Maggie Cox: Claiming His Secret Love-Child: The Marciano Love-Child / The Italian Billionaire's Secret Love-Child / The Rich Man's Love-Child

‘That’s complete and utter nonsense,’ she said with a little toss of her head. ‘Anyway, I told you, I’m seeing someone.’

‘What is his name?’

Scarlett stared at him, her mind going completely blank. ‘Umm…I’d rather not say.’

‘How long have you been involved with him?’ he asked, still pinning her with his gaze.

Scarlett pursed her mouth and glared at him irritably. ‘I thought I was here to discuss the refurbishment of this building, not the details of my personal life. Now, can we get on with it, please? I have a full list of appointments, and I have to pick up my son at five-thirty.’

He held her gaze for a pulsing moment, but she couldn’t decide what was going on behind the screen of his hazel eyes.

‘Excuse me,’ he said as his mobile started to ring.

Scarlett watched as he looked at the caller ID and frowned as he moved a few metres away. It gave her a chance to observe him while he wasn’t watching, but she couldn’t help wondering who he was talking to in such rapid-fire Italian, his voice sounding edgy and annoyed.

She drank in the sight of him—the long legs, the flat stomach, and the black silky hairs at his wrists where his shirt cuffs were casually rolled up. He looked every inch the successful and powerful man; the world was at his fingertips, and there was nothing he couldn’t do if he put his mind to it.

Except acknowledge his son as his own.

Scarlett hated recalling the night she had told him about her pregnancy. She shrank back from the memories, but they marched right through her paltry blockade as they had done so many times before…

‘Alessandro, I have something to tell you,’ she had said as soon as he had come in from his office in Milan.

He’d placed his briefcase on the floor at his feet and leaned down to kiss her lingeringly on the mouth. ‘Mmm,’ he’d said, lifting his head momentarily. ‘You have been eating chocolate again.’

She’d rolled her lips together and tried to smile, but her stomach had felt like it was unravelling. ‘I know you’re going to be terribly shocked,’ she’d said, capturing her lip with her teeth before adding, ‘I can’t believe it happened myself… I should have been more careful. I know it sounds stupid and naïve but I just didn’t realise how easy it was…’

He’d smiled and tipped up her chin with the pad of his fingertip. ‘Let me guess. You have run out of credit on your mobile phone, no?’

‘No, it’s not that…’ Her stomach had tilted again at his touch.

‘I told you before, cara, money is not an issue with me,’ he’d said, stroking her cheek with his thumb. ‘I was the one who encouraged you to stay on in Milan for a few extra weeks, so it is only fair that I give you an allowance to tide you over.’

‘No, I don’t want to take money from you, Alessandro,’ she’d said. ‘I won’t do it. I can get a job in a café or something if I run out.’

He frowned with disapproval. ‘No, I do not want you working in a hot, crowded café. I like coming home to you fresh and happy to see me.’

‘It’s not about money,’ she said. ‘I have some savings from home I can transfer in any case.’

His thumb stopped moving as he held her gaze. ‘You do not like the thought of being paid to be my lover?’

She frowned at him. ‘Of course I don’t like the thought of it. That’s positively archaic, Alessandro. People don’t do that, or at least not in the circles I move in.’

His expression was still unreadable as he looked into her eyes. ‘I want you to be my lover, and I do not mind paying you to stay with me.’

Scarlett felt her breath stall in her chest. ‘For…for how long?’

His thumb moved to her bottom lip and grazed it tantalisingly, his eyes holding hers like a magnet. ‘How long would you like to stay in Milan?’ he asked.

Her heart began thumping irregularly again. ‘How long do you want me to stay?’ she asked softly.

He kissed the corner of her mouth. ‘The way I feel right now, I want you to stay for a long time—a very long time.’

Scarlett let out her breath in a long stream of relief. She had longed to hear him say he loved her, but it was almost as good knowing he wanted her to stay indefinitely.

‘Alessandro…’ She stepped up on tiptoe and kissed his mouth in a series of hot, passionate little touchdowns of her lips on his. ‘I love you. I didn’t think it was possible to love someone so much and so quickly, but I do,’ she said, gazing up at him rapturously. ‘I love being with you. I love it more than anything in the world.’

He smiled again and brought her closer, his hips pressing against hers. ‘I know you do, and I enjoy being with you too. Now, tesore mio, tell me what you were so intent on telling me when I came in the door. I am all ears—is that how you say it in English, hmm?’

‘Yes…yes, it is.’ She took a little breath and announced baldly, ‘Alessandro, I’m pregnant.’

He released her so abruptly she stumbled, only just managing to right herself because there was a priceless marble statue close by. She faced him, one hand still holding the statue, her stomach feeling like it was going to drop down between her suddenly trembling legs.

His expression was thunderous with anger, his eyes like chips of murky-coloured ice as they locked on hers.

‘Vio slut ripugnante!’ His words were laced with venom. ‘Vio whore ripugnante.’

Scarlett’s eyes went wide with shock; she had been in Italy long enough to recognise a savage curse when she heard one. Although she had expected him to be surprised, and perhaps a little angry, to have him call her such horrible names was so unexpected she stood without speaking or defending herself for far too long.

‘You tried to trick me into asking you to marry me,’ he went on in the same cold, hard tone. ‘You did not just want my money in exchange for a little affair—you wanted everything, did you not?’

‘Alessandro—’ She choked on a frightened sob. ‘Why are you carrying on like this? I thought you cared for me. I—’

She flinched away as he stabbed a finger in the space between them. ‘Siete una frode affamata dei soldi deceitful,’ he snarled.

She swallowed against the burning ache in her throat. ‘I’m not sure what you’re saying. Please, can you speak in English?’

He stepped closer, one of his hands coming down on her wrist like a manacle. ‘You are a deceitful, money-hungry cheat,’ he translated viciously, his eyes flashing with sparks of brown and green. ‘You are a filthy slut, a filthy whore.’

Scarlett pulled against his iron hold. ‘Stop it, Alessandro, please, you’re hurting me.’

He flung her arm away and glared down at her. ‘You are good at this, I will admit that, Scarlett. But then you are rather accurately named, are you not? You are a scarlet woman if ever there was one.’

She stood as frozen as the statue beside her. ‘Don’t say things like that, Alessandro,’ she said, her heart squeezing in pain. ‘You know I’m not like that.’

His bark of humourless laughter had an edge of cruelty to it. ‘You opened your legs for me within three days of meeting me, but now of course I know why. You were looking for a father for your illegitimate child. You backpackers are all the same, screwing whatever comes along just for the hell of it. You got caught out and had to find a substitute father in a hurry. Who better than me, a knight dressed in Armani?’

Scarlett could scarcely believe what she was hearing. The malevolence in his tone was so foreign to her. She had never seen him lose his temper. He had never spoken to her so coarsely; she wasn’t sure how to deal with it, or indeed how to defend herself. It seemed so out of character; it terrified her that the man she had given her heart and soul to had suddenly changed into someone else entirely.