LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER FIVE

      Ten months later

      ‘I HOPE THAT baby isn’t going to cry all the way through lunch, Keira. It would be nice if we were able to eat a meal in peace for once.’

      Tucking little Santino into the crook of her arm, Keira nodded as she met her aunt’s accusing stare. She would have taken the baby out for a walk if the late October day hadn’t been so foul and blustery. Or she might have treated him to a long bus ride to lull him to sleep if he hadn’t been so tiny. As it was, she was stuck in the house with a woman who seemed determined to find fault in everything she did, and she was tired. So tired. With the kind of tiredness which seemed to have seeped deep into her bones and taken up residence there. ‘I’ll try to put him down for his nap before we sit down to eat,’ she said hopefully.

      Aunt Ida’s mouth turned down at the corners, emphasising the deep grooves of discontentment which hardened her thin face. ‘That’ll be a first. Poor Shelley says she hasn’t had an unbroken night since you moved in. He’s obviously an unsettled baby if he cries so much. Maybe it’s time you came to your senses and thought about adoption.’

      Keira’s teeth dug into her bottom lip as the word lodged like a barb in her skin.

      Adoption.

      A wave of nausea engulfed her but she tried very hard not to react as she stared down into the face of her sleeping son. Holding onto Santino even tighter, she felt her heart give a savage lurch of love as she told herself to ignore the snide comments and concentrate on what was important. Because only one thing mattered and that was her baby son.

      Everything you do is for him, she reminded herself fiercely. Everything. No point in wishing she hadn’t given away Matteo’s money, or tormenting herself by thinking how useful it might have been. She hadn’t known at the time that she was pregnant—how could she have done? She’d handed over that thick wad of banknotes as if there were loads more coming her way—and now she just had to deal with the situation as it was and not what it could have been. She had to accept that she’d lost her job and her home in quick succession and had been forced to take the charity of a woman who had always disapproved of her. Because how else would she and Santino have managed to cope in an uncaring and hostile world?

      You know exactly how, prompted the ever-present voice of her conscience but Keira pushed it from her mind. She could not have asked Matteo for help, not when he had treated her like some kind of whore. Who had made it clear he never wanted to see her again.

      ‘Have you registered the child’s birth yet?’ Aunt Ida was asking.

      ‘Not yet, no,’ said Keira. ‘I have to do it within the first six weeks.’

      ‘Better get a move on, then.’

      Keira waited, knowing that there was more.

      Her aunt smiled slyly. ‘Only I was wondering whether you were going to put the mystery father’s name on the birth certificate—or whether you were like your poor dear mother and didn’t actually know who he was?’

      Keira’s determination not to react drained away. Terrified of saying something she might later regret, she turned and walked out of the sitting room without another word, glad she was holding Santino because that stopped her from picking up one of her aunt’s horrible china ornaments and hurling it against the wall. Criticism directed against her she could just about tolerate—but she wouldn’t stand to hear her mother’s name maligned like that.

      Her anger had evaporated by the time she reached the box-room she shared with Santino, and Keira placed the baby carefully in his crib, tucking the edges of the blanket around his tiny frame and staring at him. His lashes looked very long and dark against his olive skin but for once she found herself unable to take pleasure in his innocent face. Because suddenly, the fear and the guilt which had been nagging away inside her now erupted into one fierce and painful certainty.

      She couldn’t go on like this. Santino deserved more than a mother who was permanently exhausted, having to tiptoe around a too-small house with people who didn’t really like her. She closed her eyes, knowing there was somebody else who didn’t like her—but someone she suspected wouldn’t display a tight-lipped intolerance whenever the baby started to cry. Because it was his baby, too. And didn’t all parents love their children, no matter what?

      A powerful image swam into her mind of a man whose face she could picture without too much trying. She knew what she had to do. Something she’d thought about doing every day since Santino’s birth, and in the nine months preceding it, until she’d forced herself to remember how unequivocally he’d told her he never wanted to see her again. Well, maybe he was going to have to.

      Her fingers were shaking as she scrolled down her phone’s contact list and retrieved the number she had saved, even though the caller had hung up on her the last time she’d spoken to him.

      With a thundering heart, she punched out the number. And waited.

      * * *

      Rain lashed against the car windscreen and flurries of falling leaves swirled like the thoughts in Matteo’s mind as his chauffeur-driven limousine drove down the narrow suburban road. As they passed houses which all looked exactly the same, he tried to get his head round what he’d learned during a phone call from a woman he’d never thought he’d see again.

      He was a father.

      He had a child.

      A son. His heart pumped. In a single stroke he had been given exactly what he needed—though not necessarily what he wanted—and could now produce the grandson his father yearned for.

      Matteo ordered the driver to stop, trying to dampen down the unfamiliar emotions which were sweeping through his body. And trying to curb his rising temper about the way Keira had kept this news secret. How dared she keep his baby hidden and play God with his future? Grim-faced, he stepped out onto the rain-soaked pavement and a wave of determination washed over him as he slammed the car door shut. He was here now and he would fix this—to his advantage. Whatever it took, he would get what he wanted—and he wanted his son.

      He hadn’t told Keira he was coming. He hadn’t wanted to give her the opportunity to elude him. He wanted to surprise her—as she had surprised him. To allow her no time to mount any defences. If she was unprepared and vulnerable then surely that would aid him in his determination to get his rightful heir. Moving stealthily up the narrow path, he rapped a small bronze knocker fashioned in the shape of a lion’s head and moments later the door was opened by a woman with tight, curly hair and a hard, lined face.

      ‘Yes?’ she said sharply. ‘We don’t buy from the doorstep.’

      ‘Good afternoon,’ he said. Forcing the pleasantry to his unwilling lips,

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