LITMIR.BIZ

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his girlfriend was overworked and underfed and clearly on the breadline. Her gaze had swept over him, taking in his dark suit, silk tie and handmade Italian shoes and he could see from her eyes that she was sizing up his worth. He was being judged, he realised—and he didn’t like to be judged. Nor put in the role of an absentee father-to-be who refused to accept his responsibilities.

      But amid all this confusion was a shimmering of something he couldn’t understand, an emotion which licked like fire over his cold heart and was confusing the life out of him. Furiously, he forced himself to concentrate on facts. To get his head around the reason he was here—why he’d been driven to some remote area of Norfolk on what had felt like the longest journey of his life. And then he needed to decide what he was going to do about it. His head spun as his mind went over and over the unbelievable fact.

      Darcy was going to have a baby.

      His baby.

      His mouth thinned.

      Or so she said.

      Eventually he was shown into the side room of a ward where she lay on a narrow hospital bed—her bright hair the only thing of colour in an all-white environment. Her face was as bleached as the bed sheets and her eyes were both wary and hostile as she looked at him. He remembered the last time he’d seen her. When she’d slid to the floor and he had just let her lie there and now his heart clenched with guilt because she looked so damned fragile lying propped up against that great bank of pillows.

      ‘Darcy,’ he said carefully.

      She looked as if she had been sucking on a lemon as she spoke. ‘You came.’

      ‘I had no choice.’

      ‘Don’t lie,’ she snapped. ‘Of course you did! You could have just ignored the call from the hospital, just like you’ve ignored all my other calls up until now.’

      He wanted to deny it but how could he when it was true? ‘Yes,’ he said flatly. ‘I could.’

      ‘You let my calls go through to voicemail,’ she accused.

      Letting out a breath, Renzo slowly nodded. At the time it had seemed the only sane solution. He hadn’t wanted to risk speaking to her, because hadn’t he worried he would cave in and take her back, even if it was for only one night? Because after she’d gone he hadn’t been able to forget her as easily as he’d imagined, even though she had betrayed his trust in her. Even when he thought about the missing diamonds and the way she’d allowed that creep to enter his home—that still didn’t erase her from his mind. He’d started to wonder whether he’d made a big mistake and whether he should give her another chance, but pride and a tendency to think the worst about women had stopped him acting on it. He’d known that 50 per cent of relationships didn’t survive—so why go for one which had the odds stacked against it from the start? Yet she’d flitted in and out of his mind in a way which no amount of hard work or travelling had been able to fix.

      ‘Guilty as charged,’ he said evenly.

      ‘And you told your secretary not to put me through to you.’

      ‘She certainly would have put you through if she’d known the reason you were ringing. Why the hell didn’t you tell her?’

      ‘Are you out of your mind? Is that how you like to see your women, Renzo?’ she demanded. ‘To have them plead and beg and humiliate themselves? Yes, I know he doesn’t want to speak to me, but could you please tell him I’m expecting his baby? Or would you rather I had hung around outside the Sabatini building, waiting for the big boss to leave work so I could grab your elbow and break my news to you on a busy London street? Maybe I should have gone to the papers and sold them a story saying that my billionaire boyfriend was denying paternity!’

      ‘Darcy,’ he said, and now his voice had gentled. ‘I’m sorry I accused you of stealing the necklace.’

      Belligerently, she raised her chin. ‘Just not sorry enough to seek me out to tell me that before?’

      He thought how tough she was—with a sudden inner steeliness which seemed so at odds with her fragile exterior. ‘I jumped to the wrong conclusions,’ he said slowly, ‘because I’m very territorial about my space.’ But he had been territorial about her, too, hadn’t he? And old-fashioned enough to want to haul that complete stranger up against the wall and demand to know what he’d been doing alone with her. ‘Look, this isn’t getting us anywhere. You shouldn’t be getting distressed.’

      ‘What, in my condition?’

      ‘Yes. Exactly that. In your condition. You’re pregnant.’ The unfamiliar word sounded foreign on his lips and once again he felt the lick of something painful in his heart. She looked so damned vulnerable lying there that his instinct was to take her in his arms and cradle her—if the emerald blaze in her eyes weren’t defying him to dare try. ‘The midwife says you need somebody to take care of you.’

      Darcy started biting her lip, terrified that the stupid tears pricking at the backs of her eyes would start pouring down her cheeks. She hated the way this new-found state of hers was making her emotions zigzag all over the place, so she hardly recognised herself any more. She was supposed to be staying strong only it wasn’t easy when Renzo was sounding so…protective. His words were making her yearn for something she’d never had, nor expected to have. She found herself looking up into his darkly handsome face and a wave of longing swept over her. She wanted to reach out her arms and ask him to hold her. She wanted him to keep her safe.

      And she had to stop thinking that way. It wasn’t a big deal that he’d apologised for something he needed to apologise for. She needed to remind herself that Renzo Sabatini wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for the baby.

      ‘It’s the unborn child which needs taking care of,’ she said coldly. ‘Not me.’

      His gaze drifted down to the black-and-white image which was lying on top of the locker. ‘May I?’

      She shrugged, trying to ignore the tug at her heart as he picked it up to study it, as engrossed as she had ever seen him. ‘Suit yourself.’

      And 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

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