The Italian Billionaire's Secret Love-Child

His eyes on her felt like a physical assault and she found herself cringing back. It would have to stop, she told herself. She was no longer a vulnerable eighteen-year-old girl! She was a woman with a child…Gina.

Fear rammed into her but she managed to keep her expression steady. She would have to get rid of him, and fast, because there was no way that she was going to allow him to find out that she had had a child by him. No way! She had left Italy eight years ago with her life in ruins and she wasn’t going to let it happen again.

‘I realise you might think me unprofessional, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to let someone else show you around this house.’

‘Why?’

‘Isn’t it obvious? We had a disastrous relationship eight years ago and that’s bound to be reflected in my attitude towards you.’

‘If I want this house then I’ll buy it, whatever your attitude happens to be.’

‘That’s as may be,’ Charlotte said coldly. ‘But I’m not prepared to be in your company.’ She reached into her bag for her mobile phone, but before she could flick it open his hand was around her wrist and he was there, invading every atom of her precious personal space.

‘Well, that’s just too bad. I’ve driven quite a way to get here, and I’m not about to get back into my car until I’ve seen this house, so you’re going to get the key out of that briefcase of yours and you’re going to show me around, room by tortuous room, until I’m satisfied. Got it?’

‘Or else what?’

‘Or else I lodge a formal complaint to your boss and make sure he understands that he’s lost a potential sale, a very big potential sale, because of you.’ Riccardo looked at her, hands stuffed into the pockets of his camel coat. His jacket, she realised, was still on the ground from where he had folded it to put under her head.

‘I apologise for your jacket.’ She stooped to pick it up and then stretched it out to him, making sure not to close the safe distance between them. Inside, every bit of her was shaking like a leaf.

Cornered, she stuffed the phone back into her bag and pulled out the keys to the house.

‘Good girl,’ Riccardo said approvingly. He had been shocked to see her, and even more shocked by his reaction which was a certain curious satisfaction, as if the wheel had come full circle, as if he had been waiting for just this moment.

Which, of course, he hadn’t been. That episode in his life had been consigned to history a long time ago. She had been the casual fling who had turned, suddenly, into someone hell-bent on pinning him down. Still, it was amusing to see how much she had changed. Gone was the long, streaky hair, the fresh face, the open smile. In its place was a tailored bob and a guarded, wary expression. She was still as slender as she had been then, though, he thought as his eyes appraised the lines of her body under the business suit. As though it had been yesterday, he remembered the feel of her body under his, and was disconcerted by the impact that fleeting memory had on him.

Abruptly, he turned away, knowing that she was following him.

‘I suppose you ought to know that the land extends to…there…’ Charlotte pointed to various landmarks and made sure she didn’t look at him. ‘There’s the option to buy the adjacent field, but that wouldn’t be necessary as this is all a green-belt area. There’s no chance that planning permission would be given for any domestic housing.’

‘Estate agent. Not what I would have expected of you. But, then again, I really didn’t know you very well, did I, Charlie?’