up and down her arms, Anna sensed their tremble.
‘I’m not getting married…I told you.’
‘Then regrettably, you’re pushing me into taking action I’d much rather not take,’ Dante retorted. ‘But I will take it if it means I can be with my daughter. I’ll go to court to get full custody of Tia.’
Was it only to her own hypersensitive hearing that her heartbeat sounded so deafeningly loud? Anna thought. She’d been musing on a mother’s worst nightmare but surely this was one of the most horrendous threats a woman could face? That her child’s estranged parent might sue for custody and take her away—maybe to live in another country entirely? Searching for compassion in Dante’s flint-like stare, worryingly, she found none.
‘No!’ she protested loudly, tears stinging the backs of her lids.
He lifted an eyebrow, but looked no less resolved on his course. ‘If you don’t want me to take such an action, then I suggest you stop putting obstacles in the way and agree to our marriage.’
‘That’s so disrespectful. You’d resort to something as low as blackmail to get your own way?’
‘I told you.’ His broad-shouldered shrug was unapologetic. ‘I’ll do anything I can to be with my daughter… the daughter you have so callously denied me knowledge of for four years because my so-called reputation made you believe I didn’t deserve to know about her. And you have the audacity to stand there and lecture me on respect!’
‘I didn’t keep her from you deliberately.’ Wanting to cry in frustration as well as pain, Anna stared pleadingly into the heartbreakingly handsome features of the well-dressed man in front of her. ‘Don’t you think I would have preferred to be in a good relationship with my baby’s father than be asked not to try and get in touch after we parted that night? I know it was a difficult time for you, but it didn’t exactly make me feel wanted to know that you could just walk away from me and never look back. And how do you think I felt when I discovered I was pregnant? Especially when it was the first time I—’ She bit her lip on what she’d been going to say and continued, ‘I was shocked, lonely, scared. I experienced every one of those states—but even taken together they don’t come near to describing how I felt.’
She noticed that Dante’s glance was quizzical.
‘It was the first time you…what, Anna?’
Backing up nervously, she reached for the glass of wine she’d left on the side-table near the armchair and drank some. She let the alcohol hit before raising her chin with a defiant air born of Dutch courage. Her dark eyes focused firmly on Dante.
‘It was the first time I’d slept with a man.’
The oath he swore was in Italian, and because she was shaky after revealing her news Anna returned her glass to the table, waiting for the tirade of disbelief that she was certain would explode towards her.
But when next he spoke Dante’s voice was surprisingly quiet, his words measured. ‘You were untouched when I took you into my bed…that’s what you’re telling me?’
‘I was. Couldn’t you tell I was no experienced seductress who made a habit of going to bed with male guests? I’d barely even been kissed before!’
‘Yet you were molten heat in my arms. Everywhere I touched you, you made me burn.’
Praying for some way to steady the deluge of emotion that tumbled forcefully through her, Anna despaired of ever feeling calm again when she saw the renewed flame of Dante’s desire sinfully reflected back at her… just as if it had never gone away. With a disparaging toss of her head, she answered, ‘I think I lost my mind a little that night. I would never usually behave in that way with a strange man…with any man for that matter.’
‘We lost our minds together, Anna.’ He sounded seductively accepting and non-judgmental. ‘And the result was little Tia. Can you regret such an outcome? ‘
‘Never.’
‘Then we have to deal with this situation like adults, instead of feuding children, and that means our daughter’s welfare takes priority.’
‘You mean…’ Anna surveyed him with a frown. ‘You mean you still believe marriage is the only answer? ‘
‘I do.’
‘If that’s the way you want to go, how about trying a trial period of living together first?’
‘Too uncertain—and it hardly represents the security I want for Tia.’
‘Surely that depends on how we deal with it? If we’re committed to making it work, then living together could be just as secure as marriage.’
‘No. That’s not what I want.’
‘And if I refuse? You’d really take me to court for custody?’
‘I would.’ His piercing glance was as unyielding as ice.
IT DIDN’T exactly enhance his self-esteem or his pride, having to potentially resort to blackmail to persuade Anna to marry him, but since he had made the earth-shattering discovery that he was a father, Dante’s determination to help bring up his daughter was cast-iron. There was nothing the redheaded beauty could say that would deter him.
But in truth he was taken aback that she could so easily refuse him. He’d met plenty of women on his travels who considered him quite the catch.
Once upon a time his ex-wife Marisa had said those very words to him. ‘You’re quite a catch, Dante… It’s a wonder that you’ve been allowed to say free and single for this long…’
But that assertion by her had soon turned to ashes when she’d discovered that for her husband raw ambition came first and his most intimate relationship a very poor second. Even when his marriage had been in its dying stages he hadn’t sought to rescue it, or been able to express his emotions. Marisa had walked into the arms of another man and Dante had simply let her—if he was honest, feeling nothing but relief.
Now the greatest shock that he had ever received…the news that he was a father…reverberated doubly on learning that Anna had been a sexual innocent when he’d slept with her. It also made him remember the flicker of apprehension in her eyes when, for a few moments as she lay beneath him, he’d sensed definite tension in her slender frame. What must she have thought when he’d asked her to spend the night and then warned her not to expect anything else? Not a phone call, not even his real name—nothing! What an introduction to the world of adult relationships she’d had.
Fast forward five years on, and Dante knew that if he’d met Anna today he would never have let her go. not for all the million-dollar real estate in the world. With her gorgeous flame hair flowing unhindered over her shoulders and her brown eyes sparkling like fire-warmed brandy she was vivacious, pretty and completely unpretentious. Her eye-catching dress with its patent green belt highlighted how tiny her waist was, and the black leggings she wore cleaved lovingly to her long, model-slim legs.
Studying her now, he acknowledged
