of ten days. That same broken heart thundered in her chest. Its thuds pounded in her head. Her thoughts, like her words and memories, were a messed-up jumble.
She had no idea how to play this. The man she’d had the time of her life with had been a lie, but he was still Finn’s father. He might have all the wealth and power, but he was still Finn’s father. When all was said and done, that was the one inescapable fact. Finn deserved to know his father and Tonino deserved to know his son.
After a long period of charged silence, he dragged his fingers through his hair and headed to the minibar. ‘I don’t know about you but I need a drink. Do you still drink gin?’
Startled that he remembered something so innocuous, she shook her head.
He arched an eyebrow then opened the bar door and pulled out a bottle of red wine.
He took a corkscrew from a drawer and opened the bottle effortlessly. ‘Will you have one?’
This time she managed to croak, ‘No, thank you.’
Since the accident, Orla had lost all tolerance for alcohol, which was a great shame. Before the pregnancy, she’d loved nothing more than going out with her friends, drinking way too much and dancing until the sun came up. She’d been free. No responsibilities, no pain, no dependency on anyone else. No one dependent on her.
Those days belonged to another woman.
He poured himself a hefty glass, swirled the red liquid, put the rim under his nose then took a sip. It must have pleased his palate for he then took a much larger sip.
Tonino, she suddenly remembered, loved good wine.
When his eyes locked on to hers, a shiver ran down her spine. He looked murderously cold.
‘Why don’t you sit down?’ she suggested quietly.
Tonino, propped against the bar, took another drink as he looked at Orla, dwarfed by the sofa she’d sat herself on, fingers twisting together. She reminded him of a newborn deer that had come face-to-face with its first predator.
‘I’m fine where I am,’ he answered.
She raised a shoulder and breathed in through her nose. ‘Then would you mind not glowering at me?’
That voice…
Orla was the only woman who’d turned him on with nothing but her voice. The husky timbre and lyrical brogue were pure alchemy to the senses. It coiled through his veins like the finest of wines and came dangerously close to muffling out her actual words.
‘Glowering?’ It was an unfamiliar word.
Her lips curled into a brief smile. ‘You know—looking like you want to rip my head from my neck. It’s making me feel all itchy.’
‘You’re safe,’ he answered sardonically. ‘If I rip your head off I’ll never get any answers from you. Enough stalling. Tell me what’s wrong with my son and tell me why you have kept him a secret from me for all these years.’
She dipped her head forwards and put her face in her hands. Her fingers dragged through her thick mane of wavy dark hair, which she’d released from its knot. It was every bit as luscious as he remembered and he suddenly experienced the deepest urge to kneel before her and cradle her face in his hands, stroke the soft skin and run his fingers through the thick mane as he’d done so many times before.
When she looked back up to meet his stare, everything inside him clenched.
‘Are you sure you won’t sit down?’ she said softly. ‘This could take a while.’
Gritting his teeth tightly, he stared at her. Or glowered, as she called it. He would not allow her soft femininity to weaken him. His height was one of the natural advantages nature had given him, his strength accomplished by his own hard work. If him remaining standing made Orla feel disadvantaged, then great. He saw no reason to put her at ease. On the contrary.
She chewed her bottom lip then sighed. ‘I always wanted to tell you.’
He snorted.
‘Please, just listen. Finn’s condition and the reason I never told you about him are related. I had a car accident when I was six months pregnant that left my memory shot to pieces. I couldn’t tell you about Finn because I’d forgotten who you were.’
Her excuse was so outrageous he tightened his grip on the wine glass to stop himself throwing it against the wall. ‘Dio mio, you have got some nerve, lady. You’re claiming you had amnesia?’
‘Yes. But it’s not a claim. It’s the truth.’
‘And when did your memories return?’
‘The ones about you returned today… Well, some of them have…’
‘Very convenient,’ he mocked, topping up his glass with more wine. ‘You’ve had hours to come up with a convincing excuse and this is the best you can do? Amnesia?’
‘I understand it sounds far-fetched but it’s the truth. I’ve spent over three years trying to remember you. All I remembered with any clarity until today was your face. Everything else was hazy images. I knew we’d met here in Sicily but that was a deep-rooted knowledge, like knowing my own name—’
‘You expect me to believe this?’ he interrupted impatiently.
‘It’s the truth and it’s a provable truth.’
‘Really?’ he sneered. ‘The only thing provable is that you’re a liar.’
‘I am not.’
‘You booked into my hotel under a false name.’
Confusion creased her beautiful face. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Four years ago you booked into my hotel under the name of Orla McCarthy. Here, you are booked in under the name of Orla O’Reilly.’
Around a month after she’d done her disappearing act, Tonino had drunk too much wine and decided to search her name on the Internet. The few articles he’d found with the name Orla McCarthy in them had not been about her.
Now he understood why Orla had bucked the trend and left no digital footprint. She’d given him a false name.
The woman he’d experienced the deepest connection of his life with, the woman who’d been the unwitting catalyst of the ongoing rift with his family, the woman who’d had no idea of who he was yet had still treated him like a prince…
That woman had lied about her name. She’d kept his child a secret from him.
He couldn’t understand why he wasn’t fighting an urge to throw her out of the suite window into the sea below but was instead fighting the powerful urge to drag her into his arms and kiss her until he’d drawn all the breath from her lungs.
He couldn’t understand how he could look at her deceitful face and feel all his internal organs swelling and compressing his lungs. These were reactions her cruel duplicity should have killed stone dead.
