The Consequences of That Night

She looked at her boss uneasily. “I know.” In spite of all his kindness, she’d found herself wondering lately if he might be more interested in her than was strictly proper for an employer. She’d told herself she was imagining things. But still... She shook her head. “We’ll be fine. I can take care of us.”

Ahead, she saw Alain’s black limited-edition Range Rover parked illegally on the Avenue de la Bourdonnais, with his chauffeur running the engine.

“After what he did to my sister, I won’t let any woman be hurt by Cesare Falconeri, ever again,” Alain vowed. Emma stiffened.

“Cesare didn’t do anything to her. It was a tragic accident. He loved her.”

“Ah, but you think the best of everyone.” His expression changed from rage to gentleness as he looked down at her. His jaw tightened. “Even him. But that bastard doesn’t deserve you. He’ll get what he deserves. Someday.”

Looking at him, Emma’s heart trembled at what she might have unthinkingly done by accepting a job with Alain. He was convinced that his sister’s death had been something more than a tragic accidental overdose. But Cesare was innocent. He’d never been charged with any crime. And Emma, of all people, knew how he’d loved his wife. She took a deep breath and changed the subject.

“Sam and I will be fine,” she said brightly. “Cesare doesn’t want a family to tie him down. He’ll soon return to London and forget all about us.”

But as dark clouds crossed the bright sun, Emma thought of the tender expression on Cesare’s face when he’d first caressed his baby son’s cheek. And she was afraid.

* * *

“To the airport, sir?”

Cesare leaned back heavily in the backseat of the Rolls-Royce. For a moment he didn’t answer the driver. He pressed his hands against his forehead, still trembling with shock and fury from what he’d learned.

He had a child.

A son.

A baby born in secret, to the woman who’d left him last November without a word. And gone to work for his enemy.

Closing his eyes, he pressed his fingertips against the lids. He didn’t believe Emma had gotten pregnant on purpose. No. She’d been right to laugh at his knee-jerk reaction earlier. She was clearly no gold digger. But leaving him in London, without a word, taking his child away, taking his decision away...

He took a deep breath. She’d done it all as if Cesare didn’t even matter. As if he didn’t even exist.

“Sir?”

“Yes,” he bit out. “The airport.”

The limousine pulled smoothly back into the Paris traffic. Cesare’s throat was tight. He struggled to be fair, to be calm, when what he wanted to do was punch the seat in front of him and scream.

His baby was being raised in the house of Alain Bouchard, a man who unfairly blamed him for his sister’s death. Bouchard didn’t know the truth, and knowing how the man had loved his sister, Cesare had kept it that way.

But now, he pictured Bouchard’s angry face, the way he’d stepped protectively in front of Emma.

Was it possible that over the past year, while Cesare had been celibate as a monk hungering for her, Emma had become Bouchard’s lover?

No, his heart said. Impossible. But his brain disagreed. After all, the two of them were living in the same house. Perhaps she’d been lonely and heartsick. Perhaps he’d found her crying in the kitchen, as Cesare once had, and she’d fallen into the other man’s bed, as she’d once fallen into his.

He hopelessly put his hands over his ears, as if that could keep his own imagination away. Anger built inside Cesare, rising like bile in his soul.

As the car turned west, heading toward the private airport outside the city, he looked out the window. He could see the top of the Eiffel Tower above the charming buildings, over two young lovers kissing at a sidewalk café.

He ground his teeth. He’d be glad to leave this damn city. He hated Paris and everything it stood for. The romance. The love.

Whether Emma was Bouchard’s mistress or not, she had no love for Cesare anymore. She’d made her low opinion of him, as a potential father or even as a human being, very clear. She didn’t want a thing from him. Not even his money. The thought made him feel low.

It would be simple to take the easy out she offered. Leave Paris. Go back to London. Forget the child they’d unintentionally created.

His child.

He could still see the baby’s face. His soft black hair. Those dark eyes, exactly like his own.

He had a son.

A child.

He closed his eyes. Over the memory of the baby’s sweet babble, he heard Emma’s voice: We don’t need you. We don’t want you.

Cesare’s fist hit the window with a bang.

“Sir?” His driver quivered, looking at him in the rearview mirror.

Cesare’s eyes slowly opened. Perhaps he wasn’t ready to be a father. But that no longer mattered.

Because he was one.

“Go back.”

“Back?”

“To my hotel.” Cesare rubbed at the base of his skull. “I’m not leaving Paris. Take me back now.”

Pulling his phone from his pocket, he dialed a number in New York City. Mortimer Ainsley had been his uncle’s attorney, twenty years ago, and presided over his will when he’d died and Cesare gained possession of his aging, heavily mortgaged hotel. Later, Mortimer Ainsley had looked over the prenuptial agreement given to Cesare by Angélique Bouchard, the wealthy older French heiress who had proposed after just six weeks.

Morty, who’d appeared old to Cesare’s eyes even then, had harrumphed over the terms of Angélique’s prenup. “If you leave this Bouchard woman, you get nothing,” he’d said. “If she dies, you get everything. Not much of a deal for you. She’s only ten years older so it may be some time before she dies!”

Cesare had been horrified. “I don’t want her to die. I love her.”

“Love, huh?” Morty had snorted. “Good luck with that.”

Remembering how young and naive he’d been, Cesare waited for Morty to answer the phone. He knew the old man would answer, no matter what time it was in New York right now. Morty would know the right attorney in Paris to handle a custody case.

Better no father at all than a father like you.

Cesare’s jaw tightened. Emma would realize the penalty for what she’d done. She’d see that Cesare Falconeri would not be ignored, or denied access—or even knowledge!—of his own child.

“Ainsley.” Morty’s greeting was gruff, as if he’d just woken from sleep.

“Morty. I have a problem....” Without preamble, Cesare grimly outlined the facts.

“So you have a son,” Morty said. “Congratulations.”

“I told you. I don’t have a son,” Cesare said tightly. “She has him.”

“Of course you can go to war over this. You might even win.” Morty cleared his throat. “But you know the expression, Pyrrhic victory? Unless the woman’s an unfit mother...”

Cesare remembered Emma’s loving care of the baby as she pushed him in the stroller through the park. “No,” he said grudgingly.

“Then you have to decide who you’re willing to hurt, and how badly. ’Cause in a custody war, it’s never just the other parent who takes it in the neck. Nine times out of ten, it’s the kid who suffers most.” Morty paused. “I can give you the number of a barracuda lawyer who will cause the sky to rain fire on this woman. But is that what you really want?”

As his Rolls-Royce crossed the Seine and traveled up the Avenue George V, Cesare’s grip on his phone slowly loosened. By the time he ended the call a few minutes later, as the car pulled in front of the expensive five-star hotel where he’d stayed through the business negotiations, Cesare’s expression had changed entirely.

The valet opened his door. “Welcome back, monsieur.”

Looking up, Cesare didn’t see the imposing architecture of the hotel as he got out. Instead he saw Emma’s troubled expression when they’d parted in the Champ de Mars.

She was expecting him to start a war over this. Christo santo, she knew him well. Now that he knew about Sam, she expected him to fight for custody, to destroy their peace and rip their comfortable life into shreds. And then after that, after he’d made a mess of their lives for the sake of his pride, she expected Cesare to grow bored and quickly abandon them both.

That was why she hadn’t told him about the baby. That was why she thought Sam was better off with no father at all. She truly believed Cesare was that selfish. That he’d put his own ego over the well-being of his child.

His lips pressed into a thin line. He might have done it, too, if Morty hadn’t made him think twice.

You have to decide who you’re willing to hurt, and how badly. ’Cause in a custody war, it’s never just the other parent who takes it in the neck. Nine times out of ten, it’s the kid who suffers most.

Before his own parents died, Cesare’d had a happy, almost bohemian childhood in a threadbare villa on Lake Como, filled with art and light and surrounded by beautiful gardens. His parents, both artists, had loved each other, and they’d adored their only child. The three of them had been inseparable. Until, when he was twelve, his mother had gotten sick, and her illness had poisoned their lives, drop by drop.