Kate Walker - Secret Love-Child

‘Oh, dear heaven…’

What had she really been like in those dark, desperate days? And what had it been like for Ricardo, living with her, watching her crazy behaviour? He had already thought she wanted his money—these wild spending sprees could only have confirmed his darkest suspicions.

She slumped against the door, shaking her head in despair.

If she needed any proof of the fact that she had been right to go, to leave when she had done, then it was here before her, with no room for doubt. She had been out of her mind, totally incapable of managing her own life, let alone taking care of her precious baby son.

And did she have any right to stay here now? To come back into Marco’s life and turn it upside down when he was so obviously settled and happy with Ricardo? She knew what it was like to be at the centre of a parental custody battle, to be torn and unsettled, tugged this way and that between her father and her mother like a bone between two dogs when they had been going through a bitter divorce. She couldn’t do that to her little boy.

Still half-blinded by tears, she reached out and grabbed the first clothes that came to hand, pulling on underwear, a deep pink skirt and a pink and white top without even noticing what she was wearing. If she could get out of here before Ricardo came back…

She was at the door when it swung open in her face, forcing her to step back hastily.

‘So you’re ready—good…’

Ricardo’s dark eyes swept over her assessingly, and she knew the moment that something of the truth hit him from the way that his black brows snapped together in an angry frown and his whole expression changed from approval to forbidding in the space of a single heartbeat.

‘Leaving, cara ?’ he questioned sharply, the tone of his voice and the icy glare that accompanied it sending a shiver down her spine. ‘I think not.’

‘And why not?’ Lucy was determined not to let him see how much he was getting to her. ‘You can’t keep me here.’

‘I think you’ll find I can.’

‘So you’re still determined to keep me a prisoner?’

‘Not a prisoner, tesoro …’

Ricardo’s wickedly sensual mouth curled over the word in a way that took it to a point light-years from the term of affection it was supposed to be.

‘You’ll find no locked doors here, no bolts—no chains.’

To Lucy’s amazement he actually stood back, pushing the door wide open and leaving it that way so that she could get past him—and out—if she wanted to.

‘I just think you would find it very difficult to get off the island. But, if you want to try, then be my guest. You were always a strong swimmer, as I recall.’

Coming to an abrupt halt, Lucy had a nasty little fight with herself not to sink back against the wall in admission of defeat. She couldn’t quite believe it herself, but she had genuinely forgotten that the villa was set on its own little island. The distance between here and the shore was far too great for her to want to risk trying to swim it.

‘All right,’ she said, her lips and throat stiff with tension. ‘You’ve made your point. But I still don’t see why you want me here when earlier you were so keen to get rid of me. Oh, of course…’ Realisation dawned as she remembered. ‘You’re waiting for that explanation. No?’ she questioned when Ricardo shook his head.

‘No,’ he confirmed. ‘There is something we have to see first.’

‘Something you’ve decided I must see, you mean,’ Lucy shot back and watched as he sighed his exasperation.

‘Do not look at me like that. I promise you that this is important.’

‘Important in what way?’

‘Lucia!’ Ricardo raked both his hands through the black silk of his hair, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Must you argue with everything ? Can you not trust me on this?’

‘Trust you?’ Lucy scorned. ‘So tell me why I should trust you when you have trapped me here, made sure I can’t leave unless I swim for it and…’

Her voice trailed off as she suddenly looked into Ricardo’s deep dark eyes and caught something there. Something that stilled and held her frozen.

‘Trust me,’ he said again and the words tugged on something deep inside, twisting around Lucy’s heart just when she was least expecting it.

It wasn’t rational, it was totally unwise, probably very naïve, but just in that moment she did trust him. So much so that when he took her arm and turned her in the opposite direction, she didn’t pull away from his grasp but allowed herself to be directed down the corridor again, towards the other side of the house.

The part of the villa where their suite had been when they had lived here as man and wife.

That set her nerves tingling in apprehension. Not at the thought of what Ricardo might do but the fear of just how she might react if she was forced to go back to that part of the Villa San Felice where she had lived with him as his wife. The part of the villa where she had been at her happiest, she admitted to herself, fighting against the slash of pain that the memories brought. How would she feel if she had to look into the room where she and Ricardo had spent so many wonderful, blissful nights?

Only physically blissful, stern reality forced her to remind herself. Any emotional contentment she had felt had been based on a lie. A lie she had told herself just to keep from facing up to the truth. She might have fallen head over heels for her husband, but for Ricardo the marriage had just been one of pure convenience. The fact that it had also put a willing and passionate sexual partner into his bed every night had just been a bonus in his eyes.

‘Ricardo…’ she tried but he either didn’t hear her or refused to acknowledge that he had.

But the twisting nerves in her stomach eased as they rounded a corner and Ricardo took the opposite direction to the one she had been anticipating with dread. The next moment he stopped before a closed door, turned the handle and pushed it open.

Immediately Lucy knew what he was doing and, if she had felt fearful before, now a terrible sense of panic rushed at her with the emotional force of a tsunami. She froze in the doorway, unable to move back or forwards, though she knew from the way that Ricardo’s hand gripped her elbow that he was not going to let her escape.

The room was decorated with all the bright pictures, the blue and white carpet and curtains that she had chosen with such joyful anticipation before the birth of her baby. The same huge soft cushions were set on the floor, the same mobile with the cheerful painted animals hung from the ceiling. All this Lucy took in in a single glance. But then her gaze went to the big cot standing against the far wall and every other thought left her head.

‘Marco…’

It was just a whisper, barely a thread of sound, and she was amazed that she could get that out past the knot in her throat. Her heart, which had stopped dead in the moment she had recognised the room as the nursery, was now beating so fast and so wildly that she couldn’t catch her breath. If it got any worse, then she feared that it might actually burst out of her chest in the rush of emotion that made her head swim viciously.

At her side she was barely aware of Ricardo making a silent gesture with one hand. In response a young woman in a neat uniform, clearly the nanny hired to look after the baby, slipped silently from the room, leaving them alone. And all the time Lucy couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. She could only stare wide-eyed at the small person lying under the quilt in the cot, his black hair startling against the white sheet.

Marco’s eyes were closed and he was fast asleep. One small hand was flung up outside the coverings and his deep breathing made soft snuffling noises as he exhaled.