in her throat as Gabriel reached out a hand to touch the little boy, the stroke of his fingers against one slightly chubby cheek so gentle, so tender, that Toby didn’t even stir.
Her heart felt as if it were breaking, shattering, as she watched the rush of love that softened Gabriel’s harshly hewn features. As she saw that love glowing in his broodingly dark gaze as he continued to stare at his son in wonder.
And she knew without a doubt that the last four years of sharing Toby only with her family were over…
‘I need a drink,’ Gabriel stated flatly some time later when he had reluctantly left his son’s bedside to return to the sitting-room, not waiting for Bella’s reply but moving to the mini-bar to help himself to one of the small bottles of whisky before pouring it into a glass and drinking most of it in one swallow. ‘So, Isabella,’ he stated as he looked across at her grimly. ‘What do you suggest we do about this situation?’
‘What situation?’ she repeated sharply, her stance wholly defensive as she stood across the room.
Gabriel looked at her through narrowed lids. He had made love with this woman a little over five years ago. That lovemaking had resulted in a child. A child whose existence she had deliberately kept from him. For that alone Isabella deserved no mercy from him.
His mouth thinned. ‘The situation that Toby, despite what you may have decided to the contrary, deserves to know both of his parents rather than just one!’
Her throat moved convulsively, but otherwise she maintained her defensive stance. ‘As I have already explained—’
‘As far as you are concerned, I gave up the right to know my own child because you believe I only went to bed with you out of jealousy and spite over my ex-girlfriend’s relationship with Paulo Descari,’Gabriel coldly repeated her earlier accusation. ‘Neither jealousy nor spite were part of my emotions that night, Isabella,’he added curtly. ‘And I certainly wasn’t feeling those emotions at the time of the accident the following day either,’ he bit out deliberately.
Bella moistened lips that had gone suddenly dry as she sensed the leashed violence in him. ‘I didn’t suggest they were, Gabriel. You did.’
He gave a scathing snort. ‘It is impossible not to do so considering Janine’s claims following the accident,’ Gabriel snarled. ‘The official enquiry proved my innocence in the matter. But perhaps you would prefer to believe that I am responsible for the accident that caused the death of two other men, rather than take my word for what happened that day?’
Bella felt the colour drain from her cheeks even as she stared at Gabriel. No, of course she didn’t prefer to believe that Gabriel had deliberately caused the accident that had killed two other men. She didn’t believe it!
Gabriel might be guilty of many things, but Bella certainly hadn’t ever believed him to be guilty of that.
Gabriel looked at her coldly. ‘I did not cause the accident, Isabella,’ he repeated firmly. ‘That was only the hysterical accusation of a woman who took advantage of the fact that I was unconscious for several days following the crash, and so was unable to deny those accusations.’
And that accusation hadn’t been the reason Bella had made no effort to contact Gabriel following the car crash, either…
How could she possibly have just arrived at the hospital and asked to be allowed to see Gabriel when they had only spent a single night together?
If Gabriel wanted to see her again, Bella had reasoned, then he would contact her just as he’d said he would. Until he chose to do that—if he chose to do that!—she would just have to get on with her life as best she could.
Her pregnancy had been something Bella simply hadn’t taken into account when she had made that decision.
Weeks later, after her pregnancy was confirmed, Bella had been forced to make choices, both for herself and her baby. Gabriel’s failure to phone had simply reinforced Bella’s suspicion that he would want nothing to do with them. Or if he did, he had the power to take her baby away from her. Something Bella would never allow to happen. It was too late now, far too late, for her to explain or undo any of those choices…
Gabriel watched the emotions that flickered across Bella’s beautiful and expressive face, too fleeting for him to be able to discern any of them accurately. ‘I did not cause the accident, Isabella, but that does not mean I have not carried the guilt of Paulo and Jason’s deaths with me every day since.’
‘But why?’ She looked totally confused now.
Gabriel turned away to look out of the window at the San Francisco skyline.
How could he ever explain to her how he had felt five years ago when he’d regained consciousness and learnt of Paulo Descari and Jason Miller’s deaths? Of Janine’s hysterical accusations?
Added to that, Gabriel had felt utter despair, even helplessness, at the seriousness of his own injuries.
The cuts and burns to his body that were still visible, five years later, in the scar on his face and those that laced across his chest, back, and legs. The crushing of his pelvis and legs had kept him confined to bed for months, with the added possibility that he might never walk again.
Worst of all, worse even than Paulo and Jason’s deaths, Janine’s duplicity, had been the knowledge that their night together had meant so little to Bella that—
No!
Gabriel refused to go there. He had not thought of Bella’s desertion for almost five years. He would not—could not—think of it now.
Now he would think only of Toby. Of his son. And Bella’s second betrayal…
He turned back to face Bella, his expression utterly implacable. ‘Toby is all that is important now,’ Gabriel told her icily. ‘I will return at ten o’clock tomorrow—or rather, today,’ he corrected, ‘at which time you and Toby will be ready to accompany me—’
‘I’m not going anywhere with you, Gabriel, and neither is Toby,’ Bella cut in immediately.
‘At which time,’ he repeated in, if possible, even icier tones, ‘you and Toby will be ready to accompany me on a visit to my father. Toby’s grandfather,’he added harshly.
Bella’s second denial died unspoken on her lips.
She had talked with her mother earlier tonight. Or rather, her mother had talked with her. A conversation in which her mother had assured Bella that the relationship between herself and Gabriel was their own affair, and for the two of them alone to unravel. However, speaking as a grandmother, she had added, she had nothing but sympathy for Cristo Danti and the fact that he had only learnt this evening of his grandson’s existence. That knowledge had been obviously so emotionally profound it had resulted in the older man’s collapse.
An irrefutable fact against which Bella had no defence.
Either earlier or now.
Her shoulders were stiff with tension. ‘Firstly, let me tell you that I deeply resent your use of emotional blackmail in order to get me to do what you want—’
‘Would you rather I pursued a legal claim, instead?’ Gabriel challenged contemptuously.
