LITMIR.BIZ

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when at last he raised his head and looked at her, there was a look on his face she’d never seen before. Was that wonder or joy which had transformed his dark and shuttered features?

      ‘It’s a boy,’ he said slowly.

      She’d forgotten about his precise eye and attention to detail, instantly able to determine the sex of the baby where most men might have seen nothing but a confusing composition of black and white.

      ‘It is,’ she agreed.

      ‘A son,’ he said, looking down at it again.

      The possessive way his voice curled round the word scared her. It took her back to the days when she’d been hauled in front of social services who’d been trying to place her in a stable home. Futile attempts which had lasted only as long as it took her mother to discover her new address and turn up on the doorstep at midnight, high on drugs and demanding money in ‘payment’ for her daughter. What had those interviews taught her? That you should confront the great big elephant in the room, instead of letting it trample over you when you weren’t looking.

      ‘Aren’t you going to ask whether it’s yours?’ she said. ‘Isn’t that what usually happens in this situation?’

      He lifted his gaze and now his eyes were flinty. ‘Is it?’

      Angered by the fact he’d actually asked despite her having pushed him into it, Darcy hesitated—tempted by a possibility which lay before her. If she told him he wasn’t the father would he disappear and let her get on with the rest of her life? No, of course not. Renzo might suffer from arrogance and an innate sense of entitlement but he wasn’t stupid. She’d been a virgin when she met him and the most enthusiastic of lovers during their time together. He must realise he was the father.

      ‘Of course it’s yours,’ she snapped. ‘And this baby will be growing up with me as its mother, no matter how hard you try to take him away!’

      As he put the photo back down with a shaking hand she saw a flash of anger in his eyes. ‘Do you really think I would try to take a child away from its mother?’

      ‘How should I know what you would or wouldn’t do?’ Her voice was really shaking now. ‘You’re a stranger to me now, Renzo—or maybe you always were. So eager to think badly of someone. So quick to apportion blame.’

      ‘And what conclusion would you have come to,’ he demanded, ‘if you’d arrived home to find a seedy stranger leaving and a costly piece of jewellery missing?’

      ‘I might have stopped to ask questions before I started accusing.’

      ‘Okay. I’ll ask them now. What was he doing there?’

      ‘He turned up out of the blue.’ She pushed away a sweat-damp curl which was sticking to her clammy cheek. ‘He’d seen a photo of me at the ball. He was the last person I expected or wanted to see.’

      ‘Yet you offered him a beer.’

      Because she’d been afraid. Afraid of the damage Drake could inflict if he got to Renzo before she did because she hadn’t wanted her golden present to come tumbling down around her ears. But it had come tumbling down anyway, hadn’t it?

      ‘I thought he would blackmail me by telling you about my mother,’ she said at last, in a low voice. ‘Only now you know all my secrets.’

      ‘Do I?’ he questioned coolly.

      She didn’t flinch beneath that quizzical black gaze. She kept her face bland as her old habit for self-preservation kept her lips tightly sealed. He knew her mother had been a drug addict and that was bad enough, but what if she explained how she had funded her habit? Darcy could imagine only too well how that contemptuous look would deepen. Something told her there were things this proud man would find intolerable and her mother’s profession was one of them. Who knew how he might try to use it against her?

      Suddenly, she realised she would put nothing past him. He had accused her of all kinds of things—including using her virginity as some kind of bartering tool. Why shouldn’t she keep secrets from him when he had such a brutal opinion of her?

      ‘Of course you do. I’m the illegitimate daughter of a junkie—how much worse could it be?’ She sucked in a deep breath and willed herself to keep her nerve. ‘Look, Renzo, I know I’m expecting your baby and it must be the last thing you want but maybe we can work something out to our mutual satisfaction. I don’t imagine you’ll want anything more to do with me but I shan’t make any attempt to stop you from having regular contact with your son. In fact, I’ll do everything in my power to accommodate access to him.’ She forced a smile. ‘Every child should have a father.’

      ‘That’s good of you,’ he said softly before elevating his dark eyebrows enquiringly. ‘So what do you propose we do, Darcy? Perhaps you’d like me to start making regular payments until the baby is born? That way you could give up work and not have to worry.’

      Hardly able to believe he was being so acquiescent, Darcy sat up in bed a little, nervously smoothing the thin sheet with her hand. ‘That’s a very generous offer,’ she said cautiously.

      ‘And in the meantime you could look for a nice house to live in for when our son arrives—budget no obstacle, obviously. In the country of your choice—that, too, goes without saying.’

      She flashed him an uncertain smile. ‘That’s...that’s unbelievably kind of you, Renzo.’

      ‘And perhaps we could find you a street paved with gold while we’re at it? That way you could bypass me completely and simply help yourself to whatever it was you wanted?’

      It took a moment or two for her to realise he was being sarcastic but the darkly sardonic look on his face left her in no doubt. ‘You were joking,’ she said woodenly.

      ‘Yes, I was joking,’ he bit back. ‘Unless you think I’m gullible enough to write you an open cheque so you can go away and bring up my son in whatever chaotic state you choose? Is that your dream scenario? Setting yourself up for life with a rich but absent babyfather?’

      ‘As if,’ she returned, her fingers digging into the thin hospital sheet. ‘If I had gone looking for a wealthy sperm donor, I’d have chosen someone with a little more heart than you!’

      Her words were forceful but as Renzo absorbed her defiant response he noticed that her face had gone as white as the sheet she was clutching. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, Darcy,’ he said, self-reproach suddenly rippling through him.

      ‘Being able to hurt me would imply I cared.’ Her mouth barely moved as she spoke. ‘And I don’t. At least, not about you—only about our baby.’

      Her fingers fluttered over the swell of her belly and Renzo’s heart gave a sudden leap as he allowed his gaze to rest on it. ‘I am prepared to support you both.’ His voice thickened and deepened. ‘But on one condition.’

      ‘Let me guess. Sole custody for you, I suppose? With the occasional access visit for me, probably accompanied by some ghastly nanny of your choice?’

      ‘I’m hoping it won’t come to that,’ he said evenly. ‘But I will not have a Sabatini heir growing up illegitimately.’ He walked over to the window and stared out at the heavy winter clouds before turning back again. ‘This child stands to inherit my empire, but only if he or she bears my name. So yes, I will support you, Darcy—but it will be on my terms. And the first, non-negotiable one is that you marry me.’

      She stared at him. ‘You have to be out of your mind,’ she whispered.

      ‘I was about to say that you have no choice but it seems to me you do. But be warned that if you refuse me and continue to live like this—patently unable to cope and putting our child at risk—I will be on my lawyers so fast you won’t believe it. And I will instruct them to do everything in their power to prove you are an unfit mother.’

      Darcy shivered as she heard the dark determination in his voice. Because

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