A Scandal, a Secret, a BabyMarriage Scandal, Showbiz Baby!

by Sharon Kendrick

  Trying to conceal her shape behind a rack of designer clothes, she peered out through the blur of rain. People were hastily putting up their umbrellas. Others were standing huddled beneath bus shelters as they sought to avoid the daily spectacle of the tropical storm. Nobody seemed to be looking in her direction. Nobody at all.

  Justina swallowed down the sudden dryness in her throat. Was she simply going crazy—imagining that someone was following her? That another photographer planned to leap out to take a picture? She couldn’t understand why the press were so interested in the fact that she was having a baby when loads of women had babies out of wedlock these days without stigma.

  Yet she couldn’t deny the media interest—especially since the Lollipops Sweetest Hits had been re-released just before Roxy’s wedding and had stormed up the charts all over the world. She still had a public profile, which had become higher as a result of those renewed sales. On days where there wasn’t a lot of news around she could still sometimes find one of those rather depressing pieces about ‘unlucky in love’ Justina Perry hidden in the back pages of the newspapers—the ones which wondered why she was still single.

  Only now she had given them an even bigger story—STILL SINGLE AND NOW EXPECTING! WHO’S THE MYSTERY FATHER, JUSTINA?

  After she’d gone through the first stages of dismay and denial, she had tried to conceal her pregnancy for as long as possible—and when that had become out of the question she had stayed out of the limelight as much as she could. But the press were like hungry dogs. One sniff of a juicy story and they came looking. Lately there’d been a whole spate of articles speculating about the identity of her baby’s father—she was just praying that nobody had seen her disappearing from Roxy’s wedding with Dante D’Arezzo. That was the kind of snippet which would find its way into a gossip column, forever linking her name to the Italian billionaire.

  ‘Can I get you a chair, ma’am?’

  Justina turned round to find a shop assistant regarding her with concern. Perhaps she was worried that the tired-looking Englishwoman was about to give birth in the middle of her shop and it wasn’t really Justina’s role to reassure her that she wasn’t due for another five weeks.

  ‘No, thanks. I’m fine. I’ll take a cab back to my hotel. The rain looks as if it’s stopping now.’

  ‘You’re sure, ma’am?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’ From somewhere, she summoned up a smile. ‘Quite sure.’

  But during her shivering journey back to Raffles Hotel, where she always stayed when she was in the city, Justina couldn’t seem to halt the thoughts which seemed determined to keep any peace of mind at bay. Round and round in her head went the indisputable truth. She was pregnant with Dante’s baby and terrified he would find out.

  Distractedly, she rubbed at her temples. He was bad news. He was a player. He was everything that was dangerous in a man—especially where she was concerned. He had taken her to bed and soared with her to the stars before they crashed back down to earth again. And she couldn’t just blame Dante for what had happened, because she had been culpable, too. She’d practically ripped his clothes off and ravished him, despite all the terrible history between them.

  She felt the sudden clench of her heart, but it was more with anger than with pain. She had been headstrong and stupid. She had given in to desire without thinking about the consequences and that’s why she found herself in this position. But there was no way she was going to go running to him. Not when he’d made it clear that what had happened had been a regrettable one-off.

  She kept telling herself that interest would die down if she kept her counsel. She lived the kind of international life where it was perfectly acceptable to be vague about the identity of her baby’s father. The people she wrote songs for wouldn’t have cared if the devil himself had claimed paternity. The only person who was really interested was the London doctor whose care she was under—and he wasn’t making any moral judgements. That was the sum total of people it really affected. She certainly wasn’t relying on any help from her mother, whose reaction to the news had been entirely predictable—if a little sad.

  ‘I’m not ready to be a grandmother!’ Elaine Perry had snapped, not seeming to notice Justina’s white-faced response.

  Justina had stared at the woman with whom she had such a complicated relationship. Her once-beautiful mother, who was unable to accept that her looks were now fading and who tried to compensate for that by slapping on far too much make-up. ‘But, Mum—’

  ‘Don’t “Mum” me! If you think I’m spending my time knitting bootees or acting as an unpaid babysitter, then you’re mistaken, Justina.’ A coy smile had followed as the older woman had fiddled with hair which was growing thinner by the year. ‘I do still have a busy social life of my own, you know.’

  And Justina, feeling sick for all kinds of reasons, had not responded. What compassion could she expect from a woman whose life had been spent as mistress to a series of wealthy men she’d milked for every penny she could? Who was now reduced to living with some creepy and aging roué in the centre of Paris?

  Justina still felt shaky as her cab drew up outside the hotel and she went inside to collect her key from the desk in the spacious lobby. The atmosphere of the iconic hotel usually had a soothing effect on her. The faded brocade chairs and tall potted palms always made her think of a more elegant time, and whenever she stayed there she felt part of it. Only today the magic of Raffles wasn’t working. She felt as if she was on a tiny raft, bobbing around in an unforgiving sea, with no real place to go and drop anchor.

  Maybe she needed the restorative power of a deep bath and a strong cup of tea, and then she would—

  ‘Justina.’

  Someone was saying her name in a way which only one person ever could. Disbelief made her skin turn to ice as she heard the voice which had haunted her waking thoughts and troubled dreams for the past seven and a half months. She shook her head in hopeful denial. She was imagining it. She had to be imagining it.

  Slowly she turned to see the dark and forbidding figure of Dante D’Arezzo, and her heart began to flutter wildly in her chest. No. She wasn’t imagining it. Nobody else spoke like that. And nobody else looked like that either. Dante was here in the flesh—vibrant with life and looking immaculate in cool, pale linen, his face an intimidating study of dark fury as his gaze seared into her.

  The angled slant of his cheekbones cast shadows over his features and his mouth was grim and unsmiling. She had never seen his powerful body look quite so tense. The only thing about him which moved was a little muscle which was flickering at his temple. For a moment she swayed with the sheer shock of seeing him, but maybe he’d anticipated that kind of reaction for his hand reached out towards her. Strong fingers clamped around her forearm to steady her, and she could feel the burning warmth of his flesh digging into her icy skin. And God forgive her but her body instantly thrilled to that touch, even though it was more the touch of a captor than a lover. She could feel her shivering response to him, and she wondered if he could feel it, too.

  ‘What...what are you doing here?’ she demanded shakily as his brilliant gaze scorched through her.

  Dante’s heart began to accelerate with anger as he looked into her white face. What did she think he was doing here? Doing a leisurely tour of the Far East and bumping into her quite by chance? Did she imagine he was going to ask her to the bar to join him for one of the hotel’s famous Singapore Slings?

  ‘You and I need to talk,’ he said grimly.

  Justina bit her lip as distracted, crazy thoughts began to rush into her head. What if she called out and told the staff that she was being harassed? Wouldn’t that sound bad, coming from a heavily pregnant woman? Wouldn’t he instantly be ejected from the hotel, and probably from the country itself?

  She wasn’t so sure that he would. Dante could smooth-talk his way through most things.
She could imagine him turning the full force of his charm on hotel security and managing to convince them that it was her hormones at work. And when it all boiled down to it her hormones were the only reason he was here. He wasn’t here because he missed her or because he wanted her back in his bed. He wanted to speak to her about something which was glaringly obvious to both of them and she must accede to his wishes. She owed him that much, at least.

  ‘Not here,’ she said, her throat so dry that her words sounded strangled. ‘We can go and have coffee in the Writers’ Bar and—’

  ‘No,’ he snapped, imperiously cutting through her suggestion. ‘I don’t intend to have this conversation while you play to the crowd, Justina. Take me to your room.’ He saw the brief look which hovered in her eyes and his mouth twisted with derision as he lowered his voice to a deadly hiss. ‘Oh, please don’t worry that I’m about to seduce you. Because let me assure you that’s the last thing on my mind right now. In fact, let me put it even more plainly, just so that we can be very clear about where we stand. If you and I were alone on a desert island I think I’d gladly embrace celibacy rather than risk coming within two feet of you, you manipulative little bitch.’

  The vitriol in his voice made Justina’s hand fly to her lips in horror as she looked at him. Did he really hate her that much? But even if he did he had no right to talk to her that way. She was carrying a baby beneath her heart, and even if he wished it wasn’t his baby it was certainly her baby, and she would defend it with every ounce of strength in her body.

  So stop letting him intimidate you. Have the talk he wants—the talk you know you owe him.

  Because wasn’t this what she had been expecting—and dreading—for months? Wasn’t this very meeting the reason why she’d taken on so many travelling commitments since discovering she was pregnant? Not daring to be in one place too long in case he found her, she had become a kind of bulky fugitive. A woman who was running away from the inevitable—only now the inevitable had caught up with her.

  She shrugged. ‘Okay. We’ll talk. But it might be a good start if you stopped manhandling me like that.’ Pointedly, she glanced down at the olive fingers which were still gripping her forearm, and then up into the hard gleam of his dark eyes. But the terrible thing was that she liked him touching her. For all his cruel words, and her fear of what he wanted, she liked the way he made her feel. And, shamefully, it was deprivation rather than relief which washed over her when he let her go, and her footsteps were a little unsteady as she turned and headed for the staircase.

  Justina was aware of people watching them as they made their way from the public area of the hotel towards the residential part and guessed they must make a bizarre couple. She was all damp and bedraggled after being caught in the tropical storm, and Dante looked so indomitable as he shadowed her, his savagely beautiful face and powerful body making every female guest in the building glance at him twice.

  In silence they walked towards her suite, and the dark gleam of the wooden verandas, the raffia furniture and the scent of flowers drifting up from the courtyard garden failed to calm Justina’s mounting sense of anxiety. By the time she pushed open her door she felt like a piece of elastic which had been stretched so tightly that the faintest movement would violently snap it.

  But she couldn’t carry on feeling frayed and vulnerable like this. She had to stay in control and remember that she was dealing with a man for whom control was key. Some primitive part of her wanted to leave the door open—but she knew that the sound of their voices would carry and she couldn’t risk that. With a heavy sigh of resignation, she closed it behind them.

  ‘I need to use the bathroom,’ she said.

  It seemed almost too intimate a thing to say—which was a bizarre thought in the circumstances—but Justina needed to do more than relieve her pregnancy-weak bladder. Pride made her tug a brush through hair which was hanging down her back like rats’ tails, and to slick on some pink lipstick which seemed to be the only colour in her white face.

  She still needed to suck in a deep breath as she prepared to walk back in and face him. She felt sick with nerves—the way she’d used to feel just before she went out on stage—only this was much worse. On stage, her crippling fears had used to vanish the moment she heard the first chord of music and professionalism began to kick in. Today she had no idea how she was going to react to what lay ahead of her. These were new and uncharted waters—and she’d never seen anything more forbidding than the expression on Dante’s dark face as she pushed open the door and walked into the lavish sitting room.

  He was standing in front of the massive floor to ceiling windows which overlooked the veranda and yet somehow he made them look insignificant. His face was hard—like granite—and his eyes were cold as they flicked over the massive swell of her belly, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

  ‘You’d better sit down,’ he said heavily.

  She shook her head. Damn him for trying to act concerned. If he was so concerned then he wouldn’t have leapt out at her like that, downstairs in the foyer. ‘I’d prefer to stand,’ she said.

  For a moment Dante felt immense frustration shimmer over his skin. Wasn’t that typical of Justina? So damned independent that she’d refuse to do the sensible thing. Even though her face looked as pale as flour, she was stubbornly refusing to sit down simply because he had been the one to suggest it.

  ‘Have it your own way.’

  ‘I intend to. How did you find me, Dante?’

  ‘It wasn’t difficult. You don’t exactly blend into a crowd at the moment. I saw the erratic press reports about your...condition, and I worked out that the baby could be mine. I kept thinking that if that were the case you would contact me.’ There was a pause and his eyes burned into her. ‘I kept waiting for you to get in touch, and when you didn’t I thought...’

  His words tailed off. He’d thought that maybe he’d been mistaken, that it wasn’t his baby at all. And hadn’t the thought of that eaten him up with jealousy? The idea that he might have been just one in a line of men who had graced her bed? But the feeling hadn’t left him, and neither had the strange certainty which had flooded through him. It had been certainty which had made him track her down. Which had made him board his private jet to Singapore, where he had been informed that she was staying alone in Raffles Hotel.

  Intently, he stared at her, and he could feel the powerful beat of his heart thundering in his chest. The crazy thing was that he wanted to go over there and place the palm of his hand on her belly, as if to convince himself that this was real. And if he did that could he guarantee that the same dark hunger wouldn’t flicker into life, the way it always did? Why was it that, no matter how much he tried to convince himself otherwise, he could never seem to stop wanting her?

  ‘Is there something you need to tell me?’

  Justina nodded as a wave of emotion threatened to overwhelm her, but somehow she held it back. Don’t act ashamed or intimidated, she told herself. Just deal with the facts. But it was far from easy, because as she faced the accusation in his eyes a terrible yearning threatened to flare up inside her. She found herself wishing this could all have been different. That they were the same two people they’d once been—a couple in love who were planning to be together for the rest of their lives.

  But it was not like that. It was nothing like that. Pointless to waste her time wishing that it was. Pretend you’re doing a television interview, she told herself. Act calmly. Take the emotion out of the subject and try not to turn this into a confrontation.

  Her voice was almost gentle. ‘Is that a roundabout way of asking whether you’re the father, Dante?’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘AM I?’ DANTE STARED at her, and his eyes had never looked colder than they did right then. ‘Am I the father of your baby, Justina?’

  For a moment she hesitated, tempted to tell hi
m no. Because wouldn’t that be easier all round? He could go back to New York and the life he’d made there. She would never have to see him again. Never. Financially—and hopefully emotionally—she could manage to be a good, single mother. Lots of women were.

  But then she thought of the child she carried. The baby who was currently kicking beneath her fluttering heart as if it was trying out for a foetal football team. Could she wilfully deny her child the knowledge of its father just because that father didn’t love her? Wouldn’t that be the most selfish thing she could ever do—especially since she knew the pain and deprivation of growing up without a father? She knew how that could leave an empty hole which nothing could ever fill. She felt fiercely protective of this new life within her—and if she was being protective then that ruled out being selfish, didn’t it? It might be better for her if Dante was out of her life, but it wouldn’t be better for the baby.

  ‘Yes,’ she breathed—and then she said it again, so that there could be no going back. ‘Yes, you are.’

  For a moment he said nothing. He could hear the loud ticking of a clock as a surge of adrenalin flooded through him—his body automatically gearing itself up for fight or flight. He stared down at the elegant table beside him, on which stood a bowl of fruit so perfect that it might have been made from wax. For a split second he wanted to smash his fist through it. To see the apples disintegrating into pulp and the squashed oranges spurting out their juice. The desire was so strong that his big hands clenched into tight fists and he almost raised one. Until he forced himself to face facts as well as to re-exert the habitual control which had momentarily threatened to desert him.

  Don’t forget that this is a very single-minded woman, he told himself, as he stared into her wide amber eyes. Who will do anything to get what she wants out of life. He had witnessed her steely ambition first-hand. He had seen how she’d always put her career before him—it had been the main reason why he’d called off their wedding. So he needed to find out all the facts—not just the ones she had chosen to tell him.