Cathy Williams - Claiming His Secret Love-Child

He responded by increasing his pace, his body driving into hers with tender force, the thick, hard length of him caressing her in all the right places. She only had to tilt her hips upwards to feel the first flicker of release, the second and third quickly following, until she lost count as she shuddered her way through another mind-blowing orgasm.

Her body was still pulsing with the aftershocks when she felt his whole body tensing above hers in that final second or two before he finally lost control. His face contorted with pleasure as he sucked in a harsh breath before releasing it in a rush as he spilled himself with explosive power.

In the silence that followed Scarlett felt her conscience begin to prod at her. She wasn’t a sleep-around sort of woman, she never had been. She had only had one lover apart from Alessandro and now, with the responsibilities of a small child, she could never treat any relationship with a man as just physical. And certainly not this man—the father of her son.

Alessandro propped himself up on his elbows to look down at her. ‘This feels so right,’ he said with a wistful look coming and going in his dark, intense gaze. ‘This part always felt so right between us.’

She compressed her lips, trying not to show how emotionally affected she was. ‘But I want much more than you are prepared to give…’

He got off the bed, reached for a bathrobe, and tied it around his waist. ‘I have told you the rules,’ he said with a curt edge to his voice. ‘This is all I can offer you, Scarlett. Believe me—you should be content with that.’

Scarlett reached for her wrinkled clothes and struggled back into them, hoping she wouldn’t betray herself by crying uncontrollably. ‘I need to go home. It’s getting late.’

He came from behind and held her against his solid, hard male warmth. Her breath whooshed out of her lungs as she felt his growing arousal behind her, the thin barrier of her clothes not enough to stop her from responding with a soft whimper of pleasure as his mouth began to nuzzle against her neck, and his hands cupped her already tingling, peaking breasts.

‘You do not really want to go home right at this very minute, do you, Scarlett?’

‘No…’she whispered huskily as he turned her to face him, his mouth coming down to hers. ‘God help me but, no, I don’t…’

ROXANNE WAS out on a call at a client’s house when Alessandro arrived at the studio the next morning. Scarlett heard his car first, and a ticklish feeling ran up her spine as she swivelled on her office chair to look out the window.

She watched as he unfolded himself from the vehicle. His hair looked like black satin in the morning sunshine, his lean face cleanly shaven, his dark pin-striped trousers emphasising the length of his legs and trimness of his waist, and his light-blue business shirt highlighting the olive tone of his skin.

Her stomach flipped and then flopped as he stepped onto the pavement, his eyes meeting hers through the window. She pushed herself away from the desk and stood up as he came in the door, her hands going to her thighs to smooth down her skirt.

He moved across the small space of the studio and, cupping her cheeks with both hands, kissed her thoroughly. Scarlett breathed in the heady fragrance of musky male, sharp citrus and tortuous temptation. All her carefully rehearsed reasons for not agreeing to a resumption of their relationship were suddenly deleted from her brain as his tongue flicked erotically against hers.

Still cupping her face in his hands, he lifted his mouth off hers and smiled down at her. ‘I knew you would be here waiting for me,’ he said.

She screwed up her mouth at him. ‘It is my studio after all,’ she pointed out. ‘Where else would I be?’

He tucked a strand of silver-blonde hair behind her ear, the brush of his fingers against her face making her tremble deep inside. ‘You are still fighting it, yes?’

She lowered her gaze. ‘I don’t want to get hurt…’

He brought her chin up. ‘I am only involved with you, Scarlett. You have my word.’

Scarlett wondered if she was being fobbed off. How could she tell? He was a notorious playboy; women flocked to him wherever he went. He had said it himself: he wasn’t the settling-down type.

‘If you do not believe me, read this morning’s paper,’ he added.

Scarlett’s gaze went to the folded newspaper lying on Roxanne’s desk. They usually had a quick flick through it during their coffee and lunch breaks, but with Roxanne still out at a client’s house, and with the number of calls Scarlett had had to make in her partner’s absence, there hadn’t been time to even put on the kettle.

‘There is a short article about us on page three,’ he informed her.

‘About us?’ she asked, her eyes going wide. ‘What do you mean “about us”?’

He walked over to Roxanne’s desk, picked up the paper and opened it to the page where a small paragraph was headed: Billionaire Hotelier involved with Local Interior Designer.

Scarlett read the accompanying paragraph with her heart kicking like a wild brumby in her chest. It was only a few words about her and the studio, and thankfully no photograph accompanied it. It simply stated she was the new love interest of Alessandro Marciano.

She closed the paper and handed it back to him. ‘Well, that just goes to show you can’t believe everything you read in the press,’ she said with an embittered look. ‘I am not your love interest, am I, Alessandro? I am just someone to sleep with, someone to slake your lust with. You just want a fill-in affair while you are here—let’s not go calling it anything else.’

His hazel eyes caught and held hers. ‘Love is a favourite word of yours, is it not?’

‘It’s not just a word,’ she said. ‘It’s a feeling, and in some ways almost a way of life. You’ve always shunned it, but you don’t know what living is all about until you allow yourself to love someone more than life itself.’

She swallowed as he stepped towards her again, his hand tilting her face so she couldn’t avoid his penetrating gaze.

‘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.