LITMIR.BIZ

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the alternative is having you sue me for custody,’ she answered after a moment, ‘there wasn’t really any question, was there?’

      Guilt needled him at the realisation of how effectively he’d blackmailed her. Was he really any better than Bertrano, when he resorted to such tactics? And yet Emma would have denied him his own flesh and blood, the child he’d never expected to have, the family he’d longed for since he was a child himself.

      ‘Well,’ he said after a moment, ‘I’m still grateful.’ Emma did not reply.

      They drove in silence for the entire hour’s journey into the city; Ava babbled and gurgled in the back seat, and by the time they approached the Lincoln Tunnel she was tired of the car and began to protest, straining against the straps of her car seat.

      Emma tried to distract her with a few toys and then a rice cake, all of which entertained Ava for about three seconds before she hurled each item to the floor.

      ‘Sorry,’ Emma said as she glanced down at the floor of the back seat. ‘You have a sea of rice cake crumbs down there.’

      ‘It doesn’t matter.’

      ‘Are you sure you’re prepared for this?’ she asked as Ava drummed her heels against the seat. ‘Ava is a force to be reckoned with.’

      ‘So I can see—and hear,’ Larenzo answered dryly. ‘I don’t know if I’m prepared. But I’m willing to take it on.’ She need never doubt him in that.

      ‘Did you ever want children?’ Emma asked. ‘I mean, before...’

      ‘Before I went to prison?’ Larenzo filled in flatly. ‘I don’t know if I really thought of it. I didn’t have time for a relationship.’

      ‘Yet you’ve certainly had your share of women.’

      His mouth tightened as he slid her a sideways glance. She’d spoken without expression, and he had no idea what she thought of that aspect of his past. Not that it actually mattered, since there would never be anything like that between them. He had nothing to offer Emma, or anyone. Not in that way. ‘I don’t deny it,’ he said after a moment.

      ‘Having a baby in your apartment, as well as her mother, might cramp your style a bit.’

      Larenzo shook his head. ‘I’ve no interest in anything like that any more.’

      Emma raised her eyebrows, clearly sceptical. ‘Larenzo, you’re what? In your mid-thirties? Surely you’re going to want a woman again.’

      Want a woman. The last woman he’d been with had been Emma, and he’d wanted her almost unbearably. Just remembering the sweetness of her touch, the innocent and utter yielding of her body when he’d needed her so badly, made lust shaft through him with a sudden, painful intensity.

      He shifted as discreetly as he could in his seat and kept his eyes on the road. He might have told Emma he wasn’t interested in relationships or sex any more, and in truth his libido had disappeared while he’d been in prison, along with all of his other feelings and desires. But he could feel it returning in force now.

      ‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘You might meet someone.’ A thought that he disliked instinctively, although he knew he had no right to.

      ‘I can’t even imagine meeting someone,’ Emma said with a small sigh. ‘Ava takes up all my energy.’

      ‘She won’t be a baby for ever.’

      ‘No,’ Emma said slowly. ‘But, Larenzo, this...situation can’t last for ever.’

      He turned to her sharply, his eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘I can’t live with you for ever. I accept that it’s expedient for now, and of course it gives you time to get to know her, but eventually...I need my own life. You’ll need yours. When Ava is a little older, we can come to a custody arrangement we can both live with.’

      Larenzo didn’t answer for a moment. He knew she was talking sense but everything in him rebelled against it. Ava was the only family he’d ever had. He wasn’t going to give her up, not even in part, as easily as that.

      ‘We’ll discuss the future when it is relevant,’ he said, making his tone final. They’d driven through the Lincoln Tunnel and now came out into midtown Manhattan, all of them blinking in the bright sunlight. Even Ava had stopped protesting against the hated car seat as she gazed curiously at the gleaming skyscrapers and the streets teeming with people.

      Emma turned to stare out of the window, and Larenzo saw she looked almost as wide-eyed as her daughter. ‘Have you spent much time in New York before?’

      ‘Not really. As a kid I always lived abroad. My apartment is on the Central Park West, right near the Natural History Museum. It’s a good area for children.’

      ‘You’ve only been in America for a week, haven’t you?’ Emma asked. ‘How did you manage to secure an apartment so quickly?’

      ‘Money talks.’

      ‘And even though the assets of Cavelli Enterprises are frozen, you have money?’

      ‘I had my own savings, which were released to me when the charges were cleared.’

      She turned to give him a direct look. ‘Are you ever going to tell me the whole story, Larenzo?’

      His hands tensed on the steering wheel and he stared straight ahead as he navigated the roundabout at Columbus Circle. ‘I’ve told you what you need to know, Emma.’ Perhaps it was foolish to keep the truth from her about Bertrano; it was shaming that he still felt a loyalty to a man who, despite years of shared history, of happy memories, had completely and utterly betrayed him. And he knew that telling Emma his part of the story, how he’d been duped and deceived, wouldn’t make much difference. Yet it would make a difference to him. He didn’t want to admit how naive he’d been, how hurt he’d been. Not to Emma. Not to anyone.

      And maybe Emma sensed some of what he felt, for to Larenzo’s surprise she laid a hand on his arm, the touch of her fingers as light as a butterfly’s. ‘I hope you will be able to tell me someday, Larenzo. For your sake as much as mine.’

      They didn’t talk after that until Larenzo had pulled up to the elegant brick building that faced Central Park. A valet came out to deal with the car, and a doorman went for their bags.

      Larenzo turned to get Ava out of her car seat; she practically flung herself into his arms and Larenzo held his daughter to him, breathing in her clean baby scent as her dark hair tickled his face. His daughter. Even now he nearly reeled from the shock and force of that knowledge. He had a family.

      ‘Do you want me to take her?’ Emma asked, reaching for Ava, and Larenzo shook his head.

      ‘She’s okay with me.’ Although he wasn’t so sure about that when Ava began to flail, scrambling to get down.

      Emma laughed and reached for her, and reluctantly Larenzo gave Ava over to her. ‘I guess she wants her mother.’

      ‘Actually, I think she just wants to crawl all over this marble floor and get really dirty,’ Emma answered lightly. She smiled at him, and he thought he saw sympathy in her eyes. ‘She’ll get used to you.’

      He nodded, his throat too tight for words. He’d thought he had nothing left inside him; he’d been sure he was broken and empty inside. But knowing he had a daughter, knowing he could have someone to love and be loved by, filled him up to overflowing.

      * * *

      Emma followed Larenzo into the sumptuous foyer of the apartment building, all marble floors and glittering chandeliers. A doorman nodded respectfully to Larenzo as they passed, and then they stepped into a large wood-panelled lift, complete with a sofa and gilt mirror.

      ‘Fancy,’ Emma murmured as they soared upwards to the penthouse and then stepped into the huge foyer of Larenzo’s apartment.

      ‘This

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