Susan Stephens - The Italian's Baby of Passion

‘Days like this make me wonder why.’

‘No, you don’t, you love every minute of it. I don’t know why, but you do.’

Scarlet conceded his point with a grin. ‘I suppose asking him to come back another day is out of the question?’ David looked at her over his metal-rimmed half moon spectacles as though she’d lost her mind.

‘Come back another day?’

Scarlet shrugged. ‘I thought I’d ask.’ She caught sight of her reflection in the full-length window. ‘God,’ she cried, wincing, ‘I can’t see him looking like a bag lady.’

‘I’ve seen you looking better, but he’s not here to ask you for a date, Scarlet, so I really don’t see the problem here.’

‘I’m representing the university,’ she said weakly.

‘If you’d been a member of the academic staff I could see your point,’ David responded, treating her suggestion seriously.

‘How lucky that I’m only a nursery nurse,’ she said deadpan.

‘Exactly, and look on the bright side, he’s not going to think you made any special efforts for him which should suit your egalitarian principles down to the ground.’

‘Very funny,’ Scarlet muttered.

‘Now, the sooner you go get your shoulder patted, the sooner you get back to help the troops out.’

With a shrug she admitted defeat.

‘Mr O’Hagan is in my office.’ David turned in the opposite direction.

‘Aren’t you coming too?’ Scarlet protested with a frown.

‘I have an important meeting. Has it occurred to you you might actually like the man?’

‘No.’

‘Then pretend.’ It was not a request.

‘Mr O’Hagan, can I have your autograph,’ she mocked, assuming an expression of brainless adoration.

‘See, you can do it when you try,’ David approved, banging her on the shoulder. ‘Now off you go and remember he’s a very important friend to this university, Scarlet.’

Scarlet nodded meekly. ‘I’ll be very nice to him.’

It didn’t seem a too extravagant promise to make, considering it shouldn’t take Roman O’Hagan long to go through the motions of thanking her—at least she hoped not!

ROMAN glanced at his watch, his eyes slightly narrowed. If he could get the Scarlet Smith thing sorted before lunch he could fly back out to Dublin and join Alice, who was already there.

That was the best scenario, but if things did run over he didn’t begrudge the time, not if the end result made his mother happy. Not as happy as being a grandmother would, but his sense of filial duty had limits.

It did not cross his mind for one second that his mother was correct. There was no possibility he had fathered a child. He had been many things in his life, but careless was not one of them.

Not a man given to moody introspection he turned his mind to the pivotal meeting in Dublin later that evening.

Scarlet tapped on the door half hoping that nobody would reply to her timid knock. Nobody did, but the door, already half ajar, swung open. The man revealed standing there, running a long brown finger down the spine of a leather-bound book, seemed oblivious to her presence.

She cleared her throat and his head turned. Dark lashes lifted to reveal eyes that were one shade short of pitch-black and flecked with tiny golden lights. Scarlet’s eyes slid away from the most piercing regard she had ever encountered.

She gulped as her heart made a concerted effort to escape the confines of her chest.

In profile he was perfect; an overused term but more than justified on this occasion. Face on, only a purist would have claimed the fine scar that ran from one razor-sharp cheekbone to just below his eye marred the effect.

Scarlet wasn’t that purist!

Roman’s immediate thought as he stared at the diminutive brown-haired figure hovering uncertainly in the doorway was, there must be some mistake. Realistically, he hadn’t actually been expecting some blonde goddess with endless legs, but this ?

The indentation between his eyebrows deepened, the woman he had spoken to on the phone had come across as gutsy and unafraid to speak her mind, not to mention bloody-minded, but this woman looked scared of her own shadow! She couldn’t even meet his eyes!

He experienced an unexpected pang of disappointment.

‘Mr O’Hagan…?’ Scarlet repeated when he didn’t respond.

Great, I’ve struck him dumb, but not with my ravishing beauty!

‘Mr O’Hagan, I understand you wanted to speak to me?’

The voice emerging from the slight frame was right, unexpectedly deep and husky with a sexy little rasp, but everything else was wrong, including the scared way she was not quite looking him in the eye and the tongue-tied routine.

Nice voice, shame about everything else.

‘Miss Smith?’

Scarlet nodded, and resisted the aggravating impulse to apologise for her appearance.

‘Why don’t you come in and sit down?’

‘I’m fine here.’

He looked at her impatiently. ‘I don’t bite.’

She flushed at the satirical note in his voice and realised she must look an idiot standing there as if she was ready to run. Straightening her shoulders, Scarlet overcame the strange reluctance she was experiencing to close the door.

She’d been in the room before and it wasn’t exactly cramped—her own office would have fitted in it ten times over—but she was experiencing an almost claustrophobic sensation that involved a tightening in the pit of her stomach and an overwhelming desire to turn and run.

The man was here to say thank you, not interrogate her, or even sue her, unless his mother had suffered a relapse? He didn’t give a damn what she looked like, so why the sudden panic attack? She didn’t subscribe to the populist celebrity culture and was not overawed or impressed just because someone had fame and money. She was neither shy nor lacking in confidence so her irrational nervousness on this occasion annoyed her.

‘So, we meet at last.’

Head down, she nodded.

His mother had thought he had slept with this woman?

He repressed a fastidious wince as he checked out the fashion black spot she represented.

He knew women who could look good in the proverbial sack, but this woman wasn’t one of that number. That tunic checked shirt thing almost reached her knees, but at least it covered most of the appalling, baggy track-suit joggers she had teamed it with. There was nothing intrinsically dreadful about the sensible flat leather shoes that completed the ensemble, but they didn’t do anything to disguise the fact she was small and shapeless.

Who knew what lurked under the androgynous outfit? He, for one, felt no compelling urge to find out. Though he would have liked to bin the outrageously unattractive glasses she wore, which concealed most of her features, simply on the grounds that they were criminally ugly.

Scarlet stood there miserably while his veiled gaze moved over her. He was suitably enigmatic, but not enigmatic enough to prevent Scarlet getting the impression she hadn’t lived up to the billing his mother had given her.

She gave a mental shrug…ah, well, she could live with that!

Standing next to him, even if she had been looking her best, she would have felt plain and unkempt. Six feet four inches, give or take an inch, of spectacular male perfection. He more than lived up to his billing. Unbelievably he was even better looking in the flesh than in print!

She responded on two levels to this discovery. On the one hand she was disappointed at being robbed of the opportunity to confide derisively to her friends, It’s all airbrushing, you know, he’s not nearly as attractive as he looks in the magazines!

On the other level she responded as any woman would being faced with the most sinfully sexy man she had ever seen—or even imagined seeing!