the idea that it could be his child.
‘My dad was seriously injured in an accident on the farm. The tractor he was driving rolled over and he was crushed beneath it.’ Rebekah’s voice shook at the memory of seeing her father’s body trapped beneath the tractor’s wheels. Her mother, usually so calm, had looked terrified, and her older brother Owen had been grim-faced as he had called the emergency services. Ifan Evans was a giant of a man who had never suffered a day’s illness in his life. His near-fatal accident had shaken the whole family, and for several weeks while he remained in intensive care Rebekah had simply pushed her pregnancy to the back of her mind and concentrated on supporting her parents through their ordeal. It was only now her father was back home at the farm and making a good recovery that she was able to focus on the new life growing inside her.
‘I understand you must be shocked about the baby,’ she told Dante. ‘I was too at first. But we’re both intelligent adults and we have to accept that no form of contraception is one hundred per cent safe.’
‘I’ll want proof that the child is mine.’
She bit her lip and tasted blood. ‘And once you have your proof, will you demand I have an abortion?’ Her voice shook as she fought to control her emotions. ‘If so, you’ll waste your breath because I am going to have this child, with or without your support.’
He was visibly shocked. ‘Of course I would not want you to …’ He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence and he cursed himself for his insensitivity when he remembered how her ex-fiancé had reacted when she had told him she was pregnant. Had Rebekah hoped he would be pleased to hear she was expecting his child? If so, then he had cruelly disappointed her, he accepted, gripped by guilt as he stared at her tense face. She deserved so much more than he had given her. But he was reeling from shock and all he could think of was how he’d felt as if his heart had been ripped out when Lara had taken Ben.
When Rebekah had told him she was pregnant he had experienced a feeling of déjà vu. It seemed unbelievable that history was repeating itself. The hurt expression in her violet eyes made him wince.
‘How do you feel about the pregnancy?’ he asked her gruffly.
‘Happy,’ she said instantly. Her voice wobbled. ‘And scared.’
Dante turned away from her and sloshed more whisky into his glass, vaguely surprised to find that his hands were shaking. It was his fault that Rebekah was in this situation, he thought grimly. She had suffered the agony of her first child being stillborn and understandably this second pregnancy must bring back terrible memories and make her afraid of what lay ahead. She needed his reassurance and support, not his anger. But he could not reach out to her. It shamed him to admit that he was scared too, afraid of being hurt like he had been once before.
Rebekah felt sick with despair. Once again she was carrying a child inside her who was not wanted by its father. Blazing anger replaced her misery. Fatherhood might not appeal to Dante but he had a responsibility to his baby. How dared he try and wriggle out of that responsibility by suggesting that the baby wasn’t his?
‘I am carrying your child, no one else’s.’ She placed a hand on her stomach and her eyes blazed with maternal pride and protectiveness. ‘In five months’ time we are going to be parents, so you’d better get used to the idea.’
She took a steadying breath, afraid that her thudding heartbeat couldn’t be good for the baby. And the baby was all that mattered. The welfare of the tiny scrap of life inside her was her only concern and it should be Dante’s too. ‘If you insist on proof, I’m willing for a paternity test to be done.’ She closed her eyes to hold back the tears that suddenly blinded her. ‘How could you think I would try and con you into fatherhood if I knew the child wasn’t yours?’
Dante gulped down the rest of the whisky in his glass, aware that he owed Rebekah an explanation. In fact the explanation was long overdue, he thought heavily, when he saw the shimmer of tears in her eyes.
‘Because it has happened to me once before,’ he said harshly.
‘I … I don’t understand.’ For some reason, a memory slid into Rebekah’s mind of the box she had found in Dante’s grandmother’s bedroom at the house in Tuscany. She recalled his strange reaction when she had opened the box and found a child’s clothes and toys. ‘It has something to do with Ben, doesn’t it?’ she said slowly. ‘Who is he?’
‘I believed he was my son. And for that reason I married his mother.’
That wasn’t completely true, Dante acknowledged silently. He had been in love with Lara and when she had told him she was pregnant with his baby he had seized the opportunity to make her his wife.
Rebekah’s legs suddenly felt as though they wouldn’t support her. ‘You were married?’ She was staggered to think that Dante—the anti-marriage, anti-commitment divorce lawyer had once been married. She wondered if he had loved his wife. Something in his voice told her that he had, and she felt an agonising stab of jealousy. She frowned as she recalled his curious statement that he had believed Ben was his son. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said wearily.
Dante saw Rebekah sway unsteadily. Her face was deathly pale and he feared she was about to faint. He cursed himself. She was pregnant but, instead of taking care of her, he had not even invited her to take her coat off.
‘Sit down,’ he commanded roughly, his frown deepening when she did not protest as he tugged her coat from her shoulders and pushed her gently down into an armchair. She rested her head against the cushions and closed her eyes so that her long lashes fanned her cheeks. While she was off her guard he studied her, roaming his eyes greedily over her firm breasts and coming to a juddering halt when he reached the rounded swell of her stomach. For the first time since she had told him she was pregnant he thought about what that actually meant. There was a strong likelihood that the child inside her was his. A strange feeling that he could not even begin to assimilate unfurled inside him. He stretched out a hand to her, compelled to touch her stomach, but snatched it back as she opened her eyes.
‘Are you keeping well? Eating properly and everything?’ he demanded awkwardly.
‘Like a horse,’ she said drily, ‘which is why I’m showing already. I’m afraid I’m not going to be one of those women who sail through pregnancy with hardly any visible sign and snap back into their skinny jeans half an hour after giving birth.’
‘What does it matter?’ It occurred to Dante that Rebekah had never looked more beautiful than she did now. He found her curvaceous figure incredibly sexy, but there was something else about her that he couldn’t explain, an air of serenity and contentment that softened her face and made her lovelier than ever.
Abruptly he moved away from her, strode over to the bar and refilled his glass. ‘You said you don’t understand about Ben, so I’ll tell you.
‘Six years ago I worked for a law firm in New York and had an affair with another lawyer at the company. Lara was a couple of years older than me. She’d been a top catwalk model but had given up modelling to concentrate on her legal career.’
So the mysterious Lara, who Nicole had mentioned in Tuscany, was beautiful and brainy, Rebekah thought dismally. She realised Dante had continued speaking, and forced herself to concentrate on what he was saying.
‘I knew she had been seeing another guy before I met her, but she assured me the relationship was over.’ Dante grimaced. ‘I admit I was blown away by her. She was stunningly attractive, ambitious, sophisticated—everything
