hoped was a non-threatening expression and then knocked on Orla’s door.
He’d done much thinking since leaving her suite, and as the hours had passed the rage inside him had subsided. His behaviour, he recognised, had not been much better than the behaviour he’d accused Orla of, albeit a different kind of abhorrence. For his son’s sake, he needed to build bridges.
The door opened just as he raised his knuckles to knock on it a second time.
Orla looked at him as if he were something a stray cat had dragged in. ‘What time do you call this?’
He took a beat to soak in the thick dark hair, all tousled and spilling over the thin pink robe wrapped around her slender form, and felt a thickening in his loins as he was taken back four years to their first morning together. They’d taken a shower and afterwards he’d expected her to lock herself in the bathroom to paint her face on as all his previous lovers had done. That she hadn’t, that she’d been so comfortable in her skin and so comfortable with him not to feel the need to cover it, had evoked the strangest of feelings in him. Even today he couldn’t explain what that feeling was, but he felt it again now as he stared at the pink, plump lips that had fascinated him as much as everything else about her had.
He’d wanted Orla with a needy desperation he’d never felt before or since. He could hardly believe those feelings were still alive in his veins.
Breathing through his mouth to protect his lungs from filling with her scent, Tonino stepped past her into the suite. ‘You said Finn’s an early riser. He must take after me.’ Not that Tonino had had any sleep that night. How could he when he was still trying to comprehend what he’d discovered yesterday?
Forget that every component of his body was heightened for Orla, he was here for one reason only. His son.
‘Tonino, it’s six thirty.’
‘I know.’ He looked around the living area of the suite. ‘Where is he?’
‘His nurse has taken him for a walk around the gardens.’
‘This early?’
‘He’s been awake for over an hour.’
If he’d known that he would have come earlier instead of pacing his own suite impatiently. ‘When will he be back?’
‘I don’t know. It depends if there’s anything out there that captures his interest.’
‘He likes being outside?’ There was so much to discover about his son. A whole three years’ worth of living to be discovered, including his birth date.
‘He loves it.’ Orla padded over to the window and perched herself on the ledge. She cast a quick glance at Tonino before tucking a lock of hair behind her ear and looking out at the early-morning view. ‘Unfortunately Ireland’s reputation for rain is based on fact—we’re not known as the Emerald Isle for nothing—so sunny days are to be cherished.’
‘Marry me and he can have sunshine every day.’
She turned her gaze back to him sharply. ‘What?’
Tonino sat himself down on an armchair and looked straight at her. ‘I have been doing much thinking. I want Finn in my life permanently and the best way I can see to facilitate this is for you to marry me.’
ORLA WAS GLAD she was sitting down. There was a good chance she would have fallen over in shock if she’d still been on her feet. ‘Are you drunk?’
He didn’t look drunk. His hair was damp and even sitting far from him on the windowsill she could smell the heady scent of freshly showered Tonino. She was certain that if she’d been placed in a room blindfolded and made to smell his scent, that alone would have been enough to unlock her memories of him.
He hadn’t shaved but still looked razor-sharp, dark eyes clear and focused intently on her. The wedding suit he’d worn the day before had been replaced with charcoal chinos and a crisp navy shirt that fitted and enhanced his tall, muscular frame perfectly.
God help her but the man was a bigger sex bomb than her broken brain had remembered.
The four years that had passed since they’d conceived Finn had not been kind to Orla. The youthful body she’d taken for granted was now marked and scarred, unrecognisable from the body Tonino must remember. She’d never considered herself vain until she’d stood naked before a mirror for the first time after the accident and burst into tears at what had reflected back at her.
Where the time that had passed since Finn’s conception had been cruel to her, for Tonino it had been kind. Incredibly kind. Adonis himself would look at Tonino and weep at the unfairness.
It had been Orla’s suggestion that the nurse take Finn for a walk. She’d guessed Tonino would turn up early—although not this early—and had wanted to be ready for him. She’d wanted to be showered and dressed and armoured behind make-up. Instead he’d arrived at the same moment she’d been about to step into the bathroom for her shower and found her looking like a scruffy cat lady. She hadn’t even brushed her hair. She’d bet good money that he’d done it deliberately to catch her off guard.
She knew she shouldn’t care what she looked like in front of him but she did. Right then, her pride was all she had left.
Her shoddy appearance was just one more disadvantage she had against him and she could feel the heat of colour splash her face under the weight of his blatant scrutiny. At least her headache had gone so that was one small mercy.
‘Marriage makes excellent sense,’ he said with all the confidence of a man used to his words being heeded as if he really were Adonis.
Her stomach twisted violently. She empathised with him, she really did, but did he have to be so entitled and overbearing? And did her heart have to beat so hard and her skin thrum just to share the same air as him?
Speaking through gritted teeth, she said, ‘You’ve known about Finn’s existence for five minutes and you’ve spent most of that time threatening me and calling me a liar and now you want to marry me? Are you sure you’re not drunk?’
His eyes didn’t so much as flicker. ‘I want my son to have my name and to be recognised as his father.’
‘You can have that without marriage.’
‘My son deserves…’
The turmoil that had been with her all the previous day and had still been there the moment she’d opened her eyes that morning reached its peak. ‘Will you stop with all this “my son” malarkey?’ she suddenly exploded. ‘You know nothing about Finn and for you to keep referring to him as yours is doing my head in!’
He straightened, his face twisting with contempt. ‘If you hadn’t selfishly kept him to yourself, I would already know everything about him. I am his father, Orla, and I will damned well be a part of his life and take on all the responsibility being his father entails.’
Her temper evaporated to be replaced by shame at her outburst. Bowing her head, she covered her face
