LITMIR.BIZ

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lowered her gaze. ‘He’s so like you…’ she whispered.

      He closed his eyes against the sudden and unexpected sting of tears; his chest felt like a clamp had been placed on his heart and lungs.

      ‘I wanted to send you photos,’ she went on, her voice still barely audible. ‘So many times I wanted to prove to you how like you he is. He even does that little thing you do when you sleep.’

      ‘What thing?’ His voice sounded like a croak, but at least he had been able to get it to work.

      ‘He sprawls all over the bed,’ she said. ‘With his arms and legs everywhere. It’s so cute.’

      Alessandro stood in silence as he breathed in the scent of her silver-blonde hair; it had always reminded him of the fragrance of sun-warmed jasmine.

      Something inside his chest began to loosen, like a too-tight knot that had resisted all attempts to be untied for years.

      What if the thing he suspected had indeed happened? Would she agree to resume their relationship on a more permanent basis for the child’s sake, or would she always resent him for not believing her in the first place?

      He had shut off his feelings for her four years ago, but he knew it wouldn’t take much to switch them back on again. Hadn’t last night proved how close to the wind he was sailing? He could feel the tug of desire even now as she stood silently in his embrace. His body was stirring against her; she surely could feel it, although so far she hadn’t made a move to step backwards from him.

      His mind started to run with the possibilities—but then he was brought back to earth with a jarring thud as he remembered there was the other issue of the child’s health. He was only three now, but Marco had shown signs not much earlier than that…

      She eased herself out of his hold and, without looking at him, tucked a strand of hair behind her left ear. ‘I’m sorry…this must be so hard for you,’ she said. ‘I mean, learning about the existence of a child you never wanted.’

      It was on the tip of his tongue to say how much he would have loved children of his own, perfectly healthy, robust children—a boy, a girl, what did it matter? He had never understood parents who claimed to have a preference for one or the other sex. As long as it was healthy was all that mattered, but that was one thing he could not guarantee.

      It had been taken out of his hands on the day he’d been born.

      ‘Yes,’ he said, feeling his chest go down in a sigh. ‘It is hard, but we will know for sure in a day or so.’

      It was totally the wrong thing to say; he knew it as soon as he said it. She stiffened like someone who had been sprayed with quick-setting glue, her mouth went tight, her eyes turned to blue chips of ice, and her bitterness cut through the air like a sharpened blade.

      ‘How typical,’ she said, ‘how absolutely typical.’

      ‘What I meant to say was—’

      She stalked across to the door and held it open, the tiny bell tinkling in startled protest. ‘What you meant to say was you still don’t believe me,’ she bit out. ‘There’s still a small part of you that won’t accept Matthew as your son. Now please leave, before I change my mind about the DNA test or the contract.’

      It was not in Alessandro’s nature to back down. He had fought long and hard for many things in his life, and certainly being dismissed by a tiny silver-blonde virago was not something he was used to accepting. But the set to her mouth told him it was probably a good time to leave.

      He brought two of his fingers up to his mouth and pressed his lips against them in a mimic of a kiss, before placing them on the stiff but somehow still-soft bow of her mouth. ‘I will be back in a couple of days with the results,’ he said.

      ‘I can tell you the results right now,’ she replied, swiping at her mouth as if he had tainted her with his touch.

      He held her embittered gaze with determination. ‘I have to be sure, Scarlett. I know it’s hard for you, but you have to understand my position on this. You have no doubt at all he is your child. You physically gave birth to him, you needed no other evidence—but I am afraid that I do.’

      She spun away with a frustrated sound that was somewhere between a scornful snort and a sigh. ‘Please leave,’ she said. ‘There’s no point in continuing this conversation until you have what you want.’

      But I can never have what I want, Alessandro thought as he drove away a short time later, his eyes fixed on the road ahead in case he was tempted to look back.

       I can never have what I want.

      CHAPTER NINE

      ‘ARE YOU sure?’ Alessandro asked Dr Underwood two days later. ‘There is absolutely no doubt?’

      Dr Underwood shook his head. ‘No doubt at all, Mr Marciano. Your sperm count is positive. I don’t know who did your vasectomy, but from the test results we’ve received it clearly wasn’t entirely successful. That doesn’t mean the surgeon was incompetent, by any means, it’s just that—as I am sure he or she would have explained at the time—there is about a one percent failure-rate for the procedure. That’s why we insist on the three negative sperm-counts after three months post-surgery.’

      Alessandro frowned. ‘But I had three counts done in Italy and they were all negative. What are the chances of a rejoin after three negative readings?’

      Dr Underwood scratched at his closely cropped greying beard for a moment. ‘It’s less likely,’ he said. ‘At least half the failures occur in the first three months after the operation, but the rest can occur up to five years later.’

      Alessandro stared at him, his heart chugging, his skin breaking out in a sweat in spite of the air-conditioned comfort of the consulting room.

      He was a father.

      Something he had never intended to happen had happened.

      He was the father of a three-year-old boy.

      Oh, dear God, what had he done?

      Dr Underwood leaned forward on his desk. ‘You can always have the procedure redone. I can organise a referral to a surgeon for you.’

      ‘Yes,’ Alessandro said without hesitation. ‘Yes, I would like you to do that. I want it done as soon as possible.’

      The doctor’s brows moved closer together. ‘You were quite young when you had it originally performed. You are what age now…?’He looked down at his notes. ‘Only just thirty-three. You seem very determined about this. Do you want to discuss it with a professional, such as a counsellor or psychologist, first?’

      ‘No, I made up my mind a long time ago that I do not want to have children.’

      The doctor scribbled on his notepad and, tearing the page off, placed it in an envelope and handed it to Alessandro. ‘Let’s hope this time it works,’ he said with a crooked smile.

      ‘Yes,’ Alessandro said, rising to his feet. ‘Thank you for your time.’

      Dr Underwood pushed back his chair and got to his feet as well. ‘If you change your mind at any time about seeing a counsellor, just let me know. You know…’ He gave a somewhat philosophical smile this time. ‘Sometimes these things are just meant to happen.’

      Alessandro didn’t respond. He couldn’t. His voice was trapped somewhere deep in the middle of his chest, where he could feel a sensation like a hand squeezing his heart with cruelly tight fingers.

      ‘You’ve been staring at that phone for the last two hours,’ Roxanne said. ‘He will ring or contact you when he feels ready to do so.’

      Scarlett chomped on her bottom lip for the hundredth time that afternoon. ‘I’m so confused,’ she confessed. ‘I’ve been so angry towards him for all this time, but then when

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