‘She’s temperamental when she gets upset. I wanted to tell you but a long time ago I swore never to tell anyone that I was her son and she held me to my promise.’
‘Your mother …’ Tawny shook her head very slowly. ‘I never would have guessed that in a million years.’
Over breakfast and only after Tawny had phoned her sisters to tell them that, no, she really wasn’t concerned about silly stories in the papers, Navarre explained the intricacies of his birth, which had been buried deep and concealed behind a wall of lies to protect Tia’s star power. According to Tia’s official history she had been discovered as a fifteen year old schoolgirl in the street by a famous director. Her first film had won so many awards it had gone global and shot her to stardom. In fact the pretence that she was much younger had simply been a publicity exercise and her kid sister’s birth certificate had been used for proof when Tia was actually twenty-one years old. Soon after her discovery she had fallen pregnant by the famous director. A scandalous affair with a married man threatened to destroy her pristine reputation and her embryo career, so Navarre’s birth had taken place in secrecy. Tia had travelled to Paris with her older sister and had pretended to be her so that her baby could be registered as her sister’s child. That cover up achieved, Tia had returned to show business while paying her sister and her boyfriend to raise Navarre in a Paris flat.
Tawny was frowning. ‘Then how come you ended up in foster care?’
‘I have no memory of my aunt at all. She only kept me for a couple of years. The money Tia used to buy her sister’s silence was spent on drugs and when my aunt died of an overdose I joined the care system. I had no idea I had a mother alive until I was eighteen and at university,’ Navarre extended wryly. ‘I was approached by a lawyer first, carefully sworn to silence—’
‘And then you met your mother. Must’ve been a shock,’ Tia remarked.
An almost boyish expression briefly crossed his lean taut face as he looked back into the past and his handsome mouth took on a wry cast. ‘I was in complete awe of her.’
Tawny could hardly imagine the full effect of Tia Castelli on a teenager who had been totally alone in the world all his life. Naturally his mother had walked straight into his heart when he had never had anyone of his own before. ‘She’s very beautiful.’
‘Tia may not be showing it right now but she does also have tremendous charm. Ever since then we’ve been meeting up at least once a month and we often talk on the phone and email. That’s one of the reasons I was so concerned that someone might have accessed my laptop,’ he confided. ‘I’ve seen her through many, many crises and have become her rock in every storm. I’m very fond of her.’
Tawny nodded. ‘Even though she won’t own up to you in public?’
‘What would that mean to me at my age? I know she’s far from perfect,’ Navarre acknowledged with a dismissive lift of an ebony brow. ‘But what else does she know? She was an abused child from a very poor home.’
Tawny was not as understanding of his mother’s flaws as he was. ‘But what did she ever do for you? You had a miserable childhood.’
‘But it made me strong, chérie. As for Tia, even after decades of fame she still lives in terror of losing everything she has. She did what she thought best for me at the time. She helped me find my first job, invested in my first company, undoubtedly helped me to become the success that I am today.’
‘That’s just the power of money you’re talking about and I doubt if it meant much to someone as rich as she must be.’ Her eyes glittered silver with moisture, the tightening of her throat muscles as she fought back tears lending her voice a hoarse edge. ‘I’m thinking of the child you were, growing up without a mother or love or anyone of your own … I can’t bear the thought of that.’
In an abrupt movement that lacked his normal measured grace, Navarre vaulted upright and walked round the table to lift Tawny up out of her seat. ‘Je vais bien … I’m OK. But I admit that I didn’t know what love was until I met you.’
Assuming that he had guessed how she felt about him, Tawny reddened. ‘Am I that obvious?’
A gentle fingertip traced the silvery trail of a tear on her cheek.
‘There is nothing obvious about you. In fact you defied my understanding from the first moment we met and, the more I saw of you, the more desperately I wanted to know what it was about you which got to me when other women never had.’
Her lashes flicked up on curious eyes. ‘I … got to you? In what way?’
‘In every way a woman can appeal to a man. First to my body, then to my brain and finally to my heart,’ Navarre specified. ‘And you dug in so deep in my heart, I was wretched without you when we were apart but far too proud to come looking for you again.’
Tawny rested a hand on a broad shoulder to steady herself. ‘Wretched?’ she repeated doubtfully, unable to associate such a word with him.
A rueful smile shadowed Navarre’s wide eloquent mouth. ‘I was very unhappy and unsettled for weeks on end. I thought I was infatuated with you. I tried so hard to fight it and forget about you but it didn’t work.’
‘Navarre …’ Tawny breathed uncertainly. ‘Are you trying to tell me that you love me?’
‘Obviously not doing a very good job of it. I think it was love at first sight.’ His eyes gazed down into hers full of warmth and tenderness. ‘I’ve been in love with you for months. I knew I loved you long before I married you. Why do you think I was so keen to put that wedding ring on your hand?’
‘The b-baby.’
Navarre drew her back against him and splayed a possessive hand across the firm swell of her stomach. ‘I have very good intentions towards our baby but I married you because I loved you and wanted to share my life with you, n’est ce pas?’
‘But you said you were strongly attracted to me and that that was enough.’
‘I said what I had to say to get that ring on your finger for real,’ Navarre breathed, pressing his mouth to the sensitive nape of her neck and making her shiver with sudden awareness. ‘I’m a ruthless man. I would have said whatever it took to achieve that goal because I believed the end result would be worth it. I was determined that you would be mine for ever, ma petite.’
Overjoyed by that admission, Tawny twisted round and pressed her hands to his strong cheekbones to align their mouths and kiss him with slow, sweet brevity as more questions that had to be answered bubbled up in her brain. ‘What on earth was on that laptop of yours?’
‘CCC buyout stuff and some very personal emails from Tia. She tells me everything.’