turned at Robin’s halting request, which intruded on his dark and brooding thoughts as the two of them left Marco’s nursery together a few minutes later.
He had thought he would catch her off guard by presenting Marco in that way, and yet Cesare knew that he was the one who felt unsettled by the encounter.
It really was totally inexplicable to him why Marco had taken such a liking to Robin; she had certainly done nothing to encourage him.
The baby had screamed when Cesare had returned him to his cot, his little arms reaching up imploringly to Robin. But Robin had remained completely detached as Cesare laid the baby down, before tucking him beneath the covers with his favourite teddy bear at his side.
Robin’s aloofness towards Cesare he could understand and excuse, but her coldness towards Marco he could not accept. The baby had already lost his mother—even if he wasn’t really old enough to have realised it—and Cesare had no intention of allowing Robin to maintain that ridiculously cool attitude towards him just because she wasn’t in control here.
Because, no matter how she might wish it otherwise, he still had every intention of making Robin his wife. And sooner rather than later!
‘Use the bathroom there.’ He gestured dismissively and he continued to stride towards the sitting room, definitely feeling in need of more champagne.
‘Thank you,’ Robin accepted quietly, before escaping into the bathroom.
When she looked at her reflection in the mirror over the sink, she could see her eyes were overbright.
She was in love!
Not with Cesare Gambrelli.
Nor with any other man.
But with a six-month-old baby who had captured her heart at first sight!
She sat down weakly on the side of the bath, breathing deeply in an effort to calm her racing pulse.
Marco was adorable—absolutely adorable. And it had felt so good when she’d held him in her arms, so achingly right; he was the baby she had dreamt of having for so long—so much so that she had been reluctant to relinquish him to Cesare when the time had come.
What did she do now …?
Cesare Gambrelli had told her he intended marrying her. That he intended for her to be Marco’s mother.
How she wanted the latter, if not the former.
But the price was being Cesare’s scorned and despised wife—a woman he had only married to settle what he called a blood feud. Did she want that?
Yes!
Cesare didn’t know it, but he was offering her something she had thought she would never know—a joy Robin had thought for ever denied her. Now that she had met Marco, held him, felt the warmth of him, been the recipient of his beautiful smile, there was no way she would be able to walk away from the chance to be his mother.
She knew she daren’t let Cesare see how deeply her emotions had been affected, already knowing him well enough to realise that if he thought he was actually giving her something she so desperately wanted, then he would use that advantage to bend her totally to his arrogant will.
Yes, now that she had seen and held Marco she fully intended marrying Cesare—but it would be on her own terms, not his …
‘We may as well go through to dinner,’ Cesare announced when Robin rejoined him in the sitting room, her hair once more in a neat chignon and looking again like the coolly detached woman who had arrived at his apartment less than half an hour ago.
Once Robin was his wife, Cesare had decided as he sipped his champagne and waited for her to rejoin him, he had no intention of giving her any choice but to become Marco’s mother. With time, he hoped she would learn to be at ease with with the child, to love him as he deserved to be loved.
‘Fine,’ she accepted distantly, before preceding him into the dining room that he indicated.
A woman any man would be proud to have on his arm, Cesare knew, as he watched the gentle sway of her hips as she walked in front of him.
Or in his bed.
‘Have you decided what it is you wish to tell your father about our forthcoming marriage?’ Cesare prompted, once he had seen her seated opposite him at the small, intimate table he had requested be laid for their meal together.
Robin eyed him warily. ‘I believe I told you earlier that nothing has been settled yet concerning a marriage between the two of us?’
Cesare gave a hard smile. ‘Fight it all you want, Robin, but the marriage will take place.’
She hadn’t given herself away, Robin realised with relief. And she dared not do so, either, because if Cesare even half guessed at how she had fallen for Marco, then all her bargaining power was spent. And she had little enough to start with!
‘Perhaps,’ she allowed uninterestedly, avoiding the intensity of his stare as she placed her napkin across her lap in preparation for eating the platter of seafood that was the first course. ‘As for how we deal with my father …’ she paused, as if to give the matter some thought ‘… I really don’t think he would accept anything less for me than what he perceives as a love match.’
Cesare’s eyes widened. ‘I know I told you earlier that I would go along with whatever you decided to tell him, but do you seriously expect me to behave in front of your father as if I have fallen in love with you?’
‘Beyond your powers, is it?’ Robin came back tauntingly, stung by his tone of incredulity. ‘Or just totally incomprehensible to you?’ she added softly as she saw his contemptuous expression.
‘You can’t pretend to be in love because you’ve never been in love—is that it?’ she prompted curiously.
‘Love!’ he snorted. ‘My father loved my mother so much that when she died he drank himself to an early death! Carla loved Marco’s father—and he abandoned her totally once he knew she was expecting his child! Contrarily, your own husband did not want you once you had refused to have his child. I do not need to have been in love, Robin, to know it is a destructive emotion!’
Robin had been prepared to give him an argument on the subject—until he mentioned her own marriage. Because she had loved Giles when she’d married him—had thought he loved her too. But that love hadn’t been strong enough to withstand Giles’s disappointment when she hadn’t been able to give him the child he wanted …
And she already knew that falling in love with Cesare Gambrelli would be sheer madness—for any woman!
No, loving Marco, and being this man’s unwilling wife, was as far as she was willing to go.
‘True,’ she acknowledged. ‘Nevertheless, for my father’s sake, I really think if we are to go ahead with this marriage that we will have to behave for a few weeks as if we’re in love with each other.’
Cesare looked at her frustratedly, knowing what she was demanding was her own price for agreeing to marry him without further argument or delay. A high price, granted, and not one that he would normally
