Claiming His Secret Love-Child

‘Love is a very cruel mistress,’ he said with a rueful twist to his mouth. ‘She takes hold of you, and then dumps you when you least expect it.’ He released her chin to brush the curve of her cheek with the pad of his thumb, the touch so light she wondered if she had imagined it. ‘I learned not to love a number of years ago, long before I met you,’ he continued. ‘I decided it was not worth the suffering once that person is no longer with you.’

‘That seems a very selfish way of viewing things. What if the person you loved didn’t leave?’

He dropped his hand from her face and moved back from her. ‘Sometimes there is no way to control such things, Scarlett.’

‘Alessandro…’ She took a step towards him, but his eyes had already shifted from hers and before she could stop him he moved past her to look at the screen-saver that had come up on her computer. She watched with baited breath as he looked at the montage of images of Matthew she had constructed, his body becoming as still as a lifeless statue as his eyes roved each and every photo.

Every milestone was there—the first ultrasound picture, the first few minutes after birth, Matthew’s first tooth, his first birthday, his first wobbly steps, even his recent third birthday with the racing-car cake she had made for him.

The silence stretched to the point of pain.

Alessandro was not aware of his hands gripping the edge of the desk until he finally registered his fingers were numb. His heart was beating, but too fast and too hard. His stomach contents were liquefying, his vision was blurring. He couldn’t swallow, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t even think.

‘His name is Matthew.’ Scarlett’s soft voice carved through his swirling thoughts. ‘He turned three a couple of months ago.’

Alessandro counted back the months and gripped the desk even tighter. It couldn’t be true. It was a lie. He had seen the test results. He was infertile, as planned.

But the child looked like him.

God, he even looks like Marco, Alessandro thought with a gut-wrenching pang of grief that he’d deluded himself into thinking he had locked down long ago.

Somehow he found the wherewithal to turn away from the computer screen and face Scarlett. His heart was still doing leap-frogs in his chest but, seeing her there, standing so still and silently before him, was like a stake being driven right through his body.

‘He’s yours, Alessandro, even if you don’t want to ever acknowledge it,’ she said, holding his gaze determinedly.

He scraped a hand through his hair and drew in a breath that scalded his throat. ‘I need proof. I am sorry if it offends you, but I need to have proof. It is…’ He swallowed deeply. ‘It is important.’

She gave him one of her scathing looks as she folded her arms across her body. ‘I believe you can buy a DNA kit off the internet. I am quite willing to allow you to use it.’

She wasn’t supposed to say that, Alessandro thought with another wave of dread. Not if she had lied to him. The way she had suggested a test the other day and then instantly backed down had made him think she was still lying. But there was no way she would give him the go-ahead for a test that would prove without a doubt who was the child’s father. Besides, she’d had three years to try and force a paternity test on him and yet she hadn’t done so. The legal system was full of such cases these days—men who had been paying out large sums of money for children had begun to fight back, insisting on proof the children they were supporting were actually biologically theirs.

‘I don’t know what to say…’ He hated admitting it, but it was true. He was lost for words. He had never been in a situation like this before. He had always prided himself on being in control, which was why he had insisted on having a vasectomy in the first place. He didn’t want a repeat of what had happened to Marco. He couldn’t bear to put a child of his through it, not knowing what he knew about himself and his family.

‘“Sorry for not believing you” would be a very good start,’ she said with crispness in her tone.

He swallowed again to clear his throat. ‘I will have to save that for when I know for sure.’

She rolled her eyes in disdain. ‘You can’t do it, can you? You can’t even for a moment harbour the possibility that you got it wrong.’

His jaw felt so tight he thought his teeth were going to crack. ‘Do you have any idea of what this is like for me? Do you?’ he asked.

She glared at him with chips of grey-blue fire in her gaze. ‘You’re not going to get the sympathy vote from me, Alessandro. I was the one who carried your child for nine miserable months, and delivered him after an eighteen-hour labour without his father there to support me.

‘Don’t talk to me about how this is for you. You don’t even know half of what it’s been like for me. I have struggled to provide for my child. I’ve had to put him in crèche when I would much rather be at home with him, but what other choice did I have? I can’t even afford to send him to the school of my choice when the time comes, because his arrogant, always-right untrusting bastard of a father wouldn’t accept that he might have somehow got it wrong.’

Alessandro felt as if an avalanche had hit him. The first glimmer of tears in her eyes was like the blunt end of a telegraph pole hitting him in the mid-section. He moved towards her, but she swung away and snapped up a tissue from a pretty little box with primroses on it. Funny, the little inconsequential things you noticed when everything else was spinning out of control, he thought as he watched her wipe at her eyes and discreetly blow her nose.

‘I’ll arrange to see a doctor tomorrow,’ he said. ‘It might take a day or two to get the sperm-test results back from Pathology.’

Scarlett turned and looked at him with a puzzled frown. ‘Sperm tests?’

His eyes were full of pain as they met hers. ‘I had a vasectomy performed when I was twenty-eight years old. I was declared infertile three months later.’

Scarlett stared at him in a stunned silence. No wonder he had denied fathering a child so vehemently. What man wouldn’t have reacted in exactly the same way? He had believed himself to be incapable of fathering a child; he had taken the necessary steps to ensure it would never happen. Looking at it from his angle, he had every right to be suspicious—although a part of her still felt he should have trusted her regardless.

‘Scarlett…’ he said, dragging a hand through his hair, his expression still tortured with anguish. ‘I never thought something like this could happen. It never once occurred to me that it could. The chances of it must be a million to one at least.’

Her slim shoulders began to shake, and he moved across the room. His hands came down on her shoulders and turned her to face him. Emotion clogged his throat at the grey-blue of her tear-washed eyes. He realised then that, if he had ever had a choice in the matter, she would have been the mother of his children. She would make the perfect mother. She was gentle and nurturing, and yet strong and determined—so like his own mother used to be until life dealt her such a cruel hand. His mother was not the same mother he had adored, even though Marco had been buried long ago.

He hardly realised he was doing it as he lifted Scarlett’s chin with the point of his finger. ‘If you do not want to continue with the project I will cancel the contract. You will not incur any expense as a result.’

She bit her lip so hard he was sure bright-red blood was going to spring from it. He brushed his thumb against her teeth and her lips trembled in response.

‘It’s all right,’ she said on an expelled breath. ‘I will do it. But I want you to know I’m not doing it for you or for me, but for Roxanne.’

He lifted one brow quizzically.

‘She’s worked so hard for what we’ve built up,’ Scarlett explained. ‘We both have, but I’ve been a bit hamstrung with my commitments to Matthew. She’s been so good, and I don’t want to let her down.’

Alessandro placed his hands on the top of her shoulders and gently squeezed. ‘We will sort it out, Scarlett, do not worry.’

She lowered her gaze. ‘He’s so like you…’ she whispered.

He closed his eyes against the sudden and unexpected sting of tears; his chest felt like a clamp had been placed on his heart and lungs.

‘I wanted to send you photos,’ she went on, her voice still barely audible. ‘So many times I wanted to prove to you how like you he is. He even does that little thing you do when you sleep.’

‘What thing?’ His voice sounded like a croak, but at least he had been able to get it to work.

‘He sprawls all over the bed,’ she said. ‘With his arms and legs everywhere. It’s so cute.’

Alessandro stood in silence as he breathed in the scent of her silver-blonde hair; it had always reminded him of the fragrance of sun-warmed jasmine.

Something inside his chest began to loosen, like a too-tight knot that had resisted all attempts to be untied for years.

What if the thing he suspected had indeed happened? Would she agree to resume their relationship on a more permanent basis for the child’s sake, or would she always resent him for not believing her in the first place?

He had shut off his feelings for her four years ago, but he knew it wouldn’t take much to switch them back on again. Hadn’t last night proved how close to the wind he was sailing? He could feel the tug of desire even now as she stood silently in his embrace. His body was stirring against her; she surely could feel it, although so far she hadn’t made a move to step backwards from him.

His mind started to run with the possibilities—but then he was brought back to earth with a jarring thud as he remembered there was the other issue of the child’s health. He was only three now, but Marco had shown signs not much earlier than that…

She eased herself out of his hold and, without looking at him, tucked a strand of hair behind her left ear. ‘I’m sorry…this must be so hard for you,’ she said. ‘I mean, learning about the existence of a child you never wanted.’

It was on the tip of his tongue to say how much he would have loved children of his own, perfectly healthy, robust children—a boy, a girl, what did it matter? He had never understood parents who claimed to have a preference for one or the other sex. As long as it was healthy was all that mattered, but that was one thing he could not guarantee.

It had been taken out of his hands on the day he’d been born.

‘Yes,’ he said, feeling his chest go down in a sigh. ‘It is hard, but we will know for sure in a day or so.’

It was totally the wrong thing to say; he knew it as soon as he said it. She stiffened like someone who had been sprayed with quick-setting glue, her mouth went tight, her eyes turned to blue chips of ice, and her bitterness cut through the air like a sharpened blade.

‘How typical,’ she said, ‘how absolutely typical.’

‘What I meant to say was—’

She stalked across to the door and held it open, the tiny bell tinkling in startled protest. ‘What you meant to say was you still don’t believe me,’ she bit out. ‘There’s still a small part of you that won’t accept Matthew as your son. Now please leave, before I change my mind about the DNA test or the contract.’

It was not in Alessandro’s nature to back down. He had fought long and hard for many things in his life, and certainly being dismissed by a tiny silver-blonde virago was not something he was used to accepting. But the set to her mouth told him it was probably a good time to leave.

He brought two of his fingers up to his mouth and pressed his lips against them in a mimic of a kiss, before placing them on the stiff but somehow still-soft bow of her mouth. ‘I will be back in a couple of days with the results,’ he said.

‘I can tell you the results right now,’ she replied, swiping at her mouth as if he had tainted her with his touch.

He held her embittered gaze with determination. ‘I have to be sure, Scarlett. I know it’s hard for you, but you have to understand my position on this. You have no doubt at all he is your child. You physically gave birth to him, you needed no other evidence—but I am afraid that I do.’

She spun away with a frustrated sound that was somewhere between a scornful snort and a sigh. ‘Please leave,’ she said. ‘There’s no point in continuing this conversation until you have what you want.’

But I can never have what I want, Alessandro thought as he drove away a short time later, his eyes fixed on the road ahead in case he was tempted to look back.

I can never have what I want.

CHAPTER NINE

‘ARE YOU sure?’ Alessandro asked Dr Underwood two days later. ‘There is absolutely no doubt?’

Dr Underwood shook his head. ‘No doubt at all, Mr Marciano. Your sperm count is positive. I don’t know who did your vasectomy, but from the test results we’ve received it clearly wasn’t entirely successful. That doesn’t mean the surgeon was incompetent, by any means, it’s just that—as I am sure he or she would have explained at the time—there is about a one percent failure-rate for the procedure. That’s why we insist on the three negative sperm-counts after three months post-surgery.’

Alessandro frowned. ‘But I had three counts done in Italy and they were all negative. What are the chances of a rejoin after three negative readings?’

Dr Underwood scratched at his closely cropped greying beard for a moment. ‘It’s less likely,’ he said. ‘At least half the failures occur in the first three months after the operation, but the rest can occur up to five years later.’

Alessandro stared at him, his heart chugging, his skin breaking out in a sweat in spite of the air-conditioned comfort of the consulting room.

He was a father.

Something he had never intended to happen had happened.

He was the father of a three-year-old boy.

Oh, dear God, what had he done?

Dr Underwood leaned forward on his desk. ‘You can always have the procedure redone. I can organise a referral to a surgeon for you.’

‘Yes,’ Alessandro said without hesitation. ‘Yes, I would like you to do that. I want it done as soon as possible.’

The doctor’s brows moved closer together. ‘You were quite young when you had it originally performed. You are what age now…?’He looked down at his notes. ‘Only just thirty-three. You seem very determined about this. Do you want to discuss it with a professional, such as a counsellor or psychologist, first?’

‘No, I made up my mind a long time ago that I do not want to have children.’

The doctor scribbled on his notepad and, tearing the page off, placed it in an envelope and handed it to Alessandro. ‘Let’s hope this time it works,’ he said with a crooked smile.

‘Yes,’ Alessandro said, rising to his feet. ‘Thank you for your time.’

Dr Underwood pushed back his chair and got to his feet as well. ‘If you change your mind at any time about seeing a counsellor, just let me know. You know…’ He gave a somewhat philosophical smile this time. ‘Sometimes these things are just meant to happen.’

Alessandro didn’t respond. He couldn’t. His voice was trapped somewhere deep in the middle of his chest, where he could feel a sensation like a hand squeezing his heart with cruelly tight fingers.

‘You’ve been staring at that phone for the last two hours,’ Roxanne said. ‘He will ring or contact you when he feels ready to do so.’

Scarlett chomped on her bottom lip for the hundredth time that afternoon. ‘I’m so confused,’ she confessed. ‘I’ve been so angry towards him for all this time, but then when I stop and think about what he’s going through I feel terrible. If only he had told me at the time. I would have insisted on a test. I feel partially to blame now for all he’s missed out on. I shouldn’t have let it go. I shouldn’t have let my experiences with my father interfere with Alessandro’s rights as a father.’

Roxanne came over and perched on her desk, as was her custom. ‘Why did he have the cut done in the first place?’ she asked. ‘Does he generally hate kids, or is there some other reason?’

Scarlett leaned back in her chair and blew out a breath. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I feel a bit ashamed to admit it, but we never really got around to talking about those sorts of issues. Besides, I always knew I was more in love with him than he was with me. He never said the three magic words. I think he was more interested in a short-term affair. He never once mentioned the future—it was as if he didn’t expect to have one, certainly not with me.’

‘He’s absolutely gorgeous looking,’ Roxanne said, and, glancing at the screen saver on Scarlett’s computer, added, ‘Matthew’s the spitting image of him.’

Scarlett put her head in her hands and let out another sigh. ‘What am I going to tell Matthew?’ she asked. ‘He thinks his father is dead.’

‘I think the truth always works best with kids,’ Roxanne said. ‘I hated finding out I was adopted at the age of ten. I should have been told when I was much younger. I know Matthew’s only three, but he’s one smart kid. He understands far more than you give him credit for.’

Scarlett dragged her head up to meet her friend’s gaze. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I need to tell him, at least to prepare him in some way, for once Alessandro finds out the truth I’m sure he will want to take control.’

‘What sort of control are you talking about?’ Roxanne asked with a little frown of concern.

Scarlett’s bottom lip suffered another indentation with her teeth. ‘I’m not sure…but knowing him as I do I think he will want to have things his way. He’s been so confident for so long that Matthew’s not his child. It will be a blow to his ego to find out he is wrong.’

‘Do you think this is just about ego?’ Roxanne asked with another frown. ‘Most men are proud of the fact they can cut the mustard, or whatever the saying is.’

Scarlett couldn’t help smiling, but it faded as she answered, ‘I don’t really know. I’ve met plenty of men who were adamant they didn’t want children. I’ve met women just as strident about avoiding motherhood. As I said earlier, Alessandro and I never really got around to discussing the marriage-and-babies thing. I wanted to, many times, but you know how it is with a new relationship—you tread so carefully in case you scare them off.’

‘But weren’t you on the Pill?’ Roxanne asked.

Scarlett shifted her gaze from the probe of her friend’s. ‘Yes and no.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It basically means no.’

Roxanne rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah, that’s what I figured.’

‘I was young and naïve,’ Scarlett said in her own defence. ‘I didn’t for a moment expect to become involved in a full-on relationship while I was overseas.’

‘Yes, well, someone should have warned you about men like Alessandro,’ Roxanne said with a wry look.

Scarlett turned to look at the screen saver and sighed again. ‘He’s missed out on so much… Maybe I should have sent him some photos right from the start. I wanted to many times, but then I thought of the way he threw me out on the street that night and I changed my mind.’

Roxanne placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s not your fault, Scarlett. You did your best and he refused to listen. Maybe it had to happen this way.’

Scarlett gave another deep sigh. ‘How am I going to tell Matthew his father is alive?’

Roxanne gave her shoulder a little squeeze. ‘You’ll think of a way.’

‘How was crèche today, darling?’ Scarlett asked as she lifted Matthew into his evening bath.

Matthew’s bottom lip came forward slightly as he settled amongst the bubbles. ‘Robert taked my car off me, one of my favourite ones.’

‘Robert took your car off you,’ she corrected automatically. ‘That’s terrible, darling. Did Mrs Bennett or Miss Fielding get it back for you?’

He shook his head and his little shoulders went down. ‘No.’

‘I’ll have a word to them about it tomorrow,’ she promised. ‘Maybe Robert doesn’t have many toys and really enjoyed playing with yours.’

‘I don’t want to go there any more,’ he said, big tears forming in his hazel eyes as he looked up at her. ‘I want to come to work wif you.’

‘Darling, you know that’s impossible. We’ve talked about this before, lots of times.’

Another little sigh puffed out of his mouth. ‘I know…’

She took a break to prepare herself. ‘Matthew, remember I told you that you didn’t have a daddy, like your cousins Angie and Sam and Michaela have?’

He nodded solemnly.

‘Well…’ She moistened her mouth and picked up a handful of bubbles, watching as they lay suspended there in the palm of her hand. ‘Well, the thing is…’

The sound of the doorbell ringing stalled the rest of her sentence. She tossed the bubbles aside and quickly pulled the plug out of the bath and, scooping Matthew up in his towel, called out, ‘Just a second.’

‘Who is it, Mummy?’ Matthew asked as Scarlett did her best to dry him as she walked to the front door of her flat. ‘Are we having pizza again?’

‘No, darling,’ she said. ‘It’s not the pizza-delivery man. It’s…it’s…’

‘A surprise?’ he asked, with excitement building in his eyes. ‘What sort of surprise?’

‘Er…I’m not sure…it could be Mrs West. She might have run out of milk again.’

Scarlett opened the door, already knowing who it was, for she had felt it in every single cell of her body at the first sound of that bell.

Alessandro stood there, his eyes going immediately to the child wriggling in her arms. Such a rush of pain, panic and guilt passed through his body he felt as if he was not going to be able to keep upright. He tried to speak, but for some reason his throat refused to work. He swallowed half a dozen times but still nothing came out.

‘Who is it, Mummy?’ Matthew asked in a small-toddler sibilant whisper.

Scarlett looked at Alessandro with a direct and somewhat challenging look. ‘This is your father, Matthew.’

Matthew wrinkled his brow and looked at her again. ‘He’s not dead, like Mrs West’s cat Tinkles?’

‘No, darling, he’s not dead. He’s very much alive.’

A silence measured the erratic pace of Alessandro’s heartbeat before the little boy whispered up against his mother’s ear, ‘Can he speak?’

Scarlett smiled in spite of the tension of the moment, and when she looked at Alessandro his mouth, too, had tilted a fraction.

‘Hello, Matthew,’ Alessandro said, not knowing whether to offer his hand or bend down and kiss the child.

What did one do these days with small children?

He didn’t know.

Over the years he’d actively avoided children of any age, knowing how much worse it made him feel about the decision he’d been forced to make.

‘Hello…’ the child said with a shy but totally engaging smile. ‘Do you like cars?’

Alessandro felt a sharp pain begin in his abdomen and travel right through to his backbone, like a savage drill. ‘Yes…yes, I love cars. I have several.’

The boy’s eyes lit up, and Alessandro couldn’t help noticing they were exactly the same colour as his, fringed with thick, sooty lashes.

‘I’ve got twenteen,’ Matthew announced proudly.

‘Twenteen?’ Alessandro glanced at Scarlett with a quizzical look on his face.

‘Twenty, darling,’ she said, addressing the child. ‘Remember how it goes after ten? Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen—’

‘Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty!’ Matthew crowed.

‘That is indeed a lot of cars,’ Alessandro said, still struggling to hold himself together.

‘Umm…perhaps you should come inside,’ Scarlett said when she noticed a neighbour she didn’t particularly like hovering in the stairwell.

‘Thank you,’ Alessandro said, stepped inside and closed the door.

Scarlett brushed a strand of her hair back with her one free hand. ‘Umm…would you excuse us while I get Matthew into his pyjamas? He was in the bath when you rang the bell.’