Mistress to the Mediterranean Male (Mills & Boon By Request)

by Carole Mortimer

  As Francesco gazed at her profile, at the suddenly vulnerable droop of her mouth, her original question came back to badger him. If he was truthful, he didn’t know why he was here. His firm intention had been to steer clear until he received news from Peggy that she had been delivered of the child and that, after a suitable interval, was being driven back to Rylands and the care of her parents. At which point, knowing that he had fulfilled his responsibilities in respect of financial support, he would forget he’d ever met her.

  But something unknown had driven him to alter his plans. To be with her for the birth? To support and comfort her? No way! His body tensed in utter repudiation of that idiotic notion.

  To satisfy himself that everything was going well because the child she was carrying was his and he needed to know—despite the reassuring updates he’d had from his housekeeper—that she had lost that frightening look of bone-deep tiredness? Quite possibly. More than likely, in fact. Certainly much nearer the truth than that other insane thought. Because he wasn’t heartless. Or not completely.

  Satisfied with that explanation for his unannounced visit, he relaxed, veiled his eyes. Watched her.

  It was true, despite her patent disbelief. She was beautiful. All that glorious silky pale hair framing her lovely face, that peachy skin glowing with health now, the huge sparkling deep green eyes and gold-tipped lashes—even her swollen body had a beauty that touched him deeply. His eyes welded to the sinful curve of that luscious pink mouth—the only feature that belied the impression of angelic innocence, an innocence designed to capture the unwary.

  Desire surged through him and he briefly closed his eyes, his teeth clenching. Dio mio! He was no longer unwary! He knew what she was—a scheming, avaricious witch, clever enough to use an act of unworldly innocence to get to him. Unlike the other women who threw themselves at him, dollar signs in neon lights deep in their money-grubbing eyes, recognisable at a hundred paces.

  When he looked at her again his eyes were cold. ‘Finish your breakfast.’ Abruptly pushing back his chair, he walked away.

  The birth couldn’t come soon enough. One of his security men would be delegated to keep a watching brief on the welfare of the child and report back to him. But he need never to have anything to do with the mother again.

  The contractions were ten minutes apart. Anna, sitting on the edge of her bed, pleated her brow. Could a first baby come a week early? And how could you tell if they were false labour pains?

  Everything she’d been told at the antenatal clinic flew out of her head. She pushed her feet into her slippers, reached her shabby old mac from the massive wardrobe and grabbed the small case that had been packed for days. Dithering about whether or not she should wake Peggy and Arnold was senseless. They wouldn’t hold it against her if it was a false alarm.

  But out in the dimly lit corridor a contraction so strong it sent her staggering with shock into a delicate table, sending the china bowl of pot-pourri flying, had her deciding that this was happening. This was real.

  Almost immediately two doors opened. Francesco was already pulling on a pair of dark trousers, hopping on one leg, his soft black hair a rumpled tangle, and Peggy was pushing her arms into a quilted housecoat.

  ‘I’ll take her, Peggy. Go back to bed.’ One look at Anna, an awful old coat over a voluminous cotton nightdress, her smooth brow glistening with beads of sweat, told him all he needed to know. To his housekeeper’s protest he said, ‘It will save time,’ and to Anna, ‘Stay there. I’ll fetch the car.’

  Beyond caring who escorted her, Anna watched him fly down the stairs, pulling a dark blue cashmere sweater over his head as he went, and slowly followed, Peggy’s hand on her elbow. The anxious father-to-be. A nice thought, but thoroughly erroneous. He just didn’t fancy the idea of her giving birth on the priceless hall carpet.

  ‘He’s so perfect!’ Anna raised love-drenched eyes from her beautiful baby to his father, past wrongs forgotten in this moment of pure joy.

  To her eternal surprise and gratitude Francesco hadn’t left her side for one moment, encouraging her, praising her, bossing the medical team as if he knew what she needed and they didn’t, holding her hand and mopping her brow. So he had earned this moment of blissful truce.

  Awestruck, Francesco touched his newborn son’s velvety cheek, saw the big, slightly unfocussed eyes open and meet his, and fell irretrievably in love.

  His son. Flesh of his flesh. A lump rose painfully in his throat. How could he ever, for one single moment, have believed he could remain at a distance, never see this tiny miracle’s first smile, hear his first word, watch him take his first steps, guide him through his childhood and adolescence, see him safely to manhood?

  Madre di Dio! He must have been out of his mind if he’d ever imagined he could give his child up.

  He wasn’t like his father. He would die before he closed his heart to his son just because his son’s mother was a deceitful, avaricious witch!

  ‘I will go and phone the good news through to your parents,’ he excused himself gruffly, leaving his precious new son with a wrench, his mind already formulating hard and fast rules for the future.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THREE weeks later Anna replaced the receiver on its wall mount in the showcase kitchen. She’d been helping Peggy prepare lunch when the call had come through.

  ‘Not bad news?’ Peggy looked up from the chopping board, her head tipped to one side.

  ‘Not good.’ Dismay made her voice thin. ‘My mother—it seems our family home is to be sold.’

  Mum had sounded so flat as she’d broken the news. ‘I’ve finally got your father to agree that selling up here is the only way to pay off all those debts. He dug his heels in, of course—it’s taken me weeks to persuade him, and I hated having to argue with him, but it had to be done. There’ll be nothing left over—what the bank doesn’t take, the other creditors will. He’ll have to keep that labouring job on, unfortunately, and I’ll try to find something, too. We’ll have to rent a couple of rooms somewhere. They call it downsizing, don’t they?’

  Her attempt at breezy humour had brought tears to Anna’s eyes, but she’d blinked them away as she listened.

  ‘If you hadn’t been so awkward over Francesco’s monthly allowance you could easily have afforded to rent a nice cottage for you and little Sholto. You’ll have to explain your new circumstances and ask for the full amount to be reinstated.’

  Anna hadn’t argued with that unwelcome, untenable advice. But asking Francesco anything was a distinct impossibility. She hadn’t seen or heard from him since the day after their baby’s birth when he’d walked in and told her, while sweeping his sleepy son out of his crib and cuddling him close to his broad accommodating chest, that they had to choose a name together. Now.

  She’d accepted his odd command, and they’d finally settled on Sholto, just like proper parents. Since then she’d seen or heard nothing. He’d done what he’d always meant to do—left them behind, walked away. She’d told herself over and over that she’d expected it, so why did she feel as if she’d lost something? It didn’t make sense.

  Removing the apron Peggy insisted she wore—though her shabby maternity dress wasn’t worth protecting, and she didn’t have anything more suitable to wear because when half-heartedly packing before coming here she’d expected to be taken home on discharge from the clinic—she stated, ‘I’ve been idling around for far too long in the lap of luxury. I must go home and help them through this.’

  Her parents would be feeling gutted at the prospect of losing Rylands—her father rightly blaming himself and her mother loyally blaming everyone else and trying very hard, bless her, not to cry. ‘I’ll look up train times, then pack.’

  Aiming a wobbly smile in Peggy’s direction, Anna headed for the stairs. The fully equipped nursery had been the first surprising intimation that she and Sholto were expected to remain at Francesco’s London address for a week or two after Arnold and Peggy had collected them from the cli
nic. How long she would have stayed if she hadn’t had that phone call she didn’t know. Until Francesco eventually returned, unable to drag herself away until she’d seen him again?

  Mounting the stairs, she compressed her soft lips, cross with herself for that unbidden and somehow demeaning thought. She would always remember his kindness, his unstinting support while she had been giving birth, but that didn’t mean she wanted to see him again. Ever, she stressed firmly as she entered the room set aside as a nursery and bent over her sleeping son, her heart swelling with love. She was unaware that the moment she’d closed the kitchen door behind her Peggy had darted to the phone.

  Although it was only early afternoon Anna shifted with impatience on the velvet-upholstered chair she’d dragged to the window of the first-floor sitting room.

  Watching for Arnold’s return.

  ‘Arnold will drive you to your parents’ home.’ Peggy had popped her head round the nursery door while Anna had been feeding Sholto. ‘He’s out on an errand at the moment, so you can have lunch before you set out.’

  ‘Oh—if he doesn’t mind …’ It would be a great relief to be travelling in the comfort of the spacious Lexus kept for the Powells’ use rather than having to carry Sholto and all his attendant impedimenta on public transport. Nevertheless, it seemed an imposition.

  ‘Of course not! It will be his pleasure. Mind you, I’ll really miss having you and baby around,’ she’d added. Then, ‘As soon as you’ve finished here come down for lunch.’

  Lunch, helping Peggy clear up afterwards, and then her packing, had passed the time. But now, waiting, it hung heavily. It would be a wrench to have to end this interlude of comfort and luxury, with no care in the world except the sheer pleasure and joy of looking after her baby.

  But it had been only a brief interlude, and harsh reality was calling her back.

  There would be so much to do. Smartening Rylands for the sale was a no-go area. They would need an army of unaffordable painters and decorators, gardeners and so on. No, she would have to get her business up and running again. Mum, on her meet-your-new grandson visit, had said she’d be more than happy to babysit while she was working. It would be a terrible wrench to leave him, but it would have to be done. And then, of course, she’d have to help find somewhere cheap to rent for them to live—

  The sound of a car drawing to a halt below had her on her feet. Expecting Arnold, she felt her heart jerk painfully when she looked down and saw Francesco swing smoothly out of the Ferrari.

  Leaping back from the window, Anna put her hand to her breast, where her heart was behaving as if she’d just run a double marathon. Her knees were shaky as she headed across the room. She hated the way he could still affect her—hated him for the way he had lied to her, used her body, shattered her confidence and broken her heart.

  Reminding herself that there was nothing between them now but that maintenance contract, sternly telling herself she’d moved on, she opened the door and stepped out onto the soft carpeting of the hushed first-floor corridor, determined to go down and politely explain that she and Sholto would be leaving as soon as Arnold returned. Thank him—but not too fulsomely—for his hospitality.

  But he was ahead of her—literally. She watched his broad, elegantly suited back disappear into the nursery next to the bedroom she’d been given. After a sharp intake of breath she followed, and emotional turmoil welled up inside her as she saw him standing over the crib, one hand going out to gently touch the sleeping baby’s velvety cheek.

  She should be there, at his side. Both of them adoring this precious life they’d created between them, secure in their commitment to each other, their love, their future together. For a bleak moment she felt helplessly excluded.

  It wasn’t like that. It never could be. They weren’t a real family unit, she reminded herself on a spurt of anger. He might find his baby son a transient novelty, but as far as he was concerned his son’s mother was just one in a line of discarded bedmates. She was surprised he’d even remembered her name!

  ‘Don’t worry—I won’t be sponging on your charity much longer. I’ll be out of your hair just as soon as Arnold turns up!’ The words were low, full of anger, and she didn’t know where they’d come from. Propelled from deep inside her on an unstoppable surge of emotional chaos, a light year away from the polite and dignified leavetaking she’d meant to deliver.

  Slowly, Francesco straightened, turned. His eyes, she noted uncaringly, were like chips of ice, his lean face was hard, his beautiful mouth stark. So she was being rude and objectionable, as he’d labeled. Something he wouldn’t stand for in anyone, and certainly not in an ex-lover he’d discarded like so much trash! So what did she care?

  Every nerve-end bristling, she walked further into the room. Mindful of the need not to wake the baby, her words were low but as haughty as she could make them. ‘Close the door on your way out. And let me know when Arnold gets back.’

  She might have known! One stride brought him to her side. His hand was on her arm and she was with him, out of the door in the time it took to flick an eyelash.

  ‘You don’t tell me what to do!’ His words stung her as he closed the nursery door quietly behind them. ‘From now on I call the shots. I advise you to accept that with grace. Otherwise you will suffer the consequences of my displeasure.’

  ‘I’m shaking already!’ she sniped, trying to get her breath back, trying to wrest her arm free of his punitive grip and failing. ‘Only remember,’ she flung at him as he frog-marched her back into the sitting room, ‘I’ll be gone as soon as Arnold gets back, so you’ll be “calling the shots”, as you put it, to thin air!’

  ‘Compose yourself.’ He steered her towards the chintz-covered sofa. ‘I have something to say to you regarding your future. And my son’s.’

  What? Suddenly dreadfully nervous, she sat, her mind frantically worrying over what was going on in his mind. She watched him as he was watching her, his savagely handsome features unreadable.

  He’d said ‘my son’, and she’d seen how he’d looked at little Sholto as he’d slept only a few minutes ago, remembering how, during that short time he’d spent with them in the clinic and when he’d insisted on choosing a name, how he had held the tiny shawl-wrapped bundle so tenderly.

  Ice clamped her heart. Did he mean to take her baby from her? He couldn’t do that, could he? She wouldn’t let him! Sounding tougher than she felt, she swept her hair out of her eyes with one hand and lashed, ‘Spit it out, then! As soon as Arnold gets here, I’m off. With Sholto,’ she stressed.

  Francesco held up a lean hand to silence her, and her generously curving mouth closed instinctively while an unwelcome twist of nervous excitement wriggled inside her. She watched dark colour steal over his prominent cheekbones when his eyes, drawn to her mouth, stayed there until, his own mouth suddenly tightening, he stated harshly, ‘Peggy phoned me to tell me you were leaving. Arnold won’t be taking you anywhere—I suggested he take the opportunity to visit his brother.’

  ‘Then we’ll get a train!’ Anna said thinly, absorbing that bombshell, deeply hurt because Peggy had fooled her, gone behind her back, lied about Arnold driving her. During her time here she’d really believed the older woman was her friend.

  So the train it would have to be. She wouldn’t dream of asking her father to fetch her in her van. The state it was in, it probably wouldn’t do the distance. Besides, he drove like a lunatic, his head in the clouds. But …

  ‘Nick will collect us!’ Why hadn’t she thought of him before? He’d do anything for her; he’d always said so.

  Leaping to her feet, not looking at Francesco, she started for the door, but his tall frame came between her and her objective, strong hands on her shoulders, staying her.

  ‘You are going nowhere. So you can forget your knight in shining armour,’ he stated icily. ‘And don’t blame Peggy. I’ve had to be away, but I instructed her to let me know if you showed signs of leaving with my son, and to keep you here until I man
aged to get back. Fortunately I’d just arrived back from Italy for a board meeting at the London office.’

  For a moment their eyes clashed. Hers stormy green, his steel. His words weren’t making sense, because physical response flared through her at his touch. Her breath caught in her throat and tears of shame stung the backs of her eyes. She knew what a louse he was beneath that sensationally attractive exterior, so why was he able, with one touch, to make her feel so desperately needy? Needy for him.

  She should be immune to all that raw sexuality. Despising herself because she wasn’t, she pushed out thickly, ‘Why?’

  The moment the question was out she knew it was redundant. She knew why. He wanted Sholto. Everything pointed to it. Gently, he pushed her unresisting body back onto the sofa and joined her, angling his virile frame into the corner. Watching her.

  Her spine slumping, Anna tried to will away the wave of weakness that was now swamping her. What would he do? Offer her money to relinquish all rights to her baby? Hire a team of hotshot lawyers to gain custody through the courts if she refused—as she would?

  She wouldn’t let him! She would fight for her baby until the last breath left her body, she vowed, hysteria rising. Because she knew he was ruthless, an arch manipulator, with the vast financial backing to get what he wanted.

  Apprehension ripped through her as she waited for an answer. And waited. Until, on the point of screaming, she risked a direct look.

  Emotionless silver eyes looked back at her. One dark brow rose with insulting indolence as he drawled, ‘Tantrum over? Willing to listen?’

  As unwilling as it was possible to be! But the sooner she knew his intentions the more time she’d have to work out how to fight him. Her hands shook. She twisted her fingers together, not wanting him to see how nervous she was. Her face pale, she nodded.

  ‘I shall marry you.’

  Anna’s breath snagged in her throat. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, nipping to convince herself she wasn’t dreaming. A statement so blandly spoken he might as well have announced that he was going to get a haircut!