PENNY JORDAN - Pride - Captive At The Sicilian Billionaire's Command

Her comment about the baby was made so naturally that it was impossible to accuse her of trying to score points, but at the same time it so directly opposed the selfish, non-maternal character he’d assigned her it made Rocco frown. He didn’t like having his judgements challenged—especially when the person doing the challenging was himself.

‘I rather think that Russell was thinking about your dinner as much as mine,’ he told Julie succinctly, shaking his head as the steward reached for the wine bottle to refill his glass.

‘Oh.’ Julie smiled at the steward. A warm, natural smile that lit up her pale and thin face, illuminating it with the illusion—or was it the past shadow?—of a delicate, piquant beauty. ‘That’s kind of you, but I’m not really hungry.’

Russell nodded and headed back towards the galley.

He had just disappeared inside it when Josh spat out his dummy, his face creasing up as he started to cry.

‘You’d better sort his food out,’ Rocco announced. He had to raise his voice slightly over the sound of Josh’s cries, and he wasn’t looking very pleased.

Josh was probably getting on Rocco Leopardi’s nerves, Julie thought, hugging the baby even more protectively. He was the kind of man—rich, powerful and no doubt spoiled—who wasn’t used to having his wishes or himself taking second place to anything or anyone. No doubt when he had children they would be presented to their father only when he wished them to be. It would be someone else who would be there for the sleepless nights, the colic, and all the other exhausting aspects of parenthood.

He was the kind of man who would enjoy creating his children, though.

The thought slipped past the gates that should have barred it. Then, like a serpent, once it was there on the fertile ground from which it had been banished it luxuriated in its freedom and soon found a willing accomplice to listen to its dangerous story in the shape of a female instinct Julie hadn’t even known she possessed until now.

It struck too swiftly for her to escape its deadly venom. One minute she was picturing Rocco Leopardi as a selfish father—the next she was imagining him as an arrogantly sensual lover, wanting to impregnate his woman, wanting to make his mark on the future via the creation of a child that would carry his genes into that future with it.

Inside her head she could see the face of the woman, and in it her intense pleasure— her face.

Shock gripped her body in a violent tremor.

‘I’ll go through to the galley and sort out Josh’s bottle,’ Julie said, desperate to get away from Rocco even whilst she calmed her frantic thoughts. They ricocheted around inside her head in every direction in their flight to escape from what she had ‘seen’.

Turning on her heel, she bolted for the galley, her heart jumping inside her chest in a panicky, unsteady rhythm that made her feel slightly sick.

‘I’m really sorry about this,’ she apologised to the steward as he looked up at her, ‘but I think Josh is getting on Rocco’s nerves. I thought I’d better come and do his bottle.’ As she spoke she was measuring out the formula with practised ease, whilst holding Josh.

‘No worries,’ Russell reassured her calmly.

The lamb cutlets he was just sliding onto a serving dish decorated with wilted radicchio and mint leaves, before ornamenting them with white frilled ‘caps’, looked and smelled delicious, but Julie’s anxiety about Josh had killed her appetite. She just hoped he would take his feed this time, and not have another attack of colic.

Josh was still crying when she carried him back to the bedroom, where she settled herself down in a chair with him and offered him his bottle.

Surely there was no sound more satisfying than the hungry sucking and assorted snuffling sounds made by a baby who was enjoying his feed? Julie thought, smiling when Josh gripped her finger tightly as she held the bottle and he held on to her. She stifled a small yawn, and then a much larger one. Josh released the teat of the bottle, and looked up at her, but then reached for it again when she made to take it away.

Five minutes later Julie could see that his eyelids looked as heavy with the desire to sleep as hers felt. He was only sucking drowsily now, his eyes tightly closed. Gently she eased the teat away, and then winded him gently before carrying him back to the cot.

Predictably, the minute she put him down his eyes opened wide and his face crumpled. ‘It’s all right. I’m not going anywhere,’ she told him softly.

As though he understood what she was saying he started to relax, and then smiled at her, making her heart turn over with love.

She’d have to stay with him until he’d fallen asleep. She lifted her hand to her mouth to cover another yawn. She might as well lie down for a few minutes. She could see him from the bed, after all, and he could see her.

Rocco had finished his lamb cutlets, drunk his wine, shaken his head in refusal of pudding, and still Julie Simmonds had not re-emerged from the bedroom.

Rocco supposed irritably that he had better go and find out what was going on. He signalled to Russell to clear the table and strode over to the bedroom door, opening it and stepping inside the room, closing the door behind him.

A single lamp illuminated the room. Julie Simmonds was lying fast asleep on top of the bed, still wearing the bathrobe. If anything she looked even more fragile asleep than she did awake. She was lying with one arm outstretched, so that her hand was touching the side of the travel cot, as though even in her sleep her first concern was for her child. The towelling robe had fallen off her shoulder to reveal the fragility of her shoulder blade and its contrast with the soft fullness of her almost exposed breast.

An unfamiliar feeling shadowed Rocco’s thoughts like the melancholic darkness of a deserted and lonely home. He had been born into one of the most patrician and wealthy of Sicilian families, but he had never known the kind of tender maternal love that this child was receiving.

From a mother who was little better than an unpaid whore and who was more concerned about preserving the sexuality of her future than feeding her child?

Was he really trying to tell himself that he was envious of that? So his mother had died within hours of his birth. He had at least been brought up with every material comfort and luxury, and his loss had taught him the value of emotional independence.

Rocco was about to turn away, when a movement from the cot caught his attention. The baby was awake, but quiet—and watching him, Rocco realised. It was impossible to see his features clearly in the shadowy room, but Rocco knew that the boy had dark curly hair, and that his eyes were still blue. He had felt no sense of looking at a child of his own blood. How could he, when as yet it was not known whether or not he was Leopardi? And yet somehow there was something—some feeling within himself, some deep awareness of a child’s need to have a strong male protector and a man’s need to honour his duty to be the guardian of a child’s vulnerability—that called out to him as clearly as though the child himself had reminded him of that duty. Generation to generation, the responsibility was passed down, male to male, and when that golden chain of responsibility for the life of another was broken a small heart was left to bear the pain that was branded on it for ever: an imprint of what it was to be male, neither given nor received.

Someone had fathered this child; someone had to take responsibility for him.

Someone—but not him—not unless it turned out to be Antonio’s child, and then he would share the responsibility with his brothers.

The baby wriggled and smiled a wide gummy smile. Rocco started to move closer to the cot and then stepped back, shaking off the primeval feelings that had no place in his logical mind and his busy life.