The Italian's Secret Baby

She knew at some level that the safety his arms offered was an illusion, but it didn’t actually seem to matter. What mattered was it felt warm and good.

‘I know it’s not fair,’ she heard him murmur into her hair. ‘It will pass, I promise, it will pass.’ His hand ran down the curve of her back and with a sigh she snuggled a little closer.

She sensed the tension in his lean body as he drew slightly back from her and she lifted a tear-stained face in enquiry.

With a fierce tenderness that stopped her heart in its tracks Roman ran a finger down the curve of her cheek, then smoothed the hair back from her brow.

‘So you’ll come to Ireland with me.’

Scarlet’s heart was beating very hard. ‘Right now I’d go anywhere with you,’ she confided huskily.

‘Does that include to bed?’

‘Especially there.’

With a soft cry she walked into his open arms.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

‘WHEN you said you were phobic about flying why didn’t you also mention that you get seasick?’ Roman asked as Scarlet emerged from the ladies’ loo where she had spent ninety per cent of the journey so far.

Scarlet shot him a look of intense dislike, and grabbed the back of the seat to steady herself before she lowered herself on the seat beside the sleeping toddler.

‘But this feels like a force-ten gale,’ she declared, averting her eyes from the grey heaving waves visible through the window. ‘I wish I could sit outside—I always feel better outside. Why isn’t there a deck?’ she complained querulously.

Roman laughed. ‘Do you prefer a conventional ferry with a deck or this fast ferry which halves the crossing time?’

She nodded glumly. ‘I see your point.’

‘And for the record there isn’t a wave to be seen—it’s as calm as a millpond. I’ve crossed when—’

Scarlet lifted a hand to her forehead. ‘Spare me the stories of your heroics, please?’ she begged sourly. ‘I’m surprised you’ve ever been on a ferry.’

‘I did some island hopping when I was a student, but, no, this isn’t my preferred mode of transport.’ It had taken him ten minutes to convince Alice he was serious when he’d asked her to book three tickets on a ferry across the Irish Sea.

‘Sorry you’re slumming it on my account.’

‘It’s been a revelation,’ he assured her drily.

‘You’re such a snob.’

‘I did crew on a yacht in a cross-Atlantic race once.’

‘I suppose you won?’

‘No, we came last.’

‘How very human of you,’ she snapped with bitchy relish.

She closed her eyes. There was no question that she could ever form any sort of meaningful relationship with someone who ate a full English breakfast on board a boat. She opened one eye. ‘Thank you for looking after Sam.’

‘A pleasure. Perhaps I should have booked us into a hotel overnight before the drive.’

‘No, I’ll be fine once I’m on land that doesn’t move,’ she promised him.

Roman considered her pallid complexion but kept his doubts to himself. ‘You really prefer this to flying?’

‘I’ve never actually flown,’ she confided.

‘Never?’

The amazement from someone who considered getting on a plane the same way most people thought of getting in a cab brought a wan smile to her lips.

‘I tried it once but the stuff the doctor prescribed didn’t mix too well with the whisky I drank in the bar before I boarded. I passed out and they had to stretcher me out. Abby was so embarrassed,’ she recalled, ‘that she pretended she didn’t know me.’#p#????#e#

‘So you got left at home?’

Something in his voice brought her puzzled scrutiny to his face. ‘I didn’t actually mind. I’m not really a lazing-on-a-beach sort of person.’

‘Shopaholic or culture vulture?’

‘There are some places I would like to see one day,’ she admitted, covering her mouth to conceal a wide yawn. ‘Rome, Paris…you know…maybe when Sam is older.’

The hand that brushed the hair from her forehead made her start.

‘You’re tired.’

She sensed activity to her right just a split second before Roman leapt up from his seat.

She turned in time to see Roman pull a middle aged man who was slumped in his seat down onto the floor. He proceeded to loosen the man’s collar and felt at his neck for a pulse before Scarlet’s brain had registered what was going on.

The woman who had been sitting beside the unconscious—please, God, let him be alive—man began to scream and people began to shout. It said something for Roman’s natural air of command that when he lifted his hand to indicate he needed silence, just before he placed his ear to the man’s chest, a hush fell.