The Italian's Christmas Secret

here was somebody else who didn’t like her—but someone she suspected wouldn’t display a tight-lipped intolerance whenever the baby started to cry. Because it was his baby, too. And didn’t all parents love their children, no matter what?

A powerful image swam into her mind of a man whose face she could picture without too much trying. She knew what she had to do. Something she’d thought about doing every day since Santino’s birth, and in the nine months preceding it, until she’d forced herself to remember how unequivocally he’d told her he never wanted to see her again. Well, maybe he was going to have to.

Her fingers were shaking as she scrolled down her phone’s contact list and retrieved the number she had saved, even though the caller had hung up on her the last time she’d spoken to him.

With a thundering heart, she punched out the number. And waited.

* * *

Rain lashed against the car windscreen and flurries of falling leaves swirled like the thoughts in Matteo’s mind as his chauffeur-driven limousine drove down the narrow suburban road. As they passed houses which all looked exactly the same, he tried to get his head round what he’d learned during a phone call from a woman he’d never thought he’d see again.

He was a father.

He had a child.

A son. His heart pumped. In a single stroke he had been given exactly what he needed—though not necessarily what he wanted—and could now produce the grandson his father yearned for.

Matteo ordered the driver to stop, trying to dampen down the unfamiliar emotions which were sweeping through his body. And trying to curb his rising temper about the way Keira had kept this news secret. How dared she keep his baby hidden and play God with his future? Grim-faced, he stepped out onto the rain-soaked pavement and a wave of determination washed over him as he slammed the car door shut. He was here now and he would fix this—to his advantage. Whatever it took, he would get what he wanted—and he wanted his son.

He hadn’t told Keira he was coming. He hadn’t wanted to give her the opportunity to elude him. He wanted to surprise her—as she had surprised him. To allow her no time to mount any defences. If she was unprepared and vulnerable then surely that would aid him in his determination to get his rightful heir. Moving stealthily up the narrow path, he rapped a small bronze knocker fashioned in the shape of a lion’s head and moments later the door was opened by a woman with tight, curly hair and a hard, lined face.

‘Yes?’ she said sharply. ‘We don’t buy from the doorstep.’

‘Good afternoon,’ he said. Forcing the pleasantry to his unwilling lips, he accompanied it with a polite smile. ‘I’m not selling anything. I’d like to see Keira.’

‘And you are?’

‘My name is Matteo Valenti,’ he said evenly. ‘And I am her baby’s father.’

The woman gasped, her eyes scanning him from head to toe, as if registering his cashmere coat and handmade shoes. Her eyes skated over his shoulder and she must have observed the shiny black car parked so incongruously among all the sedate family saloons. Was he imagining the look of calculation which had hardened her gimlet eyes? Probably not, he thought grimly.

‘You?’ she demanded.

‘That’s right,’ he agreed, still in that same even voice which betrayed nothing of his growing irritation.

‘I had no idea that...’ She swallowed. ‘I’ll have to check if she’ll see you.’

‘No,’ Matteo interrupted her, only just resisting the desire to step forward and jam his foot in the door, like a bailiff. ‘I will see Keira—and my baby—and it’s probably best if we do it with the minimum of fuss.’ He glanced behind him where he could see the twitching of net curtains on the opposite side of the road and when he returned his gaze to the woman, his smile was bland. ‘Don’t you agree? For everyone’s sake?’

The woman hesitated before nodding, as if she too had no desire for a scene on the doorstep. ‘Very well. You’d better come in.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I’ll let Keira know you’re here.’

He was shown into a small room crammed with porcelain figurines but Matteo barely paid any attention to his surroundings. His eyes were trained on the door as it clicked open and he held his breath in anticipation—expelling it in a long sigh of disbelief and frustration when Keira finally walked in. Frustration because she was alone. And disbelief because he scarcely recognised her as the same woman whose bed he had shared almost a year ago—though that lack of recognition certainly didn’t seem to be affecting the powerful jerk of his groin.

Gone was the short, spiky hair and in its place was a dark curtain of silk which hung glossily down to her shoulders. And her body. He swallowed. What the hell had happened to that? All the angular leanness of before had gone. Suddenly she had hips—as well as the hint of a belly and breasts. It made her look softer, he thought, until he reminded himself that a woman with any degree of softness wouldn’t have done what she had done.

‘Matteo,’ she said, her voice sounding strained—and it was then he noticed the pallor and the faint circles which darkened the skin beneath her eyes. In those fathomless pools of deepest blue he could read the vulnerability he had wanted to see, yet he felt a sudden twist of something like compassion, until he remembered what she had done.

‘The very same,’ he agreed grimly. ‘Pleased to see me?’

‘I wasn’t—’ She was trying to smile but failing spectacularly. ‘I wasn’t expecting you. I mean, not like this. Not without any warning.’

‘Really? What did you imagine was going to happen, Keira? That I would just accept the news you finally saw fit to tell me and wait for your next instruction?’ He walked across the room to stare out of the window and saw that a group of small boys had gathered around his limousine. He turned around and met her eyes. ‘Perhaps you were hoping you wouldn’t have to see me at all. Were you hoping I would remain a shadowy figure in the background and become your convenient benefactor?’

‘Of course I wasn’t!’

‘No?’ He flared his nostrils. ‘Then why bother telling me about my son? Why now after all these months of secrecy?’

Keira tried not to flinch beneath the accusing gaze which washed over her like a harsh ebony spotlight. It was difficult enough seeing him again and registering the infuriating fact that her body had automatically started to melt, without having to face his undiluted fury.