Happy Mother's Day! (20 page)

There was no softening in his harsh, condemnatory attitude as she spread her hands towards him in a gesture of appeal. If anything it seemed to Erin that her silent entreaty had fed the flames of his fury.

He angled a dark brow sardonically and wondered with
blighting sarcasm, ‘When exactly? Or were you going to send me an e-mail after you gave birth?’

‘Does it matter?’ Erin’s shoulders slumped, because clearly what she said didn’t matter. Nothing she said or did was ever going to excuse her silence in Francesco’s eyes.

‘It matters to
me,
it matters to me that my wife thought it unnecessary to inform me she is carrying my child. It matters to me that she has deliberately tried to conceal her condition from me, though,’ he added, shaking his dark head slowly from side to side, ‘how you thought that was going to work I can’t even begin to imagine. You seem to have lost your grip on reality. What were you planning to do—change your name and flee the country?’

Face screwed up in anguish, she shook her head violently from side to side. ‘You make it sound as though I was deliberately trying to deceive you!’ she protested.

‘And you weren’t?’

Erin literally wrung her hands as she struggled to convince him of her sincerity. ‘I can see how it might seem that way to you, but, no—no, it wasn’t like that at all.’

Francesco’s hands clenched at his sides as he steeled himself to ignore the anguish in her tear-filled blue eyes. ‘What was it
like,
Erin? Shall I tell you what it was
like
for me? What it was like to pick up that phone and hear some anonymous voice talk about antenatal appointments?’

‘I know,’ she sighed, ‘and I wouldn’t have had that happen for the world, but it’s just complicated things … I know that sounds pathetic.’

He didn’t disagree, just carried on looking at her with simmering hostility.

‘I knew I had to tell you at some point, but, well … using a child to paper over cracks in a marriage is never a good idea.
And I was afraid that you might have a knee-jerk reaction and.suggest that we had to stay together for the sake of the baby.’ Sweeping a tangled skein of bright glossy hair back from her face, she angled a wary gaze at Francesco. He was listening to her and, much to her relief, seemed more in control of his feelings. But the expression in his hooded eyes was frustratingly hard to read.

‘Which is clearly ridiculous?’ Her voice lifted in query as she tried to gauge his reaction. Maybe her fears were misplaced?

It would be ironic considering how much she’d stressed about the possibility if it didn’t even occur to Francesco to suggest they give their marriage another shot for the sake of the baby. After all, he might be a man with some surprisingly oldfashioned ideas about family, but Francesco was also a realist.

‘Ridiculous to want to salvage our marriage to provide a home and stability for our child?’

Their eyes connected and she realised that she had been right to stress—in fact it seemed likely she had not stressed enough. ‘You mean pretend …’

From the way he was looking at her at that moment Erin imagined that Francesco would struggle to maintain a pretence that the sight of her didn’t make him feel physically ill let alone spend their married life acting as though she were the love of his life!

‘That’s hardly realistic, is it, Francesco?’

‘Not as unrealistic as you imagining I will give you a quickie divorce!’ he retorted bluntly.

‘Well, there is no point in hanging around, really, is there? I know some people stay separated for years before they make it official, but—’

‘There will be no separation.’

The interruption made her pause. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Then let me spell it out for you.’ His silky smile was somehow infinitely more alarming than his raging anger had been. Now he was in control. A shiver of apprehension traced its way down Erin’s spine. ‘No separation, no divorce, not now, not ever!’

‘What do you mean?’ she asked in a small voice, even though his statement had been clear enough. This was her worst nightmare coming true.

‘You wish me to spell it out? My child will not be brought up not knowing his father, his family, not speaking his own language.’

Erin rushed to reassure him that this had never been her intention. ‘Look, of course he’ll learn about his heritage—there was never any question of—’

‘You will come back to Italy with me where our child will be born.’

Erin shook her head in a negative gesture at the casually autocratic decree. ‘You’re suggesting that for the sake of the baby.’

‘I’m not
suggesting
anything,’ he corrected. ‘This is not a discussion. I’m telling you what is going to happen.’

Erin tried to laugh, but all that emerged was a high-pitched squeaky sound. ‘You can’t force me …’ The reminder was as much for her own benefit as his.

‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary—not once you have considered the options.’

‘What options?’

Again he smiled and the hairs on the nape of her neck stood on end. ‘There are none.’

She struggled to inject some sanity into the conversation. ‘You’re not being reasonable, Francesco. Our marriage was a total disaster. We can’t stay married just because of the baby.’

His jaw tightened. ‘Perhaps you need reminding why you married me in the first instance.’

Her head came up with a jerk. As their eyes clashed there was a tension in the air that reminded Erin of the heavy heat that preceded a storm.

‘Come to bed with me.’

The colour flew to her parchment-pale cheeks. ‘You’re so manipulative! You think that you can make me agree to anything if you get me in bed, don’t you?’ Why wouldn’t he? So far it had worked pretty well!

‘Manipulation? You actually imagine that I am capable of such clarity of thought with you in the same room?’

Erin blinked, confused by the emotions that were rolling off him in waves.

‘I invite you into my bed because it is where you belong.’

The blunt pronouncement made her stomach dip and flutter.

‘I find it hard to function when all I can think about is sinking into you.’

For a moment their eyes clung. The raw need in his drove the air from her lungs. From some hidden well of reserve she discovered the strength to break that searing contact.

With a cry she ran from the room, not caring if her flight confirmed his accusation that she was too immature to confront her feelings.

E
RIN
went straight to her room. It took her less than five minutes to pack her bags, throwing things in a blind panic. She didn’t see another person in the apparently deserted house until she had reached the hallway.

‘Isn’t this becoming a habit with you, cara?’

Erin dropped her case as she spun around in time to see a tall, lithe figure peel away from the wall.

‘There is a problem you don’t want to confront. So you run away.’

‘I’m not running away.’

‘No?’ He arched a brow. ‘What are you doing, then?’

Erin drew a deep startled breath and stiffened when without warning his long brown fingers brushed her skin as they slid into the neckline of her shirt.

The contact sizzled like a flame fizzing along her nerve endings all the way down to her curling toes. She closed her eyes, her nostrils flaring in response to the male scent of his warm body so close now that all she had to do was lean forward and their bodies would be touching.

She wanted that contact so much that it was a physical pain. She wanted to feel his hands on her, his mouth.

She had begun to sway towards him when she heard him say. ‘Why do you wear this?’

Her eyelids felt heavy as she forced her eyes open and, blinking in a bemused fashion, she focused on his lean dark face so close to her own that she could see the fine mesh of lines that radiated from the corners of his incredible eyes. ‘What? I.’

Then she saw it.

The gold ring still warm from her skin resting in the palm of his cupped hand. The heat of arousal drained from her body.

Francesco’s expression was inscrutable as he stared at the circlet of gold on his palm, still warm from its hiding place in the valley between her breasts.

His eyes darkened and a muscle alongside his sensually sculpted mouth clenched as he recalled how perfectly her breast fitted into that same palm.

‘Why did you not throw it away? Surely it represents a memory that can give you no pleasure?’

Francesco did not attempt to stop her as she snatched the ring from his hand and drew back a clenched fist pressed to her chest. Her angry eyes held his defiantly as she allowed it to slide back into its hiding place between her breasts and then fastened the top two buttons of her blouse.

‘I keep it as a reminder, just in case the unthinkable happens and I suffer another bout of temporary insanity and even
consider
getting married again.’

‘You
are
married.’

Her eyes dropped from the anger in his. ‘I need time to think, Francesco.’

‘There is nothing to think about—a child needs two parents.’

As she moved towards the door so did Francesco, his intention obviously to cut her off. She might have reached it before him if the strap of the bag she had looped around her
neck hadn’t got caught up on a heavy ormolu clock that took pride of place on a console table.

As she was pulled backwards, half strangled by the strap around her neck, her elbow caught a large vase filled with water and before it shattered noisily it managed to tip its contents all over Francesco.

It was the look of shock on his face as he stood there with water dripping from his drenched shirt and trousers onto the floor that drew the laugh from Erin’s throat and once she had started she couldn’t stop. The laughter gradually morphed into sobs, tears ran unchecked down her cheeks as the deep racking sobs; shook her entire body.

‘Per amor di Dio!’
Francesco groaned, his face contorted as though in pain as he watched her.

Erin did not resist as he gently removed the leather strap from her neck, but when he tried to drag her into his arms she shook her head and pulled back, wiping the tears from her face with the back of her hand.

‘You’re right. I was running away.’ She realised that Francesco had been right about a lot of things.

‘That is understandable under the circumstances,’ he observed.

Erin was inclined to view his sudden tolerance with suspicion. Her eyes lifted, and for a moment the sheer sensational beauty of Francesco’s face took her breath away. It wasn’t just the perfect symmetry he had been blessed with, but the intelligence, authority and sensuality stamped on his features that made him totally devastating.

His dark eyes dropped, his thick lashes casting dark shadows across his cheekbones as he placed a hand on her belly. She could feel the warmth of his strong fingers through the thin layers of clothing.

‘There is a growing life inside you, Erin.’

Her throat aching with the emotional tears locked there, she nodded.

‘A life we made. You will be a good mother.’

‘I hope so.’
One word of praise from him and I’m glowing … Oh, God,
she thought despairingly,
I’m hopeless.

‘You would give your life for our child.’ His fingers tightened fractionally across her abdomen.

‘Of course,’ she said, feeling ridiculously bereft when he lifted his hand.

‘But living with me is too great a sacrifice?’

‘I’d do anything that I think would be in the baby’s best interests, but I don’t think us staying married would be.’ She stopped and croaked in panic, ‘What are you doing?’

Francesco continued to unbutton his soiled shirt before shrugging it off.

Erin tried not to stare.

It wasn’t easy. There was a lot to stare at and all of it perfect.

There wasn’t an ounce of surplus flesh on his lean, sleek body. The golden skin of his bronzed torso gleamed under a layer of sweat that delineated each individual slab of perfectly formed muscle.

Desire like a tight fist clutched at the muscles low in her belly as her gaze slid helplessly down the long, lean length of his body and things dissolved inside her.

The corners of his mouth curled sardonically as he unzipped his trousers. ‘I would have thought that was fairly self-explanatory.’

Erin looked into his eyes and fought the breathless drowning sensation that threatened to overwhelm her. She closed her eyes as he stepped out of his shoes and ruined trousers.

‘You can’t do that. What if someone sees you?’

‘There is no one here but you and me. Our hosts have made sure that the house is empty.’ His dark eyes held an unmistakable message as they captured hers.

Erin’s nerve endings tingled as desire slammed through her body with a force that expelled the air from her lungs in a raw, fractured gasp. Her lashes came down in a concealing curtain, but not before he’d seen her pupils dilate.

‘You can’t leave those things there,’ she grunted, touching his discarded clothes with the toe of her shoe. She leapt like a startled deer as his hand came up to frame one side of her face.

After a few moments of standing there motionless, tension and his light touch the only thing keeping her upright, Erin gritted her teeth and closed her eyes.

With a muttered, ‘Idiot,’ she turned her face sharply to one side; his hand immediately fell away. Even though it was no longer there she could feel the imprint of his fingers like a brand on her skin. She bit down hard on her full lower lip as she fought an overwhelming compulsion to reach for his hand and place it back on her face.

She had to be strong.

For a long moment he studied her face, his expression enigmatic.

‘I did not cheat.’

The abrupt statement made her turn her head away. His comment about ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ came back to her. The truth was she was half inclined to believe him even though she didn’t want to; the world was already shifting under her feet in a very uncomfortable way.

If she believed him, then by implication she accepted that he’d been right when he’d said she was the author of her own misery.

She shook her head in denial. ‘As one with some experience on the subject, I have to tell you that showing a little
humility and coming clean generally has better results than a flat denial.’

‘I think your “experience on the subject” is what is distorting your view. And before you ask, no, I can’t prove it to you—I can’t prove I spent the night walking …’ He stopped and shook his head. ‘No, what I did and where I went is not the point. The point is that I shouldn’t have to prove it. Why should you assume that you’re the only one to consider a wedding ring guaranteed exclusivity?’

The silence stretched.

Some of the anger faded from Francesco’s face as he looked at her downbent head. ‘When I made my vows I meant them.’

In the middle of a loud sniff her head came up with a jerky motion. His use of tense was not lost on her.

‘This is ridiculous. You will listen to me, Erin … that night I—’

Realising his intention, she shook her head. ‘I don’t want to hear it and I’m not coming back to Italy with you.’ She pressed a hand to her stomach in a fruitless attempt to ease the aching, empty sensation deep down. ‘The truth is, together we don’t work. We’re just incompatible. I’m ready to concede that it’s partly my fault, but I am who I am, Francesco—I can’t change that.’

Francesco closed his eyes and snarled an oath under his breath. He pushed back his anger and let his eyes fall away from her earnest stare. His glance fell as far as the heaving contours of her small, perfect breasts and stopped dead.

He knew they were perfect not because the top was suggestively skimpy, but because he had cupped them in his hands, kneaded the warm, firm flesh and aroused the tight pink nipples with his fingers and tongue.

In his head he could hear her hoarse cry of pleasure as she speared her fingers into his hair, holding him close as her body arched with pleasure.

She had been the most exquisitely sensitive creature; even the sound of his voice could draw the most incredible response from her.
Still is sensitive
… said the voice in his head.

In his mind he visualised the frustration building up in him as a wall, a crumbling wall with several gaping holes in it.

Breathing harder than he did during a strenuous workout he turned to pick up his clothes from the floor, presenting his back to her. The breathing space afforded him an opportunity to regain some degree of control over the compelling overpowering urge he had to slide his hand under that top and stroke the warm silky skin it covered.

Erin, who had been staring at the smooth, graceful lines of his strong, golden-skinned back with longing, blushed guiltily when he straightened up and looked at her. His lashes skimmed the hard angle of his cheekbones as his darkened glance dropped to her mouth and stayed there.

Erin’s own lashes came down in a dark silky screen. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’ she said severely.

‘There are some levels at which we work very well, Erin.’

She gave a shrug that was meant to convey supreme indifference to the honeyed implication, but spoilt the effect by being unable to hold his gaze.

‘This blushing
ingénue
act is a little misplaced when you’re talking to a man who has an intimate knowledge of your body.’

Erin’s head lifted with a jerk. ‘If you think I find your arrogance arousing.’ she gritted her teeth and felt the heat fly to her cheeks ‘.and if you think you can embarrass me, Francesco.’ The wolfish grin that spread across his lean face made her voice dry.

‘Oh, I
know
I can do that,
mia bella.’
Their eyes locked and his dangerous smile faded, leaving an intense burning look that was infinitely more dangerous. It was also exciting, but Erin refused to acknowledge this even to herself.

‘What are you doing, Francesco?’ she asked, trying to sound calm and practical and feeling neither as he began to walk slowly but with purpose towards her.

Framing her face in one big hand, he smiled. It was a smile that stripped away the thin veneer of urbane charm he presented to the world. When she looked into his midnight eyes Erin saw the raw, untamed, masculine heart of him.

Her pulses leapt in wild response to the primitive need stamped into every angle and plane of his strong, heartbreakingly beautiful face.

He wanted her, but not in the same way she wanted him; he wasn’t capable of that. She knew there could only ever be sex between them, but the emotions that ached in her throat didn’t understand the distinction.

The fear and fascination she felt was mirrored in her eyes as she looked through her lashes at his face.

His thumb moved gently over the curve of her cheek and her eyelids fluttered briefly. It was a light butterfly caress, but more than enough to vaporise every instinct for self-preservation she possessed.

‘I’m doing this,
cara mia,
’ he explained in a voice as thick and rich as warm honey. His burning dark eyes roamed over her face, examining every inch of the smooth, peachy pale skin with a hungry intensity, as though he was committing each individual freckle, every soft hollow and curve to memory.

Erin’s throat ached and her heart thudded against her breastbone as, light-headed with anticipation, she waited to feel his mouth on hers. She was sure that if Francesco didn’t
kiss her soon she would become the first documented case of someone dying from
not
being kissed.

A whimper of relief caught in her throat when he did finally bend his dark head and fit his mouth to hers. It was as if she had been waiting a lifetime for this to happen. He kissed her slowly, tasting her, deepening the kiss as her lips parted under the seductive pressure and friction of his mouth.

With a lost sigh Erin slid her slim arms around his neck and leaned into him. She met the stabbing incursions of his tongue with her own, moaning into his mouth and tangling her fingers into the heavy silky strands of his dark hair.

When he lifted her into his arms she did not resist but moaned softly into his mouth. She lay curled up in his arms, her hands linked around his neck, her fingers trailing into the hair on his nape as he strode swiftly down the hallway to a room at the far end and kicked open the door with his foot.

Once inside he walked purposefully over to the large fourposter bed and laying her on it, came to kneel beside her.

The tightness in her chest increased as her hungry gaze roamed over his smooth golden skin. The blood pounded in her ears as she looked at him; he was so beautiful it hurt.