Sharon Kendrick - Hot-Blooded Italians

CHAPTER SIX

FOR a moment Vincenzo thought that he must have misheard her, though something in the strangled quality of Emma’s tone alerted his senses to something far more complicated than a mere misunderstanding. Narrowing his eyes into disbelieving shards, he stared at her. ‘ What did you say?’ he questioned menacingly.

Emma swallowed. ‘You’ve…you’ve got a son, Vincenzo. Or, rather, we’ve got a son. His name is—’

‘Shut up—just shut up!’ he bit out in disgust, his words silencing her and his hands clenching into fists by the powerful shafts of his thighs, caught up in the grip of a rage fiercer than anything he could remember. For a moment he wanted to storm across the room and shake her, but he didn’t trust himself. His mouth twisted into a cruel curve of contempt. ‘You can have your damned divorce, Emma—after all, you’ve just earned it. The sex was laughably brief, but as a cathartic measure it was probably worth it—just please don’t spin me any more of your damned lies.’

Emma shook her head, blocking out his insults and trying to focus solely on the truth. ‘But it isn’t a lie—I swear, it isn’t.’

‘You swear it?’ His eyes were blazing black fire. ‘How do you dare claim such a thing to me in view of our history?’ he demanded, his mind spinning as he tried to pluck facts from her unbelievable statement. And one fact leapt out from all the others. He frowned. ‘You say you have a child?’

‘Yes.’

‘But that is not possible.’ He took an unwise step closer, his voice tight with gritted fury. ‘You are infertile, Emma. You can’t have children. The doctor told you so in one of your private consultations. He sent you a letter stating just that, which I still have in my possession. Surely you haven’t forgotten that?’

‘Of course I haven’t forgotten—’

‘Then how in hell’s name can you have a baby, and how can I possibly be the father?’ he roared.

Emma swallowed. ‘Can we please talk about this calmly?’

‘ Calmly ? ’ Vincenzo’s voice was like black ice. ‘Are you out of your mind? You drop a lie—’

‘It’s not a lie!’ she repeated desperately. ‘Why the hell would I lie to you about something like that?’

‘I can think of a pretty good reason,’ he retorted sourly. ‘Missing my wealth and deciding you want a sizeable chunk of it might be enough to make you go ahead with some kind of scam—’

‘ Scam ? ’ she echoed in horror. ‘You think I’m some kind of…some kind of…cheap con-merchant ?’

He shrugged, his heart pounding furiously in his chest. ‘You’ve already proved that, Emma. You fooled me into believing that we were still trying for a baby, when all the time you knew that it was impossible. If that isn’t conning someone, then I’d be interested to hear your definition of the word, cara .’

Never had a term of supposed affection carried with it such a wealth of withering scorn, and Emma almost recoiled from the look of disdain which sparked from his black eyes. Her tongue snaked around lips which suddenly felt like crumpled parchment. ‘I never meant to deceive you,’ she whispered.

‘No?’

‘I was frightened to let you know what the results were,’ she said.

‘So you treated me like a fool!’ he accused. ‘You just thought you’d keep me in the dark about something as important as that?’

‘No. Of course not. It wasn’t meant to be like that. I was going to tell you—’

‘And what precisely were you going to tell me, Emma?’ he questioned in a suddenly silken voice.

Emma relaxed a little. ‘That I couldn’t…couldn’t have a baby.’

‘Yet now you are telling me that the doctor was wrong? That all those months of trying vainly to conceive were an illusion—and that you could conceive after all?’

‘Yes! My obstetrician said that these things do happen occasionally—’

‘Miraculous,’ he commented sarcastically. ‘And when did this marvel occur? How old is the child?’

A part of her wanted to tell him to forget it—that she wasn’t going to beg him to acknowledge his son, and that she had more than enough love to go round.

But Emma recognised that she must do this for Gino’s sake. Because what if one day he turned round and demanded to know where his father was? She must be able to look him in the eye and tell him truthfully that she had told Vincenzo everything—every single fact—even if she’d told them to him rather late in the day. How Vincenzo chose to interpret and then act on those facts was up to him, but her conscience would be clear.

‘He’s ten months old,’ she said—knowing that this was the big one and watching while Vincenzo’s eyes narrowed in silent calculation. He was clearly doing some kind of rapid mathematical assessment about whether or not it was possible for him to be the father. And, yes, it was insulting, but her feelings were not the issue here.

‘And when are you claiming that this conception took place?’

‘It must have been that…that last time we were together. Do you remember?’

Now he gave a grim kind of smile. ‘Do I remember? I am hardly likely to forget,’ he said bitterly. It had been the first time they’d been together for weeks. Their relationship had gradually been eroding, but in the light of the news that she could not bear his child and all the accompanying deceit they had become strangers to one another. The letter she had hidden had become the symbol of all that was wrong between them. He began to doubt whether anything about her had been genuine.

‘So were you really a virgin when I met you, Emma?’ he had demanded icily one day, over breakfast. ‘Or was that, too, a fabrication?’

He remembered the way that the light had gone out of her eyes and, yes, he had taken pleasure in that, too.

‘Oh, what is the point, Vincenzo?’ had been her dull response. ‘If you can think so poorly of me, then there is no point in going on, is there?’

He remembered the feeling of relief which had washed over him, telling himself that he would be glad to see the back of her lying little face. True, he would have to live with the mockery of his cousins, who had always cautioned him against the marriage—but he could deal with that.

Yet the reality of their separation had proved harsher than he had anticipated. He had missed her bright blonde hair and her sunny smile and the way that her delicate frame used to complement his own powerful body so perfectly. Until he reminded himself that those were external things which were easily replaceable and that, in truth, he didn’t really recognise the Emma he had married. His trust in her had been destroyed—and to a proud Sicilian man trust was everything.

He was aware of the bizarre situation in which he now found himself—aware of Emma standing wide-eyed on the opposite side of the luxury hotel suite, her cheeks still flushed from their lovemaking and her hair in disarray. So what was he going to do about her extraordinary revelation that he had fathered her child?

Giving himself time to sift through his options with a chilly detachment, which his business rivals would have recognised with sinking hearts, Vincenzo poured himself another glass of mineral water and drank from it. For once, he could have done with the slightly numbing effect of alcohol, but he needed his wits to be as razor sharp as they had ever been.

His black gaze bored into her like the twin barrels of a shotgun. ‘The question is—whether or not I believe you,’ he pondered. ‘Or whether you’re just spinning me a line to try to get your hands on as much of my money as possible.’