The Italian's Christmas Secret

by Sharon Kendrick

  A son he had barely seen.

  Guilt formed itself into an icy-cold knot deep in his chest and was enough to dissolve his lethargy. Untwining himself from Keira’s arms, he moved away from the desk, bending to pull up his jeans and zip them. Only then did he stare down at her, where she lay with her eyes closed amid the debris of his wrecked desk. Her cotton nightshirt was rucked right up to expose her beautiful breasts and her legs were bent with careless abandon. The enticing gleam between her open thighs was making him grow hard again but he fought the feeling—telling himself he needed to start taking control. He would learn about his son in time—he would—but for now his primary purpose was to ensure that Santino remained a part of his life, and for that to happen he needed Keira onside.

  So couldn’t their powerful sexual chemistry work in his favour—as effective a bargaining tool as his vast wealth? Couldn’t he tantalise her with a taste of what could be hers, if only she was prepared to be reasonable? Because Keira Ryan was unpredictable. She was proud and stubborn, despite the fact that she’d been depending on other people’s charity for most of her life, and he was by no means certain that she would accede to his wishes. So maybe it was time to remind her just who was calling the shots. He bent and lifted her into his arms, cradling her against his chest as her eyelashes fluttered open.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she questioned drowsily.

  ‘Taking you back to bed.’

  She yawned. ‘Can’t we just stay here?’

  He gave an emphatic shake of his head. ‘No.’

  Keira closed her eyes again, wanting to capture this feeling for ever—a feeling which went much deeper than sexual satisfaction, incredible though that side of it had been. She had felt so close to Matteo when he’d been deep inside her. Scarily close—almost as if they were two parts of the same person. Had he felt that, too? Her heart gave a little leap of hope. Couldn’t they somehow make this work despite everything which had happened? Couldn’t they?

  Resting her head against his warm chest, she let him carry her through the house to her own room, not pausing until he had pulled back the duvet and deposited her in the centre of the soft bed. Only then did her eyelids flutter open, her heart missing a beat as she took in his gleaming torso and powerful thighs. She stared up at him hopefully. Was he going to lose the jeans and climb in beside her, so she could snuggle up against him as she so desperately wanted to do and stroke her fingers through the ruffled beauty of his black hair?

  She watched as his gaze swept over her, the hectic glitter of hunger in their ebony depths unmistakable. And she waited, because surely it should be him asking her permission to stay? She didn’t know very much about bedroom etiquette, but instinct told her that. She recognised that she’d been a bit of a pushover back there, and it was time to show the Italian tycoon that he might need to work a little harder this time.

  ‘So?’ She looked at him with what she hoped was a welcoming smile.

  ‘That’s better. You don’t smile nearly enough.’ His finger traced the edges of her lips as he leaned over her. ‘All the bad temper of this afternoon banished in the most pleasurable way possible.’ He stroked an exploratory finger over the tightening nipple beneath her nightshirt. ‘Was that what you needed all along, Keira?’

  It took a few moments for his meaning to sink in and when it did, Keira could hardly believe her ears. A powerful wave of hurt crashed over her. Was that all it had been? Had he made love to her as a way of soothing her ruffled emotions and making her more amenable? As if he were some kind of human sedative? She wanted to bite down hard on her clenched fist. To demand how someone so cold-blooded could possibly live with himself. But she forced herself to remain silent because only that way could she cling onto what was left of her battered pride. Why give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d hurt her? If he was going to act so carelessly, then so would she. And why be so surprised by his callous behaviour when he hadn’t shown one fraction of concern for his baby son. Matteo Valenti was nothing but a manipulative and cold-blooded bastard, she reminded herself.

  Hauling the duvet up to her chin, she closed her eyes. ‘I’m tired, Matteo,’ she said. ‘Would you mind turning off the light as you go?’

  And then, deliberately manufacturing a loud yawn, she turned her back on him.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  KEIRA DIDN’T SAY a word to Matteo next morning, not until they were halfway to Rome and his powerful car had covered many miles. The fierce storm had cleared the air and the day had dawned with a sky of clear, bright blue—but the atmosphere inside the car was heavy and fraught with tension. She was still feeling the painful tug of saying goodbye to Santino, though he’d been happily cradled in Claudia’s arms when the dreaded moment had arrived. But as well as the prospect of missing her baby, Keira was still smarting from what had happened the night before.

  She’d woken up with a start soon after dawn, wondering why her body felt so...

  Slowly she had registered her lazy lethargy and the sweet aching between her legs.

  So...used.

  Yes, used, that was it. Used. Vivid images had flashed through her mind as she remembered what had happened while the storm raged outside. Matteo unzipping his jeans and pushing her onto his desk. Matteo rucking up her nightdress before thrusting into her and making her cry out with pleasure. It had hardly been the stuff of fairy tales, had it? So why not concentrate on the reality, rather than the dumb romantic version she’d talked herself into when she was lying quivering beneath his sweat-sheened body?

  He had cold-bloodedly seduced her after days of acting as if she didn’t exist. He had invited her to witness the storm from the best vantage point in the house and, although it had been the corniest request in the world, she had agreed. Trotting behind him like some kind of puppy dog, she’d had sex with him. Again. Keira closed her eyes in horror as she remembered the way she’d clawed at his bare back like some kind of wildcat. Did her inexperience explain the fierce hunger which had consumed her and made her unable to resist his advances? Or was it just that Matteo Valenti only had to touch her for her to come apart in his arms?

  And now the trip to Rome, which she’d already been dreading, was going to be a whole lot worse. Bad enough being in the kind of car she’d lusted after during her days as a mechanic—and having it driven by someone else—without the knowledge of how smug Matteo must be feeling. Why, he hadn’t even wanted to spend the night with her! He’d just deposited her in her bed like some unwanted package and behaved as if what had happened had been purely functional. Like somebody scratching an itch. Was that how it had been for him, she wondered bitterly? Had he seen her as a body rather than a person?

  ‘So, are you going to spend the next twenty-four hours ignoring me?’ Matteo’s voice broke into her rebellious thoughts as they passed a signpost to a pretty-looking place called Civita Castellana.

  Keira wanted to pretend she hadn’t heard him but that was hardly the way forward, was it? She mightn’t be happy with the current state of affairs, but that didn’t mean she had to lie down and passively accept it. Unless she was planning on behaving like some sort of victim—allowing the powerful tycoon to pick her up and move her around at will, without her having any say in the matter. It was time she started asserting herself and stopped beating herself up. They’d had sex together as two consenting adults and surely that put them on some kind of equal footing.

  So ask him.

  Take some of the control back.

  She turned her head to look at his profile, trying not to feel affected by that proud Roman nose and the strong curve of his shadowed jaw. His silk shirt was unbuttoned at the neck, offering a tantalising glimpse of olive skin, and he exuded a vitality which made him seem to glow with life. She could feel a trickle of awareness whispering over her body and it made her want to fidget on the plush leather car seat.

  She wanted him to touch her all over again. And when he touched her she went to pieces.

  Firmly pushing all eroti
c possibilities from her mind, she cleared her throat. ‘So why this trip, Matteo?’

  There was a pause. ‘You know why. We’ve discussed this. We’re going to buy you some pretty clothes to wear.’

  His words were deeply patronising and she wondered if that had been his intention—reminding her that she fell way short of his ideal of what a woman should be. ‘I’m not talking about your determination to change my appearance,’ she said. ‘I mean, why bring me to Italy in the first place? That’s something we haven’t even discussed. What’s going to happen once you’ve waved your magic wand and turned me into someone different? Are you planning to return me to England in your fancy plane and make like this was all some kind of dream?’

  His mouth hardened into a flat and implacable line. ‘That isn’t an option.’

  ‘Then what are the options?’ she questioned quietly.

  Matteo put his foot down on the accelerator and felt the powerful engine respond. It was a reasonable question, though not one he particularly wanted to answer. But he couldn’t keep on putting off a conversation they needed to have because he was wary of all the stuff it might throw up. ‘We need to see whether we can make it work as a couple.’

  ‘A couple?’

  He saw her slap her palms down on her denim-covered thighs in a gesture of frustration.

  ‘You mean, living in separate parts of the same house? How is that in any way what a couple would do?’ She sucked in a breath. ‘Why, we’ve barely seen one another—and when we have, it isn’t as if we’ve done much talking!’

  ‘That can be worked on,’ he said carefully.

  ‘Then let’s start working on it right now. Couples aren’t complete strangers to one another and we are. Or at least, you are. I told you a lot about my circumstances on the night we...’ Her voice wavered as she corrected herself before growing quieter. ‘On that night we spent together in Devon. But I don’t know you, Matteo. I still don’t really know anything about you.’

  Matteo stared at the road ahead. Women always asked these kinds of questions and usually he cut them short. With a deceptively airy sense of finality, he’d make it clear that he wouldn’t tolerate any further interrogation because he didn’t want anyone trying to ‘understand’ him. But he recognised that Keira was different and their situation was different. She was the mother of his child and she’d given birth to his heir—not some socially ambitious woman itching to get his ring on her finger. He owed her this.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ he questioned.

  She shrugged. ‘All the usual stuff. About your parents. Whether or not you have any brothers or sisters. That kind of thing.’

  ‘I have a father and a stepmother. No siblings,’ he said, his voice growing automatically harsher and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do to stop it. ‘But I have a stepbrother who’s married, with a small child.’

  He could feel her eyes on him. ‘So your parents are divorced?’

  ‘No. My mother is dead.’

  ‘Like mine,’ she said thoughtfully.

  He nodded but didn’t say anything, his attention fixed on the road ahead, trying to concentrate on the traffic and not on the bleak landscape of loss.

  ‘Tell me about your father,’ she said. ‘Do you get on well with him?’

  Some of the tension left his body as he overtook a truck and he waited until he had finished the manoeuvre before answering. He wondered if he should give her the official version of his life, thus maintaining the myth that all was well. But if she stayed then she would soon discover the undercurrents which surged beneath the surface of the powerful Valenti clan.

  ‘We aren’t close, no. We see each other from time to time, more out of duty than anything else.’

  ‘But you mentioned a stepmother?’

  ‘You mean the latest stepmother?’ he questioned cynically. ‘Number four in a long line of women who were brought in to try to replace the wife he lost.’

  ‘But...’ She hesitated. ‘None of them were able to do that?’

  ‘That depends on your definition. I’m sure each of them provided him with the creature comforts most men need, though each marriage ended acrimoniously and at great financial cost to him. That’s the way it goes, I guess.’ His hands tightened around the steering wheel. ‘But my mother would have been a hard act for any woman to follow—at least according to the people who knew her.’

  ‘What was she like?’ she prompted, and her voice was as gentle as he’d ever imagined a voice could be.

  Matteo didn’t answer for a long time because this was something nobody ever really asked. A dead mother was just that. History. He couldn’t remember anyone else who’d ever shown any interest in her short life. He could feel the tight squeeze of his heart. ‘She was beautiful,’ he said eventually. ‘Both inside and out. She was training to be a doctor when she met my father—an only child from a very traditional Umbrian family who owned a great estate in the region.’

  ‘The farmhouse where we’ve been staying?’ she questioned slowly. ‘Is that...?’

  He nodded. ‘Was where she grew up, sì.’

  Keira nodded as slowly she began to understand. She gazed out of the window at the blue bowl of the sky. Did that explain his obvious love for the estate? she wondered. The last earthly link to his mum?

  ‘Does your father know?’ she questioned suddenly. ‘About Santino?’

  ‘Nobody knows,’ he said harshly. ‘And I won’t let it be known until we’ve come to some kind of united decision about the future.’

  ‘But a baby isn’t really the kind of thing you can keep secret. Won’t someone from the farm have told him? One of the staff?’

  He shook his head. ‘Discretion is an essential quality for all the people who work for me and their first loyalty is to me. Anyway, my father isn’t interested in the estate, only as...’

  ‘Only as what?’ she prompted, her curiosity sharpened by the harsh note which had suddenly entered his voice.

  ‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter. And I think we’ve had enough questions for today, don’t you?’ he drawled. He lifted one hand from the steering wheel to point straight ahead. ‘We’re skirting Rome now and if you look over there you’ll soon be able to see Lake Nemi.’

  Her gaze followed the direction of his finger as she tried to concentrate. ‘And that’s where you live?’

  ‘That’s where I live,’ he agreed.

  They didn’t say much for the rest of the journey, but at least Keira felt she knew a little more about him. And yet it was only a little. He had the air of the enigma about him. Something at the very core of him which was dark and unknowable and which seemed to keep her at arm’s length. Behind that formidable and sexy exterior lay a damaged man, she realised—and something about his inner darkness made her heart go out to him. Could they make it as a couple? she wondered as they drove through a beautiful sheltered valley and she saw the silver gleam of the lake. Would she be a fool to want that?

  But the stupid thing was that, yes, she did want that, because if Santino was to have any kind of security—the kind she’d always longed for—then it would work best if they were a couple. Her living with Matteo Valenti as his lover and mother to his son...would that be such a bad thing?

  Her daydreaming was cut short by her first sight of Matteo’s villa and she began to wonder if she was crazy to ever imagine she would fit in here. Overlooking Lake Nemi, the apricot-coloured house was three storeys high, with high curved windows overlooking acres of beautifully tended gardens. And she soon discovered that inside were countless rooms, including a marble-floored dining room and a ballroom complete with a lavish hand-painted ceiling. It felt more like being shown round a museum than a house. Never had her coat felt more threadbare or the cuffs more frayed as it was plucked from her nerveless fingers by a stern-faced butler named Roberto, who seemed to regard her with complete indifference. Was he wondering why his powerful employer had brought such a scruffy woman to this palace of a place? Keira swallowed. Wa
sn’t she wondering the same thing herself?

  After ringing the farmhouse and being told by Paola that Santino was lying contentedly in his pram in the garden, Keira accepted the tiny cup of espresso offered by a maid in full uniform and sat down on a stiff and elegant chair to drink it. Trying to ignore the watchful darkness of Matteo’s eyes, she found herself thinking about the relaxed comfort of the farmhouse and felt a pang as she thought about her son, wondering if he would be missing his mama. As she drank her coffee she found herself glancing around at the beautiful but cavernous room and suppressed a shiver, wondering how much it must cost to heat a place this size.

  ‘Why do you live here?’ she questioned suddenly, lifting her gaze to the dark figure of the man who stood beside the vast fireplace.

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘Why wouldn’t I? It has a fresher climate than the city, particularly in the summer months when it can get very hot. And it’s a valuable piece of real estate.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it.’ She licked her lips. ‘But it’s enormous for just one person! Don’t you rattle around in it?’

  ‘I’m not a total hermit, Keira,’ he said drily. ‘Sometimes I work from here—and, of course, I entertain.’

  The question sprang from her lips before she could stop it. ‘And bring back loads of women, I expect?’

  The look he shot her was mocking. ‘Do you want me to create the illusion that I’ve been living a celibate life all these years?’ he asked softly. ‘If sexual jealousy was the reason behind your question?’

  ‘It wasn’t!’ she denied, furious with herself for having asked it. Of course Matteo would have had hundreds of women streaming through these doors—and it wasn’t as if he were her boyfriend, was it? Her cheeks grew red. He never had been. He was just a man who could make her melt with a single look, no matter how much she fought against it. A man who had impregnated her without meaning to. And now he was observing her with that sexy smile, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. As if he was perfectly aware that beneath her drab, chain-store sweater her breasts were hungering to feel his mouth on them again. She could feel her cheeks growing warm as she watched him answer his mobile phone to speak in rapid Italian and when he’d terminated the call he turned to look at her, his hard black eyes scanning over her.