standing beneath the shade of a tree not twenty feet from them. As she stared he sent her a brief nod in acknowledgement and she knew then, knew with every single fractured nerve she possessed that, far from dismissing them, Enrico was right there watching them from behind the steady gaze of his most trusted employee.
Well, this was one fight he was going to have with himself because she was not going to play any part in it, she decided as she clambered to her feet. Nicky was her son and only hers, and it was going to be up to Enrico to prove otherwise.
If he cared enough.
Bitterness welled, and anger—a hard, cold rod of contempt that straightened her spine as she held a hand out to her son.
‘Come on, sweetie,’ she murmured. ‘It’s time for us to go back now.’
Nicky came without argument. With no bread left, the ducks had scooted back into the pond. Plus her son was used to the routine he had been living with since he was three months old and she had been so very fortunate to land a job at Hannard’s with its crèche all ready and waiting to take in her son.
The job itself might be basic and the pay reflected the money it cost her to place Nicky in day care, but at least he was right there in the same building with her and she could see him whenever she needed to. Their little flat might be poky and erring towards shabby but they managed.
They were happy—content to have just each other. They did not need a man in their lives and once Enrico had recovered from the shock of seeing them he would realise that he could not want anything to do with them.
‘The monkey is following us,’ Nicky informed her.
‘He’s not a monkey, he’s a man,’ Freya corrected and refused to glance back at Fredo—refused.
But that cold chill was striking at her again, the grim knowledge that she was lying to herself if she dared to believe that Enrico was going to let her off the hook without knowing the truth.
He was ruthless and tenacious.
CHAPTER TWO
LYING, cheating, vindictive whore…
Enrico sat behind the desk, silently throwing those insults at the photograph sourced from Hannard’s security files that looked out at him from his computer screen.
She looked so cute, so sweetly innocent, he mocked acidly. As if butter would not melt in her mouth.
But it did melt.
With a flick of the mouse he blanked her out by pulling up a photograph of the boy and once again felt that soul-shattering, crash-and-burn feeling rock his insides.
‘What do you think—is he mine or Luca’s?’ he asked Fredo.
Fredo gave one of his shrugs. ‘If he is Luca’s, then the bambino has been fortunate enough to miss out on his papa’s less savoury genes,’ the bodyguard said drily before adding quietly, ‘He has your eyes and mouth and your—stubbornness. He also has your sense of fun…’
Fredo was thinking about the way the boy had kept glancing up to check on him all the way back here and the cheeky smile he’d worn on his little mouth. As they’d entered the building he’d turned and shouted, ‘Bye, monkey!’ before being dragged off chuckling by his mamma who’d refused to glance Fredo’s way at all.
Enrico did not feel as if he had so much as a drop of fun in him right now as he sat there staring at the child’s face; it was as if those ink-dark eyes were making a link with his own—he could feel it right down to the dregs of his swirling, tensing gut.
‘He is mine, I feel it,’ he uttered gruffly.
‘Si.’ Fredo nodded.
Why the sombre confirmation from his bodyguard further creased him up Enrico did not know—but it did.
‘Get down to the crèche and keep your eye on him,’ he instructed.
For the first time in all the years they’d been together Fredo balked at a command. ‘You want me to spend the afternoon in a nursery—with bambinos?’
He was horrified. Enrico looked at him. ‘Who the hell else can I trust to keep an eye on him while I work this mess out?’
‘But he cannot go anywhere without his mamma! She—’
Enrico got up, all lithe muscle and brooding unease. ‘She could run,’ he muttered. ‘I cannot afford to let her disappear until I know the truth.’
Fredo was silent. He might not like the job he was being handed but he saw the possibility in what Enrico said. With a fatalistic shrug of his big shoulders he turned to the door.
‘Where is Luca hiding out these days?’ Enrico sent grimly after him.
Fredo paused. ‘Last I heard he was in Hawaii with his latest rich puta.’
‘Arrange to keep him there,’ Enrico ordered. ‘Use threats or money or both if you have to.’ Though it closed up his throat to give his cousin a single euro. ‘I don’t need him turning up and queering this for me when he hears I have a son by Freya.’
‘How will he hear it?’ Fredo asked in bewilderment. Luca had been cast out of the Ranieri family; he did not even have contact with his own mother any more!
‘He will hear it like the rest of the world will hear it,’ Enrico said. ‘When I announce it publicly that I have a son and intend to marry the boy’s mother.’
There was a very thick pause, then Fredo said carefully, ‘You are going too fast with this, Enrico—’
A pair of black-ice eyes lanced Fredo with a look that made the other man sigh.
‘You need positive proof before you—’
‘The boy is mine. I want him. The mother comes with the package.’
‘Try telling the signorina that,’ Fredo said drily.
‘I intend to.’
Freya was wistfully wishing she lived on the other side of the world right now.
But she didn’t. She was standing right here in Hannard’s basement, mindlessly feeding paper into an old flatbed scanner so the information on it could be transferred to the mainframe computer.
Trapped, she thought bleakly, by the need to earn a living.
And frightened, because she didn’t know what Enrico was going to do.
It was all over the building that he’d bought out Josh Hannard. It was also all over the building that he’d accosted her in the foyer this lunchtime and caused an ugly scene.
Her telephone rang. It hadn’t stopped ringing since she’d got back from lunch, flooding her with calls from her fellow workmates wanting her to dish the dirt as to what Mr Ranieri had said to her. The whole place was agog with curiosity and scared out of their wits for their livelihoods…more scared if they had a child in Hannard’s crèche. All she could do
