Tara Pammi - The Surprise Conti Child

His grandfather’s and Salvatore Rossi’s curses in Italian and Valentina’s muffled gasp registered on the periphery of his consciousness.

Lips quivering, Alexis’s chest rose and fell but she held his gaze over the distance. “A DNA test will prove I’m right,” she said, as if she’d prepared the response. But it was the absolute purpose in her voice that held him mute.

A daughter...

His skin felt chilly as if all warmth had been leeched away from the world around him.

And yet, the crystal chandeliers in the room glowed bright, the fire cackled in the marble-wrought fireplace and the moon hung jewel bright in the sky outside.

The world continued spinning whereas all of the control he prided himself on deserted him, leaving him shaken to the core.

He shook his head, gasping for breath.

He looked at Luca. Who looked just as aghast as he did.

Only Alexis stood composed amid the curious and accusing glares aimed at her, her shoulders ramrod straight.

Alexis whose eyes gleamed with pride and love as she claimed that he was a father. Of her little girl.

His child...something Rosa had wanted so desperately for years.

Now, this woman, whom he’d tried to forget, claimed her daughter was his...that his one moment of weakness had led to such a consequence?

Everything inside him clenched tight, as if the merest breath could shatter him. Robbing him of speech even.

“Whatever your scheme, Ms. Sharpe, you have already made a misstep in your bait.” Antonio finally spoke, his accented English falling like hard gravel over the marble floor. “If there were Conti bastards lying around for you to sully our name with, your claim would be believable if you said Luca fathered them.

“Not Leandro.

“Now before I call the polizia—”

CHAPTER TWO

“ENOUGH!” ALEX BIT OUT, her throat raw. Leandro’s silence distressed her more than his grandfather’s words. “I won’t stand quietly while you call my little girl names.”

She felt Luca’s hand on her shoulder and drew strength from it.

Faking defiance she didn’t feel, Alex held Leandro’s gaze.

Disbelief? Disgust? Something finally flickered in his expression and she felt as if she was bucking, bending against the force of it.

Aquiline nose, thinly sculpted mouth and the sleek, sharp planes of his face...he was just as arrogantly beautiful as she remembered.

Seven years hadn’t changed his feelings about that night then. She hadn’t hoped differently, neither would she let him shame her.

She had done nothing to be shameful of. Not then, not now.

“You stay silent even as you know there’s a chance that it’s true? I was wrong to come here, wrong to think Izzie...” She took a bracing breath. “You and your family, you don’t deserve to know her.”

Alexis turned her back on them with her head held high.

Out into the corridor she went, her pumps clicking hard on the gleaming marble floor, ignoring the hollow ache in her gut.

It was the uncertainty caused by the accident, the uncertainty about Isabella’s future, she told herself. Nothing to do with the man who stood there, unmoving like a rock while his family castigated her.

Having arrived at the end of the corridor, Alex stilled.

Approaching dusk hadn’t dimmed the beauty of the villa one bit.

The corridor opened into a semicircular balcony, offering a view to the ground floor, the acreage surrounding the house lit up by solar lights and the dark waters of the lake beyond.

A tinkle of laughter from the guests below her brought her attention back. Pressing a hand to her throbbing temples, she faced her current problem.

She couldn’t ask Valentina for a ride back. Would Luca help?

She turned and slammed headlong into a solidly male body. Threaded her fingers in that hard chest for purchase. “Luca, can you please...”

Crisply masculine and with a hint of aqua, the scent that filled her nostrils arrested the words on her lips. Her head jerked up so fast that she felt dizzy.

Penetrating gray eyes studied her.

“Why assume Luca?”

“Because he seems like the only decent person in your family.”

She tugged at her arm but Leandro didn’t relent. Her legs tangled with his, the hard, muscular length of his thighs against hers knocking the breath out of her.

Hard and hot, he made her head spin. “I have nothing more to say to you,” she breathed into his shoulder.

“You think to announce what you did and walk away calmly? Probably into the media’s mouthpiece? Make a mockery of the Contis?”

His grip viselike, he dragged her through a turn in the corridor that led to another sit-out area and then past a dark oak door. The hard thud of the door cut off the noise from the party, locking them away.

Breath rattling, Alex kept her back to him.

Her skin prickled at his nearness, her senses still jarred at the impact with his hard body. She rubbed fingers over her forehead, willing her heart to calm.

Slowly, she took in the sumptuous furnishings in the huge room, a dark mahogany study table to the side with papers strewn on it, the large four-poster king bed with dark blue sheets. That same cool aqua scent clung to the room. A small, framed picture sat on the nightstand on the opposite side, of a pretty woman with dark hair and delicate features.

Dear Lord, was this his room? Who was that woman then?

With her gut in a tight knot, Alex forced her gaze to the window. The view afforded here of Lake Como was even better. Spectacularly maintained gardens, acres of it, lit softly by moonlight and solar lights along the paths greeted her. Silence lingered in this part of the gardens.

Even his guests were not allowed to impinge on his private slice of heaven, she realized slowly.

This estate was not just beautiful but huge.

And this was only one of the many properties they owned.

The Contis were a dynastic family with an old-world wealth and Leandro...at the helm of it. And she had barged in on their illustrious party and told them that he had a daughter.

If her chest wasn’t so tight, Alex would have laughed at the absurdity of it.

“You’re afraid to face me now? After that performance in front of everyone.”

Low and crisp, his tone was like fingertips sliding over her bare skin. As if it was yesterday he had touched her and not seven long years ago.

Alex turned slowly, loathe to betray how unbalanced she felt in his presence.

He stood leaning against the closed door, minus the suit jacket, the gray of his dress shirt making his eyes gleam doubly. Leaner than she remembered, his features sharper. Even more settled into that powerful aura that had always clung to him.

The austere severity of his features from the sculpted jaw to that aquiline nose, the lean, wiry breadth of his chest tapering to a waist, the thinly sculpted curve of his lower lip, everything about Leandro Conti said leashed power.

Any moment now, she wouldn’t find him attractive. Any moment now, she’d remember that the same mouth that could kiss so passionately and tenderly could also shred her to pieces as soon as he was done.

“I’m trying to overcome my shock that you cared enough to stop me.” Instead, her insides thrummed with a thrill. “And if that was a performance, then you forced me to it.”

Those eyes of his studied her relentlessly. Why didn’t the infuriating man say anything? Demand a DNA test? Throw her out if he didn’t believe her? Threaten her like his grandfather had done?

She had been prepared for all of that. Except his impenetrable silence, this unnerving composure.

It made her want to take a sledgehammer and smash it to pieces.

“You pulling me into a room like this, away from prying eyes should bring back memories for you,” she threw recklessly. “Lucky for me, because it seems you erased that evening from your mind.”