Carole Mortimer - Secret Heirs - His One Night Consequence

Yet Alessandro seemed totally uninterested. Had she got it wrong? Hope rose shakily in her breast.

But if he wasn’t here for her little boy, what did he want from her?

Alessandro tamped down the fury he’d felt ever since receiving this morning’s report. Fury that Carys should live in such a neighbourhood. That she’d hooked up with a man who obviously refused to take care of her and her child.

That he, Alessandro, had let her get under his skin enough to be concerned for her!

He cursed himself for a fool. She’d walked out on him, moved on from whatever relationship they’d had. He should do the same. Dignity and pride demanded it.

He would, he vowed, once he knew all he needed to about those blank months.

Yet that sense of intimate connection still hammered at him. It was stronger even than the cool logic around which he built his life.

Despite her antipathy and her child by another man, Alessandro couldn’t banish the possessiveness that swamped him when he was with her. It consumed him.

Never had he experienced such feelings.

His fists tightened as his temples throbbed. Flickers of images taunted him. Whether remnants of last night’s erotic dreams or snippets of memory, he didn’t know.

He wanted to hate her for the unaccustomed weakness she wrought in him. Yet the bruised violet smudges under her eyes snagged his attention. It had taken more than one sleepless night to put them there.

His belly clenched as he took in her pallor and the way her worn coat dwarfed her. Last night he’d seen she was tired, but he’d been too overwhelmed by his own cataclysmic response to register what looked now like utter exhaustion.

He’d been impatient to solve the riddle that had haunted him so long. Too busy losing himself in her lush curves and feminine promise to admit the extent of her vulnerability.

That vulnerability clawed at his conscience. He should never have unleashed the beast of sexual hunger that roared into life when she was near.

‘Where’s this boyfriend of yours? Why doesn’t he help you?’ He snapped the words out, surprising himself. It wasn’t his way to blurt his thoughts.

Wary eyes met his. They darkened like storm clouds and instinctively he knew she concealed something.

Carys blinked and looked away. ‘I’m fine by myself. I don’t need anyone to—’

‘Of course you do. You shouldn’t be living in this area. Not with a baby.’ He spared the run-down neighbourhood the briefest of glances. It was seedy, an area of urban decline. ‘He should help you.’

Her mouth remained mutinously closed.

Alessandro knew a wholly uncharacteristic desire for hotblooded argument. He, who never let anything ruffle his equanimity! Who was a master at sublimating useless emotions and pursuing his goals with single-minded purpose.

How this woman unsettled him. The last twenty-four hours had been a roller coaster of unfamiliar feelings that made a mockery of his habitual control.

He resented that more than anything.

‘Who is he, Carys? Why do you protect him?’

Because she loved him? Alessandro’s mouth flattened. This should be none of his business, yet he couldn’t let go.

‘I’m not protecting anyone!’ she muttered. ‘There’s no one. What I told you—’

‘You said you’d argued. That’s no excuse for him walking out on his child and its mother.’

Alessandro’s nostrils filled with pungent distaste. His reaction to the idea of any man getting Carys pregnant was bone-deep rage. His belly cramped as he strove to master his feelings.

Who was this woman that she made him react so?

She stared silently, an arrested expression on her face.

‘Is he someone you work with?’ The words shot out through gritted teeth.

She shook her head. ‘Don’t be absurd.’

There was nothing absurd about it. Working side by side led too easily to intimacy. He’d had to move his PA elsewhere after she’d mistaken their working relationship for something else. He’d lost count of the female employees and business associates who’d thought work the perfect way into his bed.

Silently he cursed himself for needing to know.

‘He’s married? Is that it?’

Carys stared into his glowering face and struggled against a sense of unreality. He looked genuinely perplexed. Deep grooves bracketed a mouth that morphed from sensual perfection into a wrathful line.

She shook her head as if to clear it. She mustn’t have heard right.

‘There is no man in my life.’ She hesitated, knowing a craven urge to avoid the truth. ‘I made that up so you’d leave me alone.’

Alessandro’s brow furrowed, his eyebrows disapproving black slashes that tilted down in the centre. And still he looked better than any man she knew.

‘Don’t deny it. Of course there’s a man.’

‘Are you calling me a liar?’ His refusal to accept her word reopened a wound that had never healed. He hadn’t believed her before. Why should things be different now? Her word wasn’t good enough.

Pain mixed with Carys’ fury. Her distress was all the more potent for having been suppressed so long.

‘Spare me the show of innocence,’ he sneered. ‘You didn’t get pregnant all by yourself. Or are you trying to tell me it was an immaculate conception?’

‘You bastard!’ Her arm shot out faster than thought. An instant later her hand snapped across his cheek as her fury finally boiled over.

Her palm tingled. Her whole arm trembled with the force of the slap. Her breath came in hard, shallow pants. She barely noticed the dangerous glint in his narrowing eyes or the way he loomed closer.

Then, out of the blue, the implication of his words sank in. Relief swamped her, making her shake as she sagged back in her seat.

He wasn’t here to take Leo away.

Hysterical laughter swelled inside at her stupidity. Alessandro didn’t want to take her boy. Of course he didn’t! He’d made his disinterest and disapproval clear from the start. He’d left her in no doubt both she and her baby weren’t good enough for him and his rarefied circle of moneyed friends.

Why had she thought he’d changed? Because part of her still foolishly ached to believe he was the fantasy man she’d fallen in love with?

Pain welled.

It felt as if Alessandro had taken her last precious fragment of hope and callously ground it underfoot, shattering a fragile part of her.

‘You really are some piece of work, Alessandro Mattani.’ Her voice was hoarse with distress, her throat raw with pain as if she’d swallowed broken glass. ‘I should have known you hadn’t changed.’

‘Me, change?’ Astonishment coloured his voice, at odds with his look of rigid control.

‘Yes, you. You coward.’ Carys pressed a palm to her stomach, trying to prevent the churn of nausea. ‘Even after all this time you refuse to acknowledge your own son.’

THE woman was mad.

Or conniving.

Alessandro met her glittering eyes, dark now as a thunder storm, and saw lightning flash.

Did she even notice that he’d grabbed her wrist and yanked it from his face? That he still held it in an implacable grip?

She didn’t seem to notice anything except her own fury.

His cheek burned from her slap and pride demanded instant retribution. No one, man or woman, insulted Alessandro Mattani.

Yet he held himself in check. He would not resort to violence against a woman.

More importantly, he needed to know what she was up to, this mad woman with the wild accusations and glorious eyes.

‘Don’t be absurd. I don’t have a child.’ That was one thing he’d never forget, no matter how severe his injuries.