by Lynne Graham
After all, her knowledge of Cesare then had been formed on the basis of that one fatal night and his subsequent conduct. She had pictured him denying that he was the father of the child she was expecting or, perhaps even worse, furiously and resentfully accepting responsibility and making it very clear that she was now an even more unwanted embarrassment.
But now she knew that Cesare had sacked her not because she had shared his bed but because he believed that she had acted dishonestly and betrayed him. In a veil of pain, she recalled his accusation that she had betrayed him ‘as an employee and as a lover’. Yet, even crediting that, Cesare had still sought reassurance that she was not pregnant, had tried to contact her, find her…
Dear God, what a mess, Mina reflected wretchedly. If only she had the power to turn the clock back and know what would have happened and how he would have behaved had he found her! Maybe the whole mess could have been sorted out then, but would it really have made any great difference in the long run?
True, he might have given her financial help but it was not as though he had loved her or even been interested enough to toy with the idea of a continuing relationship with her. For Cesare that night had been a mistake and on that basis Susie had to be an even bigger mistake in his book.
‘Hi…’ Mina smiled but there was an air of uneasiness about her as she hovered in the aisle of the giant greenhouse.
Steve straightened from the pricelist he was checking and dealt her a sullen look which made her heart sink. ‘Why didn’t you join the rest of us for dinner at the Coach last night?’
‘Sorry; I didn’t feel much like going out.’
The past two days had been very tense for Mina. She had been waiting for the phone to ring, the doorbell to shrill. But there hadn’t been a single word from Cesare, only a silence which could be read in half a dozen ways and which had merely increased the burden of her anxiety. How did Cesare intend to deal with the discovery that he was the father of a three-year-old daughter? Or indeed did he intend to deal with it at all?
‘I didn’t feel much like socialising either but I went.’ Steve moved closer without warning and reached for her hands, holding them in a tight grip, preventing her retreat. ‘How the hell could you go off with Falcone like that?’ he demanded furiously. ‘You made me look a right fool!’
Mina had tensed. ‘I——’
Unhidden bitterness had darkened his blue eyes. ‘Seeing him brought it all back. If it hadn’t been for him——’
‘Cesare had nothing to do with our break-up!’ Mina protested, finding that her worst apprehensions had been justified. Cesare’s descent had reanimated Steve’s resentment and she had little doubt that his unreasonable attitude had been encouraged by her sister over the dinner the night before.
‘I really loved you——’
‘But you’ve got Jenny now,’ Mina whispered tautly, looking up at him with pain-filled eyes, inwardly begging him not to lay that guilt-trip on her as well.
‘You are so very beautiful.’ Steve lifted a hand and touched a glossy strand of her golden hair. ‘So perfect——’
‘Mina…?’
Both their heads spun round. Mina froze at the sight of Cesare where he stood in the doorway. More casually dressed than she had ever seen him, he sported cream chino trousers and a black open-necked shirt under a light jacket, but, for all that, the entire outfit was exquisitely tailored, stamped with Italian designer chic. He looked gorgeous. Her heart skipped a beat. Her mouth ran dry.
Surprise had made Steve loosen his grip and she freed her other hand from his belatedly, her skin burning. She could have screamed at the fate which had decreed that Cesare should witness this particular encounter. She knew exactly how he would translate what he had seen. Now he would probably think she had been lying when she had said that Steve was not her lover.
‘Baxter told me I had just missed you. Susie showed me the short cut.’
Susie peeped round Cesare and emerged, untouched by the raw tension holding all three adults taut. She had a teddy bear clutched in both arms. In the simmering silence she poked at the bear and it started to sing, its mouth and eyes moving. A nervous giggle convulsed Mina’s throat. But then she encountered Cesare’s hooded dark gaze and all desire to laugh was instantly banished. That look was like an ice-cold hand on her spine.
‘I’ll see you,’ she said to Steve.
‘I’m not going to bite again!’ Susie carolled, offering up her bear for admiring inspection. ‘And I said thank you! Do you know I have a granny who loves little girls?’
‘A granny…do you?’ Mina’s response was faint as she followed her daughter back out into the fresh air. For some reason she hadn’t been prepared for Cesare arriving with a present for Susie, signifying a clear desire to further their acquaintance, but she was even less prepared for hearing Susie cheerfully talking about Cesare’s mother as her grandmother.
‘Perhaps you will tell Susie who I am as soon as possible,’ Cesare suggested drily.
‘Don’t you think that would be a bit premature?’ Mina murmured, struggling to conceal her consternation.
‘Not at all, considering that the news will be coming to her three and a half years too late.’
Mina shot him a startled glance as she traversed the stile that led from the garden centre car park into the field. Cesare held her gaze with icy cold challenge and she lost colour, apprehension suddenly filling her. He had changed. And she felt that change as strongly as though he had slammed a door in her face. He was detached from her in a way that was frighteningly new to her. Finding out about Susie had done this. She had sensed that chill from the moment he first looked at her. It intimidated her.
‘Are you saying that you want to play a part in her life?’ she prompted in a strained voice, striving to imagine what her life would be like with Cesare dropping in and out of it as he pleased.
‘A permanent part.’
‘Really?’ Mina tautened, and a long silence fell.
She had expected Cesare to make some crack about the scene he had interrupted but he didn’t and she was relieved. Steve’s behaviour on its own was a sufficient worry. If he was still attracted to her, how could she work for him? Maybe he had only been reacting to the past, which had so suddenly been raked up; maybe within a few days his current response to her would melt away again…but what if it didn’t? Mina did not want to be guilty of coming between Steve and Jenny.
‘We’ll talk inside,’ Cesare decreed as he strolled into the house. He bent down as Susie tugged at his trouser leg. ‘I’ll see you later,’ he murmured with more warmth than Mina would have believed possible, considering the mood he was in.
She pushed open the door of the rarely used drawing-room. ‘I’ll make some coffee,’ she said breathlessly.
‘Forget the coffee,’ Cesare advised with grim emphasis.
As he closed the door, Mina folded her arms and wandered over to one of the sash windows. She felt cornered. He was going to offer her money towards Susie’s support. What else could he want to discuss? She found the concept unutterably humiliating but possibly she would have felt able to be less emotional and more practical had she not been in love with him, she acknowledged unhappily.
‘I won’t waste your time or mine with trivialities,’ Cesare asserted. ‘The bottom line is that I want my child.’
Mina spun back to him, her fine brows drawing together.
‘And I would prefer to get her without a fight,’ Cesare delivered in the same cool, controlled tone.
‘I don’t understand…’ Mina whispered shakily, skimming suddenly damp palms down over her thighs.
‘I can give her a great deal more than you can.’
Mina could feel the blood draining from beneath her skin, shock turning her flesh clammy.
Cold dark eyes rested on her without compassion. ‘I’m willing to legally adopt her.’
Mina licked her dry lips in a flickering motion. ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘She�
�s my child and I want her——’
‘The implication being that I don’t?’ Mina gasped. ‘You’re not talking about the take-over of some company, Cesare, you’re talking about my daughter!’
‘And mine,’ he reminded her, with a flash of deep anger briefly illuminating his winter-dark gaze to pure gold. ‘But you were quite content to ignore my rights for over three years—why do you then expect me to be so much more generous when it comes to yours?’
‘I’m not talking about rights, I’m talking about feelings,’ Mina muttered unevenly, still too shaken by a development she had not foreseen even in her worst nightmares. He wanted to take Susie away from her. She couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe it.
‘Are you trying to say that you considered mine?’
Mina flushed and sank down on the edge of a nearby chair, her knees too wobbly to hold her upright. ‘I didn’t know you would have any feelings…I mean, if you didn’t know…’ she stumbled.
‘But I do know now and I have not the slightest intention of leaving you in sole possession of my daughter,’ Cesare informed her flatly.
‘You’re trying to punish me.’ Mina hadn’t meant to say it out loud but she was in such conflict, she let the thought escape.
An almost imperceptible darkening of colour accentuated the hard slant of his cheekbones. ‘I want what is best for my child and I am not leaving her in this house to live on your family’s charity!’
‘Baxter’s offered me a cottage which will be vacant this autumn. Susie and I will be living alone and you can visit as much as you want…or I could even bring her up to London!’ Mina suggested in a frantic rush, willing to do just about anything to placate him until she could get her thoughts back under control.
‘I want more than that small share offered at the point of a gun,’ Cesare derided.
‘You want blood…well, I am not giving Susie up!’ Mina sprang upright, sudden fury powering her, her amethyst eyes brilliant as jewels. ‘And what sort of man are you to demand that? I love her very much and whether you appreciate it or not she loves me too, and not all the money in the world is likely to compensate her for losing her mother!’ she shouted back at him with clenched fists.
Cesare lifted a broad shoulder and shrugged with Latin cool, his intent scrutiny a glittering sliver of unreadable gold below luxuriant lashes. ‘You have a point.’
Disconcerted by the swiftness of his agreement, her emotions all churning about wildly inside her, Mina drew in a deep, shaky breath of relief.
‘If you’re not prepared to give her up and you feel that she would be emotionally damaged by such a separation,’ Cesare drawled smoothly, ‘then I have little choice but to offer you a home as well.’
Mina blinked rapidly. She was sure she hadn’t heard him right. ‘P-pardon?’
‘Trailing you through court for custody would be a deeply unpleasant experience for all of us and very upsetting for Susie,’ Cesare murmured very softly. ‘And even though I’d throw everything I’ve got at you, I might not win. A foreigner in a British court, a father suing a mother…my lawyers were reluctant to go beyond a fifty-fifty estimate of my chances of success.’
Mina viewed him with stricken eyes and ended up sinking back down on the chair. ‘Your 1-lawyers?’
‘Naturally a man in my position would take legal advice.’
Nasty little cramps were pulling at her stomach. Her head was pounding. She was sick with horror at the facts he was reeling off with complete cool.
‘You see, I feel very strongly about this,’ Cesare told her quite unnecessarily.
‘Yes,’ she conceded numbly.
‘But accepting you along with Susie would be the wiser alternative from the child’s point of view.’
It took Mina at least thirty seconds to untangle and absorb that statement. ‘I don’t quite understand what you mean by that.’
‘If I married you, I would have all the time in the world to get to know my daughter,’ Cesare drawled without any expression at all. ‘And Susie would have the benefit of two parents.’
CHAPTER SIX
‘IF YOU married me?’ Mina parroted in a voice that even to her own ears sounded strangled.
‘In addition, Susie would have my name. That is important to me. She would share my home. That is also important to me. And she would have her mother,’ Cesare enumerated coolly.
She noticed that he didn’t include Susie’s having her mother as being important to him. Clearly that could only be seen as an advantage to Susie. Shell-shocked by the suggestion that they marry, Mina swallowed hard. ‘But——’
Cesare let her get no further. ‘You can’t live with me without a wedding-ring, not with Susie around. She would be branded as my illegitimate child and I don’t want her to bear that label.’
‘No?’ Mina was flat out of anything else to say. But she had an extraordinarily powerful desire to slap him hard and see if the ice cracked. Cesare at his most unlovable, she reflected, trying to inject a little humour into her growing sense of mortification. How to propose marriage like a business deal with Susie as the most desirable asset!
She knew Cesare. He would have cut his throat sooner than offer her marriage on any other terms! He didn’t want to marry her but if marrying her was the only sure way to acquire Susie, who had had a meteoric rise from revolting status, he would bite the bullet.
‘Susie deserves the very best that I can give her. My parents did that for me. I will do it for her,’ Cesare imparted with grim emphasis. ‘If I did anything less, it would be on my conscience forever. So call me when you’ve decided what to do.’
In disbelief, Mina watched him stride out of the door. She flew upright and chased after him, bubbling with frustration and anger. ‘Cesare?’
He swung gracefully round on the steps, his strong face hard and impassive.
With difficulty, she held back her anger. ‘Don’t you think this is something we need to discuss in more depth?’
‘Perché…why?’
‘I think that has to be the stupidest question you have ever asked me,’ Mina protested helplessly.
‘What more is there to say?’ he breathed tautly. ‘The court or the church. The choice is yours.’
For a split-second she glimpsed the rage he was struggling to conceal behind the cold front of detachment. His ferocious tension sprang out at her. Abruptly, he turned from her again and strode towards his car.
She was outraged that she had to run after him again. But he spun back before she could even speak. ‘How could you keep my child from me? How could you do that?’ he demanded rawly.
Mina fell back a step, shattered by the force of his embittered stare. ‘I didn’t think you’d want to know…’ she whispered painfully, savaged by that ringing condemnation.
‘What do you know about me?’ Cesare spread both hands wide in a sudden violent movement that fully expressed all the emotion he had been suppressing. ‘What have you ever known about me?’
‘Probably only what you choose to show,’ Mina conceded grudgingly. ‘And between you and me and the gatepost, Cesare, that is not a lot!’
‘Dio mio…what is that supposed to mean?’ he slashed back at her.
Mina bit into the soft underside of her lower lip, wishing she had kept her mouth shut, but remembered pain stirred when she thought about the night on which Susie had been conceived. Cesare was not verbal about his feelings. So presumably he hadn’t had any particular feelings that night. That had only been sex. She ought to be grateful he hadn’t told her any lies but one of her own most painful memories was telling him that she loved him. And not just once either…she had been so overcome by what had happened between them, she had been floating on cloud nine.
She compressed her lips. ‘It’s not important, but when you talk about marriage,’ she muttered, ‘that is important.’
‘From Susie’s point of view,’ Cesare stressed. ‘I’m putting her needs before my own. For me, it is not a question of personal
choice. It is a very basic instinct that I should take full responsibility for my own child…and what real decision is there for you to make? Am I not offering you the lifestyle you have always wanted?’
Deadly pale, Mina lifted her head high. ‘You don’t know what I want!’
With a rough laugh of disagreement, Cesare swung into his car.
‘If I’m so greedy for money, Cesare, ask yourself why I didn’t tell you about Susie years ago,’ Mina suggested furiously. ‘Legally you would have had to support her and I could have lived very nicely off the proceeds. So tell me, why didn’t I do that?’
A smouldering silence stretched. She could see the frustration currenting through him. He could not explain such an inconsistency and that merely served to infuriate him more. He muttered something vicious in his own language.
‘You can’t answer that one, can you? Or what about why I would be plotting and planning to enrich myself by deception in a boring nine-to-five job when I could have forced you to keep us both?’
‘Give me time and I’ll work it out!’ Cesare swore with vehemence, shooting her a look of derisive brilliance, refusing to back down. But she knew she had made her point and if anything illustrated the intensity of Cesare’s emotional conflict in recent days it was his failure to see that point for himself. She had had no need to struggle for survival or plan to defraud a charity, not while she stood in possession of the child of a very wealthy man. Susie could have been the gravy train she rode for her own selfish benefit.
‘What did he want?’ Winona demanded from behind her.
She was grimly amused by the low profile her twin had kept during Cesare’s visit. Her sister was still recovering from the sensation that she had made a fool of herself forty-eight hours earlier. ‘He…’ Mina hesitated ‘…he suggested that we consider getting married,’ she finally completed.
