Just like that.
The immediacy of his response would have stunned him if he hadn’t experienced it last night. Whatever the secret of her feminine allure, he responded to it with every particle of testosterone in his body.
He watched her hesitate and kept his expression unreadable. All the while he was aware of the way her moist pink lips unconsciously invited him to plunder her mouth. His fingers tightened on her hands, as if ready to tug her close.
‘There’s nothing to tell.’ Her look was pure belligerence. ‘You have a child. But you already know that.’ She paused; for the first time the heat in her expression disappeared and her eyes turned glacial, stabbing him with invisible icy shards. ‘Why make me repeat what you know?’
‘I want the truth. Is that too much to ask?’ Finally anger exploded behind Alessandro’s façade of calm. A roaring flame of wrath at this woman who turned his life inside out. He strove to resist shaking the truth out of her.
He couldn’t remember ever being so irate.
But then no woman had ever dared make such accusations. Plus the frustration of not knowing his own past would drive any man wild. Alessandro abhorred that sneaking sense of powerlessness, not remembering.
Her chin lifted. ‘Is it too much to ask that you stop crushing my hands?’
Instantly he released her, flexing fingers rigid with tension. He hadn’t intended to hurt her. Another disturbing sign that his control was close to shattering.
‘Thank you.’ She paused, her gaze skating sideways. ‘I promise not to slap you again. That was…unintentional.’ She turned. ‘We’re here.’ She spoke quickly, relief evident in every syllable.
Already Bruno was opening the door to the pavement. The driver stood at Alessandro’s door, waiting for him to alight.
‘We’ll finish this discussion inside.’
‘I’m not sure I want you in my home,’ she countered.
‘You think I want to be there?’ Being with Carys opened a Pandora’s Box of conflicting feelings he could do without.
But he needed to fill the gaps and banish once and for all the nagging sense of something missing in his life. Besides, he had to end this nonsense about fathering a child. He would not countenance such allegations.
Alessandro unfolded his legs from the car and stood up. He felt stiff, as if his muscles had cramped during the drive. He pushed his shoulders back and looked around the street. Graffiti marred the building opposite and a couple of ground-floor windows were boarded up further down the block.
Carys scurried ahead into an ugly square building, not looking back. Her shoulders were hunched and her head bent.
But she couldn’t avoid him. He stepped forward.
‘Signor Conte.’ Bruno waited on the pavement for him.
‘Yes?’ Alessandro paused, his eyes on Carys.
‘On the way here I received answers to the enquiries I made this morning. I didn’t like to interrupt your discussion with la signorina.’
Bruno’s careful tone snared Alessandro’s attention, dragging it from his furious thoughts. He turned to meet his security chief’s blank stare, sensing he wouldn’t like this.
‘And?’
‘There’s no record of a marriage. Signorina Wells is single.’
So, she hadn’t bothered to marry the baby’s father.
Alessandro shoved his hands deep into his pockets, refusing to examine the emotions stirring at that news.
‘There’s more?’
Bruno nodded. ‘The birth was just over a year ago here in Melbourne.’ There wasn’t a hint of expression in his voice and a tickle of premonition feathered Alessandro’s spine.
‘What other details did you get?’
‘The mother is given as Carys Antoinette Wells, receptionist, of this address.’ Bruno gestured to the tired red-brick block of flats.
Alessandro waited, instinct making his skin crawl. ‘And the rest?’
Bruno’s eyes flickered away. He drew himself up straighter. ‘The father is listed as Alessandro Leonardo Daniele Mattani of Como, Italy.’
Despite the fact that by now he’d half expected it, each word slammed into Alessandro’s gut with the force of a sledgehammer.
His name. His identity.
His honour.
Damn her for using him in this way! She’d taken his name and dragged it in the mud with her petty manipulations.
What did she hope to achieve? Money? Position? A hint of respectability even though her child was born out of wedlock?
But why hadn’t she come forward if she’d wanted to try screwing cash from him? Was she waiting for the most auspicious time to approach him?
As if there would ever be a good time for such a plan!
He felt his lips stretch in a grimace of distaste that bared his teeth. His nostrils flared and the blood pounded loud and fast in his ears.
‘Wait here,’ he barked. Without waiting for a response, he strode up the cement pavement to the eyesore of a building. A red mist hazed his vision. The need for justice, for retribution, spurred him on.
This was about far more now than curiosity. More even than the stirring of a libido that had been dormant since he’d woken in hospital twenty-two months ago.
Carys Wells had gone too far. She’d sullied his honour.
For that she would pay.
Carys had only just collected Leo from next door and put him down, still sleeping.
The rap on her door came too soon. She looked at Leo’s peaceful form and felt a tug of intense protectiveness. There’d been no time to decide how to deal with Alessandro.
Who was she kidding? She’d always been putty in his hands. Even now when she almost hated him, she had no illusions about that.
She’d never be rid of him until they had this out.
Reluctantly she walked through the miniscule flat, wiping her damp hands on her skirt. Her legs shook as another tattoo of raps sounded.
The glorious surge of anger had seeped away, leaving her prey to nerves and bone-melting exhaustion.
Fumbling, she unlatched the door and swung it wide.
Alessandro stood there, vibrating with a dangerous energy that wrapped right round her, squeezing her lungs. His eyes sizzled with a fury she’d seen only once before. The day
