too, once he had finished examining his patient!
She gave a shaky sigh. ‘I don’t think this is the time or place to discuss this, Gabriel—’
‘The time and place to discuss this would have been almost five years ago when you first discovered you were pregnant!’
‘As I recall you were no longer around to talk to almost five years ago!’
His mouth tightened. ‘It was well publicised that I was in Italy at the time, at the Danti vineyards, recovering from the injuries I sustained in the car crash!’
Bella’s eyes flashed deeply purple. ‘And you seriously think that I was going to follow you there and tell you the news!’
‘You had no right to keep my son’s existence from me!’ A nerve pulsed in Gabriel’s tightly clenched jaw.
She shook her head. ‘You gave up any right you had to know about Toby by the fact that you never phoned me as you promised and only slept with me that night out of jealousy and spite because of your ex-girlfriend’s relationship with Paulo Descari!’
Gabriel’s face darkened dangerously. ‘I—’
‘Could the two of you please save your—discussion—until later?’ Henry Scott had opened the door of the room where Gabriel could see his father lying back on one of the sofas. ‘I think your father has merely suffered a severe shock rather than another heart attack, Mr Danti, but to be on the safe side I would like to get him to a hospital for a check-up.’
‘Daddy…?’ Bella looked across at her father uncertainly.
He gave her a reassuring smile. ‘It’s okay, Bella,’ he said gently. ‘For the moment let’s just concentrate on getting Mr Danti to hospital, hmm?’
Bella didn’t need to be told any plainer that her father had guessed Toby’s relationship to the two Danti men.
What must her father think of her?
More to the point, what must he think of the fact that Gabriel Danti, of all men, was unmistakeably the father of his grandson?
‘I would like to see my son.’
Bella had remained behind at the hotel to put Toby to bed when Gabriel and her father had accompanied Cristo Danti to the hospital. But she hadn’t made any attempt to go to bed herself. Had known—had been absolutely certain, in fact—that Gabriel would return once he had assured himself of his father’s recovery.
It was almost two o’clock in the morning, but nevertheless Bella had been expecting the knock on the door of the sitting-room between the bedroom she shared with Claudia and the one Liam shared with Toby. She had changed out of the dress she had worn to the wedding, and into fitted jeans and a black T-shirt, in anticipation of this meeting.
Gabriel looked grim, to say the least, that scar down his left cheek more noticeable in his harshly set features, his eyes fierce as he looked down at her challengingly.
Bella opened the door wider so that Gabriel could step inside the suite. ‘Toby is asleep,’ she told him calmly as she closed the door behind him before turning to face him.
That scar on Gabriel’s cheek seemed to pulse as he clenched his jaw tightly. ‘Nevertheless, I wish to see him.’
‘How is your father?’
‘Tests have shown your father’s original diagnosis to be the correct one. It was shock that caused my father’s collapse and not a heart attack. He is to remain in hospital overnight for observation, but they expect to discharge him in the morning. Isabella—’
‘Did my father return with you from the hospital?’ Bella had already had one long, uncomfortable conversation with her mother this evening, she wasn’t sure she would be up to another one with her father once Gabriel had left.
Gabriel gave a terse nod. ‘He told me to tell you he will speak with you in the morning.’
Her eyes widened. ‘He knew you were coming here?’ Even as she asked the question Bella knew the answer; how else would Gabriel have known which suite to come to in order to see her if her father hadn’t told him?
Gabriel’s mouth thinned. ‘He realised I would want to see my son again before I left, yes.’
Bella flinched every time he said that. No matter what his biological make-up might be, Toby was her son, not Gabriel’s.
She gave a firm shake of her head. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea—’
Gabriel’s scornful laugh cut across her refusal. ‘Any concern I might have felt for your wishes died the moment I discovered you had kept my son’s existence from me for over four years!’ He made no effort to hide his contempt.
He had a son!
Gabriel still found it incredible that such a person existed. That there was a small, tousle-haired boy in the adjoining bedroom with his dark curls and eyes, and a small dimple in the centre of his still-babyish chin…
Having been denied all knowledge of him for over four years, Gabriel had no intention of letting that continue a minute—even a second—longer!
‘Where is he, Isabella?’ he rasped furiously, her panicked glance towards the door to the right of the room enough for Gabriel to stride towards it determinedly.
‘Where are you going?’
Gabriel ignored Bella’s protest as he gently pushed that door open, recognising the sleeping boy in the first bed as Liam Scott before he turned his attention to the much smaller child in the second bed.
His breath caught in his throat as he looked down at the little boy he now knew to be his own son. Toby. Tobias.
He was beautiful, Gabriel acknowledged achingly. Absolutely beautiful. A perfect combination of his two parents.
Toby had Gabriel’s hair colour and that dimple on his chin that would one day become a cleft exactly like those of his father and grandfather. The smoothness of Toby’s brow and the long lashes that swept his cheeks were his mother’s, as was that perfect bow of a mouth with its fuller top lip.
His!
This beautiful child was of his loins. Of his blood.
Bella could only stand helplessly by as Gabriel dropped to his knees beside Toby’s bed, her protest strangling in her throat as Gabriel reached out a hand to touch the little boy, the stroke of his fingers against one slightly chubby cheek so gentle, so tender, that Toby didn’t even stir.
Her heart felt as if it were breaking, shattering, as she watched the rush of love that softened Gabriel’s harshly hewn features. As she saw that love glowing in his broodingly dark gaze as he continued to stare at his son in wonder.
And she knew without a doubt that the last four years of sharing Toby only with her family were over…
‘I need a drink,’ Gabriel stated flatly some time later when he had reluctantly left his son’s bedside to return to the sitting-room, not waiting for Bella’s reply but moving to the mini-bar
