Carole Mortimer - Secret Heirs - His One Night Consequence

He had to be kidding!

She whirled round to find him only a metre away, his eyes glued to her son. The intensity of his gaze unnerved her and she stroked her palm protectively over Leo’s cheek.

‘Oh, come on, Alessandro!’ Her lips were stiff with fury. ‘I don’t know what sort of game you’re playing, but I’ve had enough. This stops now.’

Dark green eyes lifted to pinion hers. Banked heat flared in that hooded gaze. Instantly a coil of reaction twisted in the pit of her stomach. Fear and something else she refused to name.

‘No, Carys.’ His words fell like blows, slow and heavy. ‘It’s just starting.’

Abruptly he turned to pace the room, but not before she read the bleak emptiness in his eyes.

‘Because as far as I know for certain, we met for the first time last night.’

‘SO THAT’S it? We met in the Alps, where you had a job in a ski resort. We had an affair and I invited you back to my home.’ Alessandro kept his voice neutral, as emotionless as if he were reading a company report rather than repeating the most astonishing thing he’d heard in years.

The whole idea was absurd.

He’d never invited any woman to share his home. The only woman he could imagine living there was the woman he’d one day make his wife. A woman he hadn’t yet met.

He’d spent his adult years ensuring the women he dated understood he wasn’t interested in deep, meaningful relationships. That was just female-speak for snaring a rich man gullible enough to believe she wanted him for his character and personality!

‘We lived together, but it didn’t work out, and you came back to Australia,’ he continued, watching her avoid his gaze. ‘You discovered you were pregnant and you called my home repeatedly, eventually spoke to my stepmother and as a result, believed I wanted nothing further to do with you?’

‘That’s about the size of it.’

Her offhand response fuelled the remnants of his earlier temper. Didn’t she realise how vital this was?

Alessandro’s fists clenched tight. He abhorred the need to share the fact of his memory loss with a stranger. Even a stranger with whom he’d once been intimate.

He’d been brought up never to show vulnerability, never to feel it. No wonder his discomfort now was marrow deep. His certainties, his sense of order, his grasp of the situation were far too shaky for a man accustomed to taking charge.

Still Carys didn’t look at him but busied herself feeding the tot in the high chair. Was it his imagination or was she taking far too long fussing with cloths and dishes?

Alessandro kept his eyes on her, rather than her son. Meeting those big green eyes so like his own made him uneasy. And the way the boy kept staring at him, surely that wasn’t normal.

The child wasn’t his. He’d know if he had a son.

He’d always been careful about contraception. He would have children at the appropriate time, when he’d found a suitable bride. She’d be clever, chic, at home in his world, sexy. She wouldn’t bore him after two weeks as most females did.

The harsh overhead light caught rich colour as Carys bent her head and the child tugged a lock of burnished hair loose from her prim bun.

Something snagged in Alessandro’s chest, looking at her. And her son.

No!

He refused to feel anything except annoyance that her story didn’t trigger any memories. It was all still an infuriating blank.

She turned and lifted the baby high in her arms, her prim white blouse dragging taut with the movement.

Something plunged in the pit of Alessandro’s belly and heat spread in his lower body.

At least one thing was explained: his sense of possessiveness when he looked at Carys. She’d been his and, if her story was true, they’d shared a relationship unlike his usual liaisons. He’d desired her enough, trusted her enough, to install her in his own home.

Incredible! Yet it would be easy to check.

Had he planned to keep her as a long-term mistress? The idea fascinated him.

Watching the tight material of her skirt mould her thighs, the thin cotton of her blouse stretch over her breasts, the idea didn’t seem quite as absurd as it should.

If it weren’t for the baby, he’d be tempted to take up right now where they’d left off last night.

Sudden pain slashed behind his eyes and through his temple as he struggled to remember. The headache he’d fought in the car hovered. He was well now. Recovered. Only occasionally did the pain recur, a reminder of the past.

‘Are you all right?’ Smoky eyes held his. He dropped his hand from his temple and stretched his legs in front of him, shifting his weight on the lumpy sofa.

‘Perfectly.’ He paused, following the movement of a chubby little starfish hand that patted her breast then tugged at one of her buttons. A moment later she caught the baby’s hand in hers.

Alessandro raised his eyes. Her cheeks were delicately flushed, her lips barely parted.

‘You haven’t told me why we split up.’

The colour in her cheeks intensified. But not, he’d swear, with sexual awareness. Her nostrils pinched, and her lips firmed.

‘I don’t want to talk about this. There’s no point.’

‘Humour me,’ he murmured, leaning forward.

He wanted his pound of flesh. But what choice did she have? He looked as immovable as Uluru. Instinctively she knew he wouldn’t leave till his curiosity was satisfied.

Carys believed him about his missing memory. He looked so uncomfortable she knew it was a truth he didn’t want to share. She’d heard of such amnesia from her medico eldest brother. And it explained so much that had puzzled her. Like why Alessandro had come round the globe to find her.

What other reason could he have for going to such lengths? Especially since he’d dumped her so unceremoniously.

She bit her lip, glad she was the only one to remember every ignominious detail of that scene.

‘You don’t remember anything? ’ Pointless to ask, given his patent lack of knowledge about her, about them. Yet it seemed impossible she’d been wiped totally from his memory.

Once they’d been close. Not just physically intimate, but close as soulmates, or so it had seemed.

How could all that just disappear completely?

Because what they’d shared was far less important to Alessandro than it had been to her?

‘My memory stops several months before my father’s death.’ His words were terse. She guessed he viewed amnesia as a weakness he should be able to master. ‘I don’t remember meeting you.’ His tone implied he still doubted what she’d told him. ‘Those months are blank. I don’t even remember driving before the accident. Just waking up in hospital.’

Slowly Carys lowered herself into the rocking chair. She let Leo stand on her thighs while she held his hands. It was a game he loved, marching on the spot.

Besides, it gave her a chance to rest her shaky legs. The shock of Alessandro’s revelations was a stunning blow. She still felt faintly nauseous and her limbs trembled, thinking of him injured seriously enough to cause amnesia.

‘You didn’t tell me how the accident happened.’ She paused, wondering if her concern was too obvious. But she had to know. She avoided staring at the scar reaching up to his temple. Instead she fixed her attention on a spot over his shoulder.

His shrug was fluid and easy.

‘I was driving to Milan. The car skidded in the wet when I swerved to avoid a driver on the wrong side of the road.’

On the way to the office, then. Of course. He preferred to drive himself, claiming it helped him sort out his priorities for the day’s business. From the rough timeline he’d mentioned, it must have happened soon after she left.