Dante Claiming His Secret Love-Child

“Is your clothing packed?”

Her eyebrows rose. “Why?”

“Dammit, just answer the question. I can hire someone to pack this stuff, whatever you don’t want to leave behind.”

“I am perfectly capable of doing it myself.”

He took a deep breath. “I’m taking you with me. To New York.”

She stared at him as if he’d lost his sanity. “Why would you do that? Why would I permit you to do that?”

“Because I say so.”

She looked up into his eyes. He meant every word; she knew it. The blood of his ancestors flowed within him. He was a man who would not tolerate any obstacles once he had decided he wanted something.

There had been times he’d been like that in bed.

The tender Dante, the sweet lover she’d adored, would vanish. His lovemaking would turn hot and hungry. He’d clasp her wrists, hold her arms above her head, say things, tell her things while he was deep inside her, while his body moved within hers, and at those moments she would come and come and come…

“I do not take orders from you,” she said, forcing the unwelcome memories away.

A muscle knotted in his jaw. “Listen to me, I can’t leave you here alone, and I can’t stay with you. You must come with me. You and the baby.”

“The baby.” Her voice broke. “The baby you still think does not belong to you.”

He knew what she wanted him to say, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. “There’s no other solution.”

She shook her head. “It is all happening too fast,” she whispered. “Much, much too fast. I need time to think. To plan.”

She was right about everything happening fast. He’d come back to Brazil to make careful arrangements. Give her the fazenda, arrange for paternity tests, set up funds for her and the child, do all the right things but do them logically and slowly.

Taking her with him flew in the face of all that.

His plan had turned into no plan at all, certainly not one Sam or any other good attorney would advise, much less approve.

And yet, what else could he do? Leave her to the not so tender mercies of Ferrantes?

“It is quick,” he said, because what good would it be to lie? He framed her face with his hands and slowly raised it to his. “We’ll work out the details later. And it will all work out. You’ll see.”

She hesitated. He could almost see her weighing his words.

“Dante,” she said, “I do not think—”

“Good,” he said softly. “Don’t think. Just trust me. Say you’ll come with me.”

She wanted to trust him. At least, her heart did. Her head said something else…but then he bent to her and kissed her and, like a fool, she agreed.

CHAPTER EIGHT

DANTE stood on the wraparound terrace of his two-story Central Park West penthouse, a cup of rapidly cooling coffee in his hand.

Was it possible he’d been away from New York for only two days?

It felt more like weeks.

Either autumn had suddenly overtaken the park or he simply hadn’t noticed it, now that the leaves of the maples, oaks and sycamores far below were turning rich shades of crimson, brown and gold. Up here the mums and asters and who-knew-what-else his sister Isabella had planted in big redwood tubs had burst into vivid bloom.

Izzy would be thrilled.

She’d planted them last spring. Even when she was a kid, she’d loved to dig around in the dirt.

Cesare would spend hours in the fenced-in yard behind the house in the Village, planting, then feeding and watering his annual crop of tomatoes. Izzy would accompany him, down on all fours tending the scraggly daisies that seemed the only flowers hardy enough to survive the Manhattan air. Now, all grown up, she’d taken one look at Dante’s terrace after he’d bought the penthouse, gotten a dreamy look and said she could just imagine how perfect some plantings would be here, and here, and here….

So he’d let her poke and plant, he’d teased her like crazy and the result had been a summer of roses and daffs and other stuff, and now here came autumn.

His first reaction, seeing the blaze of color this morning, was to grab the phone, call her and say, “Hey, Iz, so maybe playing in the dirt isn’t such a bad thing.”

“It’s called gardening, you idiot,” Iz would say, and laugh.

Except, he couldn’t tell her.

She’d want to come by, and how could he let that happen because if she did stop over, if any of his family did, how in hell would he explain the woman and baby living in the guest suite?

Would he say, “Hi, good to see you and by the way, this is Gabriella—no, I don’t think I ever introduced you to her before, Mama, and oh, by the way, this is her baby who might, emphasis on the ‘might,’ also be mine and yeah, that ‘might’ is important because somehow or other, I blew straight past the whole DNA/blood-test/paternity-test thing…”