been talking the helicopter had flown over the city, and now it began to descend towards a helipad on the roof of a high-rise building. Beth’s nervousness returned, and she was so intent on gripping her seat that she could barely hear Cesario’s assurance, or question why he had arranged a babysitter before he had known she was to accompany him to the theatre.
The helicopter landed on the roof of the Piras-Cossu Bank’s head offices in the business district of Rome. Beth had a fleeting impression of grey-carpeted corridors, plush offices and lots of tinted glass, before a lift swept them to the ground floor, where they crossed a marble foyer and stepped outside to climb into a waiting limousine.
Cesario’s apartment overlooked a piazza called the Campo de’ Fiori, which he explained meant field of flowers, where a busy market selling fruit, vegetables and flowers operated every morning. The outside of the apartment block was a beautiful historic building, but to Beth’s surprise inside the penthouse flat was modern and starkly minimalist, with white marble floors, white walls and furnishings.
‘Your city home is very different to the castle,’ she commented, privately thinking that the apartment seemed as sterile and unwelcoming as a clinic.
‘It’s not to my taste. My wife chose the décor. Raffaella disliked the castle and preferred to spend her time in Rome, but for me the flat is simply somewhere to stay when I need to be at the bank. I’ve never bothered to have it redecorated.’
Cesario had carried Sophie up from the car, but now he gave her to Beth before ushering her into the lounge. Two men were waiting there, and after speaking to them in Italian Cesario introduced the younger man as a representative from a paternity testing clinic, while the older, white-haired man, he explained, was a doctor.
‘Obtaining a DNA sample is done by taking a mouth swab and is absolutely painless,’ the clinic rep assured Beth. ‘I will take a sample from Signor Piras first, and then from the child.’
Sophie seemed quite unconcerned, and the test was performed in minutes. But Beth felt tense as the sample was taken which would prove whether or not Cesario was Sophie’s father. If he wasn’t, then she would take Mel’s baby daughter back to Hackney, to the cramped flat in the run-down tower block. She would manage, she told herself. Hopefully she’d find a better-paid job which would enable her to afford somewhere nicer for them to live. But it was unlikely she would ever see Cesario again.
The thought hurt more than it should. Why should she care? she wondered despairingly. He was all but a stranger—a wealthy playboy whose world was so different from hers that they might as well live on different planets. She stole a glance at him and felt an ache inside as she drank in his hard, handsome features, and the cruel scar running down his cheek that gave him the faintest air of vulnerability and proved he was made of flesh and blood, not carved from granite. He was the only man to have kissed her with fierce passion and awoken her desires, to have made her long for him to possess her body and take her to the heights of sexual fulfilment.
Her heart leapt when he turned his head and trapped her gaze, his expression speculative as he watched the streaks of colour wing along her cheekbones.
‘You will be contacted with the results as soon as they are available,’ the clinic rep explained after he had sealed the samples, and with a polite nod he walked out of the room.
To Beth’s surprise, the doctor did not follow. She had assumed his role had been to witness the collection of the DNA sample, but Cesario explained otherwise.
‘I’ve asked Dr Bartoli to examine you, in the hope that he can diagnose why you keep fainting,’ he told her.
‘You make it sound as though it’s a regular occurrence,’ she muttered in an angry whisper so that the doctor could not hear her. ‘I just feel a bit wobbly sometimes. There’s nothing wrong with me and I don’t need to see a doctor.’
‘Why don’t you let him be the judge of that?’ The determined gleam in Cesario’s eyes warned that she would be wasting her time to argue, and she glared at him helplessly as he took Sophie from her and strolled over to the window.
‘So, Signorina Granger, would you please tell me the symptoms you have been suffering from?’
Beth forced a smile for the elderly doctor. He spoke in such a kind tone that she shrugged and admitted, ‘I sometimes feel dizzy and short of breath. And I’m often tired. But Sophie still wakes for a feed during the night so I suppose it’s not surprising that I feel exhausted.’
‘Caring for an infant can be extremely draining, especially in the first few months,’ the doctor agreed. ‘It is important that you eat a good, balanced diet to give you energy.’
When Beth flushed, remembering the days she had survived on toast and coffee in England, he continued, ‘I understand you are the child’s guardian, and that her mother was your best friend who died shortly after Sophie’s birth?’ He gave her a gentle look. ‘Grief takes a physical as well as mental toll. Perhaps you have lost your appetite since the death of your friend? And perhaps,’ he added intuitively, ‘you have been so busy caring for the baby that you have not had time to grieve properly.’
‘No.’ Beth swallowed hard. She had a sudden stark memory of Mel’s funeral, the utter wrench she’d felt as she’d said that final goodbye. Tears filled her eyes and for a moment she felt like sobbing her heart out. But of course she couldn’t—not in front of a stranger. Anyway, she had learned after her mother had died that crying wasn’t really a relief. It just gave you a headache. And how could she wallow in self-pity when Sophie needed her to be strong?
‘The past few months have been difficult,’ she admitted huskily.
She was conscious that on the other side of the room Cesario was listening to her conversation. She felt his eyes on her, but she could not bring herself to meet his gaze when she felt so vulnerable.
‘I think from what you have told me, and also from your pallor, that you are probably suffering from an iron deficiency,’ Dr Bartoli told her. ‘I will take a blood sample to confirm it, but it will do no harm for you to start a course of iron tablets immediately.’
Five minutes later the doctor packed the small phial containing Beth’s blood sample in his medical bag and shook her hand. ‘Arrivederci, signorina. It is important you take care of yourself. I do not underestimate how hard life can be for a single mother.’
Cesario escorted Dr Bartoli out of the lounge. When he returned moments later he was accompanied by a woman who Beth assumed was a member of his staff at the apartment.
‘Beth, I’d like you to meet Luisa Moretti. Luisa is a nanny from a highly reputable agency in Rome,’ he shocked her by saying. ‘She is going to help you look after Sophie.’
‘I’m pleased to meet you, Miss Granger.’ The woman spoke perfect English and smiled as she extended her hand in formal greeting. Good manners dictated that Beth responded with a polite welcome, but while Luisa made a fuss of Sophie she glared at Cesario.
To her fury he returned her angry look with a bland smile before speaking to the nanny. ‘Beth and I have an appointment, and as Sophie is due a feed and a nap we’ll leave her with you for a couple of hours.’
‘Sophie won’t like being fed by a stranger,’ Beth said stiffly, but to no avail.
‘I’m sure she’ll be quite happy with me,’ Luisa assured her. ‘I’ve worked as a nanny for twenty years, and I have a lot of experience with
