out to moisten her lips. ‘Alessandro… I can’t do this.’
His thumb stroked the side of her mouth, close but not quite touching her pulsing lips. ‘But you want to, don’t you, cara? You want to as much as I do.’
She couldn’t stop staring at his mouth, her heart going like an out-of-control jackhammer in her chest. ‘It…it doesn’t make it right,’ she said. ‘You already have a mistress, and I have—’
His hands came down on her shoulders and held her fast. ‘Do not play games with me, Scarlett. I will have what I want, no matter what hurdles or obstacles you put in the way. We have unfinished business between us.’
‘Yes, the birth of your son being one of them,’ she threw back.
His jaw was set in taut lines. ‘Why do you persist with this? I told you, he cannot possibly be mine.’
‘There are ways of finding out for sure.’
His fingers tightened momentarily before he released her, using one of his hands to bring back the hair that had fallen forward over his frowning forehead. ‘I do not need to find out anything. I know everything I need to know. I saw you with Kirby; there is an easy familiarity between you. Anyone can see you are intimately involved. I am not surprised he is still on the scene. He never really went away, did he? In fact, it would not surprise me if you cooked the whole scheme up between you.’
She looked at him with contempt. ‘What?’
‘Money was your motive,’ he said, holding her glare with consummate ease. ‘Your job was to land yourself a billionaire so you could get your hands on half of the assets and split them with your lover. It has been done before, and no doubt will be done again.’
‘Will you agree to have a paternity test done?’ she asked, ignoring his insulting summation of her character.
He looked at her in silence for what seemed a very long time, his expression as closed as a clenched fist. ‘If that is the only thing that will stop you going on with this nonsense, then yes, I will agree to it.’
Scarlett suddenly felt suspended between relief and worry. What if on finding out the truth he decided he wanted full custody of his son? What if he insisted on Matthew spending up to half a year in Milan? Matthew was generally a secure little boy, but he was still a toddler, and the slightest change in routine would be enough to make him have nightmares or set him back developmentally. She might very well have started a chain of events that, once in motion, would not be easily halted.
Alessandro was a determined and no-nonsense man. Once he found out the truth, he would want control, and she had virtually handed it to him by pressing the issue so persistently.
‘We don’t have to rush into things…’ she said, knowing it sounded as if she was backtracking.
His lip curled. ‘Having second thoughts, Scarlett?’
She forced herself to hold his gaze. ‘No, but I’m concerned about the effect on my son. I’ve always told him his father is dead.’
‘He is very young to understand the concept of death,’ he commented. ‘He must be a very intelligent child.’
‘He is,’ she said, lifting her chin. ‘But then, so is his father.’
He picked up their glasses, handing her the one she hadn’t yet tasted. ‘Dinner is ready,’ he said. ‘I had my housekeeper prepare it earlier.’
Scarlett followed him to the dining area she had designed for a happy family gathering, never once at the time imagining that a few months later she would be sitting in it in a stony silence, opposite the man who had so ruthlessly broken her heart.
She sat, staring at the food on her plate, wondering how on earth she was going to get it past the aching lump in her throat.
‘You are not eating,’ Alessandro said after a few moments. ‘Is the food not to your liking?’
She picked up her knife and fork. ‘It’s fine…lovely, in fact. You must have a very good housekeeper.’
‘Yes, I have,’ he said. ‘She only comes in twice a week, however.’
Scarlett looked up in surprise from rearranging the food on her plate. ‘Is that all? I thought you’d have a daily, if not fulltime help.’
He picked up his wine glass and met her gaze. ‘I do not like sharing my living space with people who are virtually strangers. I thought you would have remembered that about me.’
Scarlett did, but she thought with his billionaire status it might have changed. Alessandro had always been very particular about his privacy. She hadn’t met any member of his extended family in the whole time she had lived with him. When she had asked about his parents, whether they were coming to visit or if they could visit them, he had told her they were on an extended cruise and wouldn’t be back for months. All he had told her was that he was an only child, but now she wondered if there was more to his background than he was prepared to reveal.
‘How are your parents?’ she asked after a slight pause.
‘Fine.’
‘Where are they based now?’ she asked. ‘Do they live in Milan close to you?’
‘No, in Sorrento,’ he answered. ‘They have a nice place overlooking the sea.’
‘So you see them often?’
‘No.’
‘They must miss you,’ she offered into the ensuing lengthy silence.
His eyes fell away from hers. ‘Yes…’he said, with a slight frown pleating his brow. ‘I imagine they do.’
Scarlett picked up her glass and took a tiny sip. ‘Will they come out to visit you while you’re here in Australia?’ she asked.
‘They have talked about it once or twice, but nothing has been confirmed.’
‘Do you have a photograph of them?’ she asked.
His eyes were shadowed as they met hers. ‘No, I do not.’
‘Are you close to them?’
‘Yes and no.’
‘What does that mean?’ she asked.
He let out a frustrated sigh. ‘Look, my parents do not have a particularly happy marriage. I do not spend much time with them for the simple reason I do not like hearing them bicker with each other all the time. It grates on me.’
‘Why don’t they get divorced?’
‘They do not believe in divorce.’
‘How ironic,’ she said with an ironic twist to her mouth, ‘That you—their only son—doesn’t believe in marriage.’
‘It is not that I have anything against marriage, Scarlett. I know of several very happy marriages where both parties love and respect each other.’
‘But
