The Italian's Secret Baby

‘The girl must have been torn; it can’t be an easy thing it’s her sister.’

Roman’s dark eyes flared. ‘And I’m her bloody husband…or I will be,’ he growled, banging the glass down on the desk.

‘Oh, that’s still on, is it?’

Roman turned on him in a flash. ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean? Are you saying I shouldn’t marry her?’

Finn appeared to consider the question. ‘Well, maybe you could do better.’ He silently counted to three before his son exploded.

‘Better?’ he repeated, his eyes narrowed to menacing icy slits. ‘I don’t want better, I want Scarlet.’#p#????#e#

Finn smiled up at his glowering son. ‘Don’t tell me, boy, tell her.’

It was about half an hour later that there was a knock on her bedroom door. Scarlet, who was lying full length on the bed, rolled over and tried to smooth down her hair. It was going to be hard to explain away her bedraggled appearance, she thought, grimacing as she examined the marks twenty minutes of unrestrained weeping had left on her face in the mirror.

‘I’ll be right there,’ she called, sliding her legs off the bed.

The door opened. ‘Don’t bother.’

Scarlet just sat there awkwardly as Roman came into the room and closed the door behind him.

It was a meeting she had been dreading but one she knew she had to face some time or other. At least now there were no lies or half-told truths between them. A relationship that was built on love could survive the truth. If it couldn’t, maybe it wasn’t worth saving.

Total rubbish! the voice in her head replied in response to this fatalistic maxim. Only an idiot stands there and lets their future go down the toilet without at least trying to stop it.

‘I know you must hate me at the moment,’ she said, studying the polished floor. Her hair fell forward, the glossy bangs hiding her face and exposing the nape of her neck.

His piercing glance touched the top of her bowed glossy head. His mouth twisted. ‘Do I?’

‘And I don’t blame you,’ she hastened to add. ‘But I really hope that later on when things are less…raw you’ll be able to see…It was wrong not to tell you, very wrong—I can see that now.’

‘Why tell me now, Scarlet?’ Roman demanded, dragging a hand through his dark hair.

‘Because I heard your father. I couldn’t let him talk to you like that. I couldn’t let you take the blame for something when you were innocent.’

‘Why not?’

She shook her head. ‘I just couldn’t.’

‘It hadn’t bothered you up to that point,’ he reminded her. ‘You let me…hell, you listened and were incredibly supportive to me while I beat myself up, and you didn’t say a word. Not one bloody word,’ he reiterated in disbelief. ‘Did it give you some sort of kick to see me eaten up with guilt?’

Unable to bear the anger in his dark, hostile eyes, she looked away.

‘Well, did it?’ he demanded harshly.

Scarlet looked up and, numb with misery, shook her head.

The sight of the tears rolling down her cheeks seemed to inflame him even farther. ‘And there was me unable to believe how you could be so generous in forgiving me.’

Scarlet bit her lips and his lips twisted into a smile that was so bitter and bleak it made her wince. Those same lips had kissed her so beautifully, with such passion, with such tenderness.

‘Wondering,’ he continued in a voice that throbbed with bitter self-derision, ‘what I did to deserve someone so charitable and sweet.’

A strangled sob escaped her lips before she pressed her hand over her mouth.

Roman watched her chin fall to her chest in an attitude of abject misery and his dark features contorted. Scarlet didn’t see that or the hand he had stretched out towards her before letting it fall.

‘Hell!’ he ejaculated rawly as he began to restively pace up and down the room. At the far end of the room he twisted back to face her. ‘You must hate me.’

Scarlet blinked away the hot tears that filled her eyes, her throat felt so emotionally tight she could hardly breathe. She shook her head in denial.

‘I love you, Roman.’#p#????#e#

He stopped dead.

‘I wanted to tell you about Abby.’

‘But you managed to stop yourself,’ he cut back with dark irony.

‘I couldn’t tell you what Abby did without—’

‘Speaking ill of the dead?’ He shook his head. ‘That doesn’t work.’

‘But it’s the truth,’ she protested feebly. ‘At first I didn’t think there was any point telling you. Later I wanted to protect you from the truth, and I was worried that, if you knew, you might not feel the same way about Sam.’