badly needed. She’d felt like a complete zombie when she arrived—a fact not helped by the disorientating experience of being flown to Italy on Matteo’s luxury jet then being picked up by the kind of limousine which only a year ago she would have been chauffeuring. The drive to his Umbrian property had passed in a blur and Keira remembered thinking that the only time emotion had entered Matteo’s voice was when they drove through the ancient gates and he began to point out centuries-old landmarks, with an unmistakable sense of pride and affection.
She almost wished Santino had been a little older so he could have appreciated the silvery ripple of olive trees, heavy with fruit and ready for harvest, and the golden pomegranates which hung from the branches like Christmas baubles. She remembered being greeted by a homely housekeeper named Paola and the delicious hot bath she took once the baby had been settled. There had been the blissful sensation of sliding between crisp, clean sheets and laying her head on a pillow of goose-down, followed by her first full night’s sleep since before the birth. And that was pretty much how she’d spent the last seven days, feeling her vitality and strength returning with each hour that passed.
‘You’re smiling,’ came a richly accented voice from above her as a shadow suddenly blotted out the sun.
Shielding her eyes with the edge of her hand, Keira peered up to see Matteo towering over her and her smile instantly felt as if it had become frozen. She could feel her heart picking up speed and the tug of silken hunger in the base of her belly and silently she cursed the instinctive reaction of her body. Because as her strength had returned, so too had her desire for Matteo—a man who she couldn’t quite decide was her jailer or her saviour. Or both.
Their paths hadn’t crossed much because he’d spent much of the time working in a distant part of the enormous farmhouse. It was as if he’d unconsciously marked out different territories for them, with clear demarcation lines which couldn’t be crossed. But what she’d noted above all else was the fact that he’d kept away from the nursery, using the excuse that his son needed to settle in before getting used to too many new people. Because that was what it had sounded like. An excuse. A reason not to touch the son he had insisted should come here.
She’d seen him, of course. Glimpses in passing, which had unsettled her. Matteo looking brooding and muscular in faded denims and a shirt as he strode about the enormous estate, conversing in rapid Italian with his workers—or wearing a knockout charcoal suit just before driving to Rome for the day and returning long after she’d gone to bed.
Another image was burnt vividly into her mind, too. She’d overslept one morning and gone straight to the nursery to find Claudia cradling Santino by the window and telling him to watch ‘Papa’ going down the drive. Papa. It was a significant word. It emphasised Matteo’s importance in their lives yet brought home how little she really knew about the cold-hearted billionaire. Yet that hadn’t stopped her heart from missing a beat as he’d speeded out of the estate in his gleaming scarlet sports car, had it?
‘It makes me realise how rarely I see you smile,’ observed Matteo, still looking down at her as he stood silhouetted by the rich October sun.
‘Maybe that’s because we’ve hardly seen one another,’ said Keira, flipping on the sunglasses which had been perched on top of her head, grateful for the way they kept her expression hidden. Not for the first time, she found it almost impossible to look at the man in front of her with any degree of impartiality, but she disguised it with a cool look. ‘And you’re a fine one to talk about smiling. You don’t exactly go around the place grinning from ear to ear, do you?’
‘Perhaps our forthcoming trip to Rome might bring a smile to both our faces,’ he suggested silkily.
Ah yes, the trip to Rome. Keira felt the anxious slam of her heart. She licked her lips. ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. Do we really have to go?’
In a movement which distractingly emphasised the jut of his narrow hips, he leaned against the sun-baked wall of the farmhouse. ‘We’ve agreed to this, Keira. You need to see the other side of my life, not just this rural idyll. And I’m mainly based in Rome.’
‘And the difference is what?’
‘It’s a high-octane city and nothing like as relaxed as here. When I’m there I go to restaurants and theatres. I have friends there and get invited to parties—and as the mother of my baby, I will be taking you with me.’
She sat up on the lounger, anxiety making her heart thud even harder against her ribcage. ‘Why bother? Why not just leave me somewhere in the background and concentrate on forming a relationship with your son?’
‘I think we have to examine all the possibilities,’ he said carefully. ‘And number one on that list is to work out whether we could have some kind of life together.’ He lifted his brows. ‘It would certainly make things a whole lot easier.’
‘And you’re saying I’ll let you down in my current state, is that it?’
He shrugged his broad shoulders with a carelessness which wasn’t very convincing. ‘I think we’re both aware that you don’t have a suitable wardrobe for that kind of lifestyle. You can’t wear jeans all the time and Paola mentioned that you only seem to have one pair of boots.’
‘So Paola’s been spying on me, has she?’ Keira questioned, her voice dipping with disappointment that the genial housekeeper seemed to have been taking her inventory.
‘Don’t be absurd. She was going to clean them for you and couldn’t find any others you could wear in the meantime.’
Keira scrambled up off the lounger and stared into his hard and beautiful features. He really came from a totally different planet, didn’t he? One which was doubtless inhabited by women who had boots in every colour of the rainbow and not just a rather scuffed brown pair she’d bought in the sales. ‘So don’t take me with you,’ she said flippantly. ‘Leave me behind while you go out to all your fancy places and I can stay home and look after Santino, wearing my solitary pair of boots.’
A flicker of a smile touched the corners of his lips, but just as quickly it was gone. ‘That isn’t an option, I’m afraid,’ he said smoothly. ‘You’re going to have to meet people. Not just my friends and the people who work for me, but my father and stepmother at some point. And my stepbrother,’ he finished, his mouth twisting before his gaze fixed her with its ebony blaze. ‘The way you look at the moment means you won’t fit in. Not anywhere,’ he continued brutally. ‘And there’s the chance that people will talk about you if you behave like some kind of hermit, which won’t make things easy for you. Apart from anything else, we need to learn more about each other.’ He hesitated. ‘We are parents, with a child and a future to consider. We need to discuss the options open to us and that won’t be possible if we continue to be strangers to one another.’
‘You haven’t bothered coming near me since we got here,’ she said quietly. ‘You’ve been keeping your distance, haven’t you?’
‘Can you blame me? You were almost on your knees with exhaustion when you arrived.’ He paused as his eyes swept over her again. ‘But you look like a different person now.’
Keira was taken aback by the way her body responded to that slow scrutiny, wondering how he could make her feel so many different things, simply by looking at her. And if that was the case, shouldn’t she be protecting herself from his persuasive power over her, instead of going on a falsely intimate trip to Rome?
‘I told you. I don’t want to leave the baby,’ she said stubbornly.
‘Is
