Riccardo's Secret Child

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

R
ICCARDO
F
ABBRINI
stood towards the back of the dim, overcrowded bar, his black eyes narrowed as they moved methodically through the room. He felt another swell of intense irritation hit him as he realised the disadvantage of his situation.

The call had come this morning and the voice at the other end of the phone had been persuasive enough to bypass the rigid series of obstacles that siphoned off all but the most important callers. He hissed an oath under his breath as he continued to scour the room, seeking out the lone female, the woman who had left the message to meet him at an appointed time in this smoky wine bar. If he had personally handled the call he would have made sure to have found out what the hell this meeting was all about. In fact, if he had handled the call there would have
been
no meeting, but Mrs Pierce, competent to the point of meticulousness, had obviously been conned by a soft voice and a fairy story.

Whatever she had to say, it must be good, he thought grimly. It had
better
be good. He was not a man who found it amusing to have his time wasted.

‘May I help you, sir?'

Riccardo's dark, impatient gaze focused on a small woman dressed in a waitress's uniform standing next to him, peering up at him, her oval face tinged with pleasure.

He was used to this kind of reaction from the opposite sex and normally he would have automatically fallen back on his charm and flirted with the pretty little thing hovering with her tray tucked neatly under one arm, but this was not
a normal situation. He had been manoeuvred into coming here by some woman who had only conveyed to Mrs Pierce that her message was of the utmost importance, relying, no doubt, on his curiosity to grab at the mysterious carrot that had been dangled provocatively in front of his eyes.

Just the thought of it made him catch his breath in another surge of frustrated anger.

‘I'm meeting someone,' he answered in a clipped voice.

‘What's the name?' The petite blonde moved three steps to a desk at the side and picked up a sheet of paper on which were listed a series of names, most with ticks alongside them, customers who had arrived to take up their reservations.

‘That's the one.' He pointed at a name on the sheet, Julia N., with the tick alongside it. ‘She's here, is she?' he said grimly, casting his eyes around the room again and failing to find anyone matching up to the woman he had mentally conjured up.

Because conjured her up he had. He would have gone out with her at some point, of that he was sure, which hardly narrowed his options, but he knew his preferences. She would be tall, leggy, blonde and, he had to admit, fairly lightweight in the brains department. That was the way he liked them. Their vanity was his protection from emotional involvement. They enjoyed being seen on his arm, relished the privileges he could offer them but understood their place. Emotional baggage, he had discovered to his cost, did not sit easily on his shoulders.

He also had a good idea of what the woman in question would be after. Money. Weren't they always? However simpering and ingenuous they appeared, his vast bank balance never failed to impress. And he also knew how he intended to deal with any gold-diggers, whatever their trumped-up sob stories. Ruthlessly.

He bit back his anger at finding himself engineered into a meeting he had not initiated and decided, grimly, that now that he had found himself here he would enjoy the situation for what it was worth.

‘Just follow me, sir.' The little blonde with the curly hair and the very cute behind walked in front of him and he followed, curious, now that he had come this far, to see where she was leading him. Riccardo anticipated, with a certain amount of relish, a short, sharp and illuminating conversation. Illuminating for the woman in question. Illuminating enough for her to realise that no one, but no one, got the better of Riccardo Fabbrini.

His sensuous lips curved coldly into a smile of anticipated victory.

He was still feverishly scanning the crowd for the single, blonde female, when he realised that his brief tour of the wine bar, which had taken them from the bustling front to a slightly quieter section at the back, had come to an end. He found himself in front of a table at which was seated a slender, mousy-haired woman who had half risen to her feet and appeared to be holding out her hand in greeting.

‘May I get you a drink, sir?' enquired the waitress.

Riccardo ignored the polite question and stared in disbelief at the figure in front of him, who had now subsided back into her chair, though she continued to watch him. Very cautiously indeed. As though he might very well bite.

Who the hell was she?

‘Mr Fabbrini?' Julia stared up at the towering, olive-skinned stranger and nervously tried to gather herself, already regretting her decision to meet him, even while she knew that the meeting was as inevitable as the sun rising and setting. Inevitable and every bit as difficult as she had imagined it would be, judging from the expression on his face.

‘Would you care to sit down?' Julia persisted politely, her anxious eyes briefly meeting those of the waitress, whose expression was sympathetic.

‘No, I would not like to sit down. What I
would
like is for you to tell me who you are and why you have wasted my time dragging me here.'

Julia felt clammy perspiration break out over her body like a rash. She took a deep, steadying breath and reminded herself that the man in front of her, menacing though he seemed, could do absolutely nothing to her.

The waitress, having hovered indecisively for a few minutes, had retreated to safer waters, clearly intimidated by him.

‘I did think about coming to see you at your office,' Julia said weakly, ‘but I decided that a neutral zone might be better. I really wish you'd sit down, Mr Fabbrini. It will be impossible holding a conversation with you if you continue to glare down at me like that.'

‘Is this better?' Instead of sitting down, Riccardo leant forward, hands firmly planted on the table so that his eyes were on her level and provided Julia, up close, with a vision of such disconcerting masculinity that she flinched back, an automatic response to his aggressive invasion of her space.

Of course, she knew what he looked like. She had seen pictures of him, and she had heard all about his terrifying personality, but nothing had prepared her for the impact of it full-on. Nothing had prepared her for his height, his overpowering maleness that had her breath catching uncomfortably in her throat, the constricting force of his swarthy good looks.

‘No,' Julia said as calmly as she could. ‘No, it's not, Mr Fabbrini. You're doing your best to threaten me and it won't work. I won't be threatened by you.' Thank goodness she had made sure that their table was situated at the back
of the wine bar, where they were at least out of the range of curious ears and eyes. Thank goodness she had chosen somewhere large and very lively, where this little scene was lost amid the babble of voices and the roars of laughter from the groups of after-work men lounging on stools by the bar.

Riccardo continued to look at her without saying a word. Her smoky voice, so at odds with her average appearance, was controlled and self-contained but her hands were trembling. There was nothing her body could do about containing the effect he was having on her, he thought with a hot stab of satisfaction, even though she was doing her best to quell it.

He pulled out his chair and sat. ‘My personal assistant said you refused to supply a surname. I don't like mysteries and I don't like women who mistakenly think that I am gullible enough to be taken in by sob stories or fairy tales. You got me here, and now that I'm here you will give me a few answers. Starting with your name. Your full name.'

‘Julia Nash.' She waited to see whether he would react, but he didn't. She hadn't been certain whether he would have recognised the name, but Caroline must have kept it to herself after she had made her grand confession all those years ago. Even in the throes of her emotional distress, she had been quick-witted enough to foresee possible consequences.

‘The name means nothing to me,' he said dismissively. He inclined his body slightly to catch their waitress's eye, which seemed remarkably easy. She had removed herself physically from the scene of the action, but had remained at a close distance, fascinated by the strikingly commanding man in his impeccably tailored grey suit. As if an outward show of civilised dress could disguise the primitive male beneath. What a joke, Julia thought.

‘Nor,' he continued, after he had ordered a whisky on the rocks, ‘have I ever met you before in my life.' He had leaned back into his chair but his presence was still as unsettling as when he had been looming over her.

Riccardo had delved into his memory banks and could state that without fear of contradiction. The name meant nothing to him, even though his antennae had sensed her fear that it might have, and he certainly would have recognised her, if only because she would have stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the parade of beautiful blondes who littered his life.

He took his drink from the waitress without even bothering to glance in her direction, instead choosing to focus his unremitting attention on the woman sitting across the table from him.

‘Can I get either of you something to eat?'

‘I doubt I will be here long enough,' Riccardo said, briefly looking at the waitress, who nodded in utter confusion at her abrupt dismissal.

‘How do you know you haven't met me before?' Julia asked, clutching cravenly at any postponement to what she had to impart, and his lips curled into a coldly speculative smile.

‘I have never been attracted to little sparrows,' he drawled, knowing that his uncalled-for and cunningly placed attack had a lot to do with the residue of anger lingering inside him.

That stung, but Julia refused to allow her hurt to show. She would also refuse to allow her loathing for the man sitting in front of her to show either. Loathing that had been already formed by the opinions she had made about him from what she had heard.

‘You can be reassured that little sparrows find vainglo
rious hawks equally unappealing,' Julia said with a tight smile.

‘So, now that we have done away with the pleasantries, why don't we just get down to business, Miss Nash? Because business is what you have in mind, is it not?' He rested his elbows on the table and swallowed back the remainder of his drink. ‘Perhaps you mistakenly thought that an unusual approach might reward you with a job in one of my companies? If so, then I regret to inform you that I am not a man who favours the unusual approach, especially when it encroaches on my limited and hence very valuable personal time.'

‘I'm not after a job, Mr Fabbrini.'

The hesitation was back in her eyes. Through thick black lashes he continued to observe her barely concealed nervousness, the way her slim fingers tried to find refuge in clasping her glass, cradling it, using it as something to steady her apprehension.

Very few things in life evoked Riccardo Fabbrini's curiosity. His meteoric rise through his father's ailing firm had been achieved through cold, calculated hard-headedness and a logical ability to scythe through problems. Curiosity was an emotion that deflected from his sense of purpose and nothing in his adult life had had much power to arouse it.

Even women were as predictable as the ocean tides, despite their reputation to the contrary.

Now, though…

The little sparrow in front of him was stirring something in him. Certainly nothing of a sexual nature, although, behind those prim little spectacles, her eyes were an unusual shade of grey and her body wasn't bad, for someone who could do with putting on a bit of weight. Especially around the bust. And her voice. No wonder Mrs Pierce had been
taken in. He was almost looking forward to whatever outrageous lie was hovering behind those delicate lips.

‘Money, then,' he said carelessly. ‘Are you some kind of charity worker? Mission: hunt down prospective bank balances and tout for donations? If that's the case then make an appointment with my secretary. I'm sure something could be arranged.'

‘It's not as easy as that.'

Riccardo was almost disappointed that he had guessed correctly and that money was at the root of this ridiculous charade that had forced him to cancel a date with his latest blonde bombshell. Although, to be perfectly honest, the blonde bombshell was due to be cancelled anyway. Regrettably. She had overstepped boundaries which he himself was only vaguely aware of imposing.

‘I beg to differ, Miss Nash. It seems a simple equation and not one that called for this level of subterfuge. You want money, I have money. Just tell me the cause and you'll find that I can be generous with my donations.' He pushed back his chair at an angle so that he could cross his legs and draped his arm over the back of the chair, glancing around him.

‘There's no equation to be worked out.'

Riccardo glanced at her. ‘No equation? Then tell me what you want and let's get this over with. As I said to you, I am not a man who appreciates mysteries and this one is outstaying its limited welcome.'

Julia paled, realising that retreat was no longer an option. Had never really been an option, although there had always been the illusion of one. But how was she going to phrase what she had to say? She was a teacher. She should have had a thousand words at her disposal, but none that catered for this particular reality. Unfortunately.

She lifted her eyes bravely to look at him and was overwhelmed by the dark, brooding intensity of his gaze.

‘It's about your wife. Your ex-wife. Caroline.' She watched as the darkly handsome contours of his face stilled. When he made no response, Julia took a deep breath. ‘I thought you might have recognised my name,' she said quietly. ‘Well,
Nash
. I thought you might have recognised my surname. But Caroline must not have ever told you…'