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Natalia’s eyes flashed as her son gave a smile that was both cynical and charming in equal measure. She didn’t smile back, but instead snatched from his fingers the pen he was idly doodling with and banged it down on the blotter.
‘Don’t do that.’ Her sons had inherited their father’s Irish charm, her own dark Italian looks and, sadly, neither had very many scruples when it came to using either to get what they wanted. Roman had been getting pretty much what he wanted all his life, with one notable exception.
A frown formed between his dark, strongly delineated brows as Roman studied his mother’s face. ‘Has something happened? Dad…?’
Natalia heard the anxiety enter his deep voice, roughening the velvet-smooth tone, and immediately shook her head reassuringly. Eyes trained on his face, she took a deep, shuddering sigh. ‘Scarlet Smith.’ She flung the name like an accusation.
‘The woman with the smart tongue and the bad attitude who is not a blonde. If you want to know anything else you’re going to have to go elsewhere because that about exhausts my knowledge of the woman.’
Natalia searched her son’s face for a moment before her body sagged in relief. ‘You didn’t know, then.’ She sighed. ‘I didn’t think you could have,’ she revealed.
‘Didn’t know and still don’t,’ he inserted drily.
‘She must have changed her name, or maybe she gave you a false name?’
‘Are we back on the not-blonde?’
‘I don’t approve of everything you do, Roman.’
Roman’s expression became stoical as he prepared to endure one of his mother’s lectures on his lifestyle with a modicum of patience—patience he would not have extended to anyone else who chose to criticise him.
‘But I simply couldn’t imagine you abandoning your responsibilities and letting your own son grow up not even knowing who you are.’
CHAPTER THREE
ROMAN, whose hard features had begun to relax into a rueful half-smile at his mother’s initial comments, stiffened as she delivered her killer punchline.
‘Son!’ Pallor crept up under his even olive-toned Latin complexion. ‘If that’s your idea of a joke?’ he grated.
‘I’m hardly likely to joke about such a thing,’ Natalia said. ‘Look, I can see this must have come as a shock to you.’
‘That’s very understanding of you.’ Roman’s irony was wasted on his mother. ‘I don’t have a son and I’ve never met a…’ his forehead creased as he tried to recall the non-blonde’s name ‘…Scarlet Smith?’
‘Yes, lovely girl.’ She glanced across at her son and shook her head.
She watched with some sympathy as her son ground his teeth and stalked stiff-backed across the room, his whole manner screaming anger and frustration. She came up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder. Though she was five eleven in her heels, she had to tilt her head to look him in the face.
‘Be honest, is this so impossible to believe?’
‘Don’t you think I’d know about it if I had a son?’ he suggested, his tone deceptively mild.
Natalia gave a very Latin shrug. ‘Only if the mother chose to tell you, Roman.’
‘And always supposing I did actually make a habit—as you obviously believe—of going around impregnating women. Why the hell wouldn’t she have told me? Why struggle to bring up a child as a single parent?’ A flicker of suspicion crossed his face. ‘Or is she married?’
‘You sleep with married women?’
Roman’s head went back as he looked heavenwards, sending the dark hair he wore a little longer than was conventional against the collar of his pale shirt. ‘No, I do not sleep with married women,’ he replied between clenched white teeth.
‘Never?’
A hissing sound of seething frustration escaped through Roman’s teeth as his mother continued to look at him with an expression of disappointment.
‘Not knowingly.’
‘Ignorance is no defence in law, or so I’ve always understood. I accept you didn’t know you had a child. Now you do. What are you going to do about it?’ she challenged.
‘For the last time, I do not have a child!’
Natalia gave an inflammatory sigh. ‘Denial isn’t going to get us anywhere.’
‘I’m not in denial,’ Roman thundered.
‘Yes, you are, and there’s no need to raise your voice, Roman, I’m not deaf.’
The bitterness died from his face as he saw the unexpected sparkle of tears in his mother’s eyes. ‘Sit down,’ he insisted, his concern coming across as impatience.
‘It must have been some story this woman spun you.’ Roman’s facial muscles tightened. ‘You can normally spot a phoney a mile off. Didn’t it strike you as odd that she told you, not me?’
‘She didn’t tell me anything at all. I gave her every opportunity, but in fact Scarlet pretended not to know you.’
A flicker of incomprehension crossed Roman’s face. ‘Then what the hell is this about?’
‘I’ve seen the child, Roman, and he is you at the same age.’
Roman looked at her for a moment, his dark brows raised, before releasing an incredulous laugh.
‘This isn’t funny, Roman,’ she reproached.
‘No, it’s not funny to see you so upset,’ he agreed sombrely as he hunkered down beside his mother’s chair. ‘All right, this kid looks like I did,’ he acceded lightly. ‘But I don’t know any Scarlet Smith, the only time I’ve spoken to her was on the phone, I promise you, and I never forget a name.’
His mother nodded. ‘People change in four years. You have,’ she added, a tinge of sadness in her eyes.
‘Scarlet must have changed her name so that you couldn’t find her, that would explain you not recognising her name.’
‘That would seem a tad excessive, considering I wasn’t looking for her.’
‘Don’t be flippant,’ Natalia snapped.
‘I know you’d like to be a grandmother, but I’m not going to pretend I’ve fathered a kid to oblige you.’
‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen the boy, Roman.’
‘Do you think I wouldn’t remember the name of a woman I slept with?’ he demanded.
‘If it was four years ago I’d say you could have some problem. There were a lot of women. I know I shouldn’t have brought it up…but…’
‘You’re going to anyway.’ Roman’s expression was resigned.
‘It’s not a subject I enjoy discussing.’
‘That makes two of us.’
Being deserted by your childhood sweetheart after the invitations for the wedding had been sent out was not an experience he particularly cared to relive on a regular basis, and that was what his mother was trying to remind him of now.
Making a total fool of himself was something a man was allowed to do once in his life. When he made marriage plans the next time his decision would not be based on a blind infatuation and starry-eyed fantasies of a happy-ever-after