strangers, he had the power to turn her world on its head.
But this wasn’t about her. This was about Leo. Leo who had the right to both his parents. Who didn’t deserve to be fought over in a tug-of-love battle. Whom she loved so much she couldn’t bear the risk of Alessandro taking him from her.
Carys blinked glazing hot eyes and straightened her spine.
She didn’t have a lawyer to check the document, but that didn’t matter. She didn’t have a choice.
Heart heavy, fingers tense, she picked up Alessandro’s custom-made pen and turned to the final page.
Carys Antoinette Wells. Such a pompous document deserved her full name. But instead of writing with a flourish, her hand shook so much it looked like the signature of an inexperienced teenager, pretending to be someone else.
The pen clattered to the desk. Carys got slowly to her feet, stiff like an old woman, her heart leaden.
A muffled sound drew Alessandro’s attention. He lifted his head, all too ready for a distraction from paperwork.
These last days Alessandro had found it extraordinarily difficult to give business his full attention. To be expected since he’d just discovered he had a son and was in the process of acquiring a wife.
A renegade spurt of pleasure shot through him. At the thought of Leo. And, more surprisingly, at the idea of Carys, soon to be his wife.
His lips twisted in self-mockery. Two years of celibacy had honed his libido to a razor-sharp edge. That explained the anticipation surging in his blood. Even the freshly recovered memory, visited again and again, of her lying in his bed, dark russet hair spread in sensual abandon, seized his muscles in potent sexual excitement.
Since the accident his sex drive had been dormant. At first he hadn’t given it a thought. All his physical and mental strength had been directed to recovery. Then there were the gruelling hours he’d put in day after day, month after month, to turn around the family company that had careened towards disaster.
Yet as the months passed, he’d realised something fundamental had altered. Despite the temptations around him, he barely found the energy to take out a pretty girl, much less summon the enthusiasm to have one in his bed.
He’d always been a discriminating but active lover. Twenty-two months of celibacy was unheard of.
Was it any wonder he fretted over those lost months, as if something in that time had reduced his drive? Somehow weakened his very masculinity?
Not even to himself had he admitted anxiety that the change in him might be permanent.
Now though, there was no doubt everything was in working order. There was a permanent ache in his groin as he fought to stifle the lustful desires Carys provoked.
His lips stretched taut in a smile of hungry anticipation.
The sound came again. A whimper, drawing Alessandro’s attention. He turned to find Leo stirring in his mother’s arms. She’d refused to let the cabin crew take the boy but had stretched out on her bed with the tot in her arms. They’d looked so comfortable together Alessandro saw no reason to object.
Now the little one was fidgeting and twisting in his mother’s loose embrace.
Alessandro watched his son’s vigorous movements and felt again the cataclysmic surge of wonder that had overcome him when he’d held the boy in his arms. The idea that he had a child still stunned him.
Green eyes caught green and Leo stopped his restless jigging.
‘Ba,’ Leo said solemnly. ‘Ba, ba, ba.’
Alessandro put his laptop aside. ‘No. It’s papa.’
‘Baba!’ One small arm stretched towards him and pride flared. His son was intelligent, that was obvious.
Alessandro stood, scooped the boy off the bed and held him carefully in both arms. An only child himself, Alessandro had virtually no experience with young children. But he’d learn fast, for his son’s sake.
He’d been brought up by nannies and tutors, following a strict regimen designed to ensure he grew early into self-reliance and emotional independence. Alessandro didn’t intend to spoil his son, but he’d ensure Leo spent time with his father—a luxury Alessandro had rarely enjoyed.
He lifted his son higher, registering the elusive scent he’d noticed before, of baby, sunshine and talc. He inhaled deeply and found himself staring into a small bright face.
‘I’m Papa,’ he murmured, brushing dark hair back from his son’s forehead. It was silky and warm under his palm.
‘Baba!’ Leo’s grin was infectious and Alessandro’s lips tilted in an answering curve.
‘Come. It’s time to get better acquainted.’ He turned towards his seat but paused as he caught sight of Carys. She lay on her side, arms outstretched invitingly.
In sleep she looked serene, gentle, tempting.
What was it about her that tempted him when so many beauties hadn’t? That turned him on so that just standing looking down at her, he was hard as granite with wanting. Desire was a slow unmistakeable throb in his blood.
She was the mother of his child, and that was a definite turn on. The thought of her body swelling and ripening with his baby was intensely erotic and satisfying.
But he’d lusted after her before he knew about Leo. When she was a stranger in a photograph.
Why was she different?
Because she challenged him and provoked him and got under his skin till he wanted to kiss her into submission?
Or because of something they’d shared?
Something about Carys Wells made him hanker to believe she was different.
Different! Ha!
She’d admitted she had left him because he’d found out about her with another man. Stefano Manzoni. The very shark who’d been circling, aiming to take a fatal bite out of Alessandro’s company after Leonardo Mattani’s death. That added insult to injury.
The idea of Carys with Stefano made Alessandro sick to the stomach. Had the affair been consummated? Fury pounded through him at the images his mind conjured.
He’d make absolutely sure from now on that Carys had no time to think of looking at another man.
Then there was the way she’d pored over the prenup in Melbourne. Proof, if he’d needed any, that she was just like the rest. She’d been so absorbed, she hadn’t heard him enter then leave again.
Of course she’d signed without any further demur. As soon as she’d read the size of the outrageously large allowance he’d grant her while she lived with him and Leo, she’d been hooked. Just as he’d intended.
The generosity of that allowance had caused a stir with his advisers, but Alessandro knew what he was doing. He’d make sure Leo had the stability of a mother who stayed. Alessandro’s son wouldn’t be left, abandoned, as
