast she’d had before she’d left her flat in East London that morning.

She wondered if she dared pull the bell rope to summon the maid, but she felt like a fraud. She had worked as a nanny for several rich families, and although she had shared a certain amount of intimacy with her employers’ lives she had never forgotten that she was a member of the household staff—and she’d certainly never had a maid wait on her before.

Maybe a shower would take her mind off her hunger pangs? And there was still that half-eaten cheese sandwich she had bought on the plane in her handbag, she remembered. She would make do with that.

The heartrending cries of a baby drifted along the corridor. Pausing at the top of the stairs, Cesario felt his mind fly back to the first months after Nicolo had been born, when he and Raffaella had taken it in turns to pace the nursery, trying to soothe their restless son.

He had once read that becoming parents for the first time often put a strain on a marriage. But the birth of their son had resulted in an unexpected closeness between him and Raffaella, he brooded. Their devotion to Nicolo had created a bond between them. But their harmonious relationship had been short-lived, and by the time of Nicolo’s second birthday Raffaella had started an affair with an artist who had been employed to carry out restoration work on the Castello del Falco’s antique paintings.

‘You cannot blame me for falling in love with another man,’ she had told Cesario when he had confronted her. ‘Our marriage was a business arrangement and there has never been any love between us. I’m not sure you are even capable of loving someone. Your heart is made of the same impenetrable stone as the walls of this castle.’

‘I love my son,’ Cesario had replied fiercely. ‘Go to your lover if that’s what you want, but you will not take Nicolo. I will never give him up.’

Unable to bear the thought of being separated from Nicolo, of the little boy growing up with a stepfather, he had immediately applied to the courts for custody of his son. He had agreed that Raffaella should have access visits. Remembering how devastated he had been when his own mother had left, it had never been his desire to prevent Nicolo from seeing his mother.

But he had underestimated the power of love, Cesario thought bitterly. Raffaella had been torn between her lover and her son. Her plan to snatch Nicolo from the castle would have been successful but for the fact that Cesario had returned home from a business trip a day earlier than expected. The ensuing row had been acrimonious—a furious exchange between two people who had never loved each other but who both loved their child.

If only he had not lost his temper. If only he had tried to reach an amicable agreement with Raffaella instead of angrily threatening to stop her visiting Nicolo. Regret burned like poison in Cesario’s gut.

In an attempt to calm the situation between them he had left her alone to say goodbye to Nicolo, but while he had been in his study she had bundled the little boy into her car and driven away.

The screech of tyres on the twisting, wet mountain road still haunted his dreams. The terrifying silence that had followed still tortured his soul. He had run. Dio, he had run as he had never run before—like a man fleeing from the devil. But he had been too late.

Cesario dragged his mind back to the present, his nostrils flaring as he drew a harsh breath and sought to bring his emotions under control. The cries were growing louder. Tonight another child was in the nursery—a child who, astoundingly, might be his.

His jaw tightened and he strode along the corridor, intent on finding out why Sophie’s guardian was apparently not taking care of her.

‘Come on, sweetheart, let’s see if holding you over my shoulder helps,’ Beth murmured as she lifted Sophie up from the change mat. The baby had been crying for nearly an hour, and although she was regularly unsettled at this time of night Beth felt a rising sense of despair. After four months of disturbed nights she was utterly exhausted. But there was no chance she could go to bed until she had managed to settle Sophie.

Patting the baby gently on the back, she wandered over to the window and looked down at the courtyard below. It was dark now, but a little while ago car headlights had blazed as the party guests had departed from the castle.

Watching them, Beth had been tempted to slip downstairs with Sophie and plead for someone to take them to Oliena. The discovery that Cesario had a wife and son had complicated an already difficult situation. Part of her felt it would be better for everyone if she disappeared from the castle and had no further contact with Cesario Piras. She would manage to bring Sophie up on her own, she assured herself. Money would be tight, but she’d get by somehow.

But would that be fair on Sophie? her conscience demanded. What right did she have to prevent the truth about the baby’s parentage from being known? And if Cesario was her father surely it would be better for Sophie if he played a role in her life as he had stated he would want to do.

So all the guests had driven away, and now the courtyard was deserted except for the hideous stone gargoyles whose evil faces were illuminated by the moonlight. Once again the thought that she was trapped in Cesario’s forbidding fortress sent a shiver through Beth. She had no reason to fear him, she reminded herself. But the image of his scarred face seemed to have been burned onto her retinas, and the memory of his hard grey eyes had a strangely unsettling effect on her.

Sophie had quietened for a few minutes when she had been picked up, but now she started to cry again and would not be pacified. Singing to her sometimes helped, and Beth was on the second verse of ‘Golden Slumbers’ when a deep, gravelly voice from the doorway made her spin round.

‘What’s wrong with her?’

For some reason Cesario seemed even taller and more commanding here in the nursery than he had downstairs in the library. Beth’s eyes flew to his face and she caught her breath, her heart suddenly racing.

His sharp gaze noted her reaction and he gave a grim smile. ‘It’s not pretty, is it?’ he said, touching his scar. ‘I apologise if you find my appearance disturbing.’

‘I don’t—of course I don’t.’ Colour flared on her cheeks. She was mortified that he thought she had been staring at him. The truth was she did find him disturbing, she acknowledged ruefully, but not in the way he meant. She could not seem to prevent her eyes from focusing on his mouth, and once again she imagined him slanting his lips over hers and kissing her with the kind of searing passion she had read about in books but never experienced personally.

‘Nothing is wrong with Sophie, exactly,’ she explained hurriedly. ‘She’s always unsettled at this time of night. The health visitor said that lots of babies suffer from colic in the first few months, and that she’ll grow out of it. But I hate seeing her like this,’ she admitted as she cradled the inconsolable baby in her arms. ‘I wish I could help her. I’ve tried walking up and down and rocking her but nothing’s working tonight.’

There was no hint of impatience in Beth’s voice even though she was clearly dead on her feet from tiredness, Cesario noted. She looked even paler than when she had first arrived at the castle, and the purple shadows beneath her eyes added to her air of fragility.

She had changed out of her shabby clothes into an equally shabby dressing gown, which had probably once been pale pink but through age and washing was now an unbecoming shade of sludge. The belt tied tightly around her waist emphasised her extreme slenderness. She looked as though she would snap in half in a strong wind, Cesario thought impatiently. She was not the type of woman he was usually attracted to, yet something about her kept drawing his gaze back to her face.

Her skin was bare of make-up and as smooth as porcelain, and her almond-shaped green eyes were captivating. There was an intriguing air of innocence about her, he mused, and although when he had first seen her he had dismissed her as ordinary-looking he saw now that she possessed an unassuming beauty that he found beguiling.

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