Riccardo's Secret Child (3 page)

She hoped she left a huge, soaking, permanent stain on the cream leather.

‘Now,' he said, turning to her once he was inside the car, ‘where do you live? I'm going to drop you back to your house and you're going to explain yourself to me on the way. Then, and only then, do we part company, Miss Nash.'

In the ensuing silence Julia seemed to hear the flutter of her own heartbeat.

This was different from when they were in the wine bar, surrounded by people and noise. Locked in this car with him, she became frighteningly aware of his power and of something else: his potent sex appeal, something she had hidden from in the restaurant, choosing to concentrate her mind on the task at hand. The sparrow, she thought in panic, surely couldn't be drawn to the eagle!

‘Well?' he prompted with silky determination, and Julia stuttered out her address.

‘Not nervous, are you?' He turned on the engine and smoothly began driving towards Hampstead. ‘I told you,
your maidenly honour is safe with me. Unless…' he appeared to give this some deep thought ‘…your fear has suddenly kick-started an attack of nerves. Is that it, Miss Nash? Are you afraid of being found out for the liar that you are?'

‘I'm not nervous, Mr Fabbrini,' Julia lied. ‘I'm just amazed at your arrogance and your high-handedness. I've never encountered anyone like you in my life before!'

‘I'm flattered.'

‘Don't be!' she snapped back, her body pressed as far against the door as it was physically possible to be. She looked at his averted profile and shivered. Not a man to cross. Those had been Caroline's words and Julia now had no problem in believing them.

‘So when did you decide to concoct your little scheme?' he enquired with supreme politeness.

‘I haven't concocted anything!'

Riccardo ignored the interruption. The girl was lying, of that he was convinced, and he would break her before the drive was over. Break her and return to his vastly energetic but essentially uncluttered life.

‘So…this so-called child of mine is…what did you say? Four? Five?'

‘Five,' Julia said tightly, ‘and her name is Nicola.'

‘And not once did my beloved ex-wife choose to mention this little fact to me. Surprising, really, wouldn't you say? Considering she always prided herself on her high morality?'

‘She thought it was for the best.'

Riccardo felt a pulse begin to beat steadily in his temple. Merely contemplating deception of that magnitude was enough to stir him. Just as well none of it was true. He slid a sideways glance at the slight creature sitting in the car, her body pushed against the car door in apprehension. So
convincing, but so misguided. The most successful gold-diggers were the ones who hid their intent well.

The girl might not be a stunner, but she could act. She could act because she had brains, he considered. Which would make it doubly satisfying when she finally confessed all…

T
HE
remainder of the drive was completed in uncomfortable silence. Rain slashed down against the window-panes, a harsh, clattering noise for which Julia was immensely grateful, because without that background din the silence between them would have been unbearable.

Towards the end she gave him terse directions to her house, which he followed without speaking.

By the time the sleek Jaguar pulled up in front of the three-storeyed red-brick Victorian house, her nerves were close to snapping. She pushed open the car door, almost before the car had drawn to a complete stop, and muttered a rapid thank-you for the lift. There was not much else she could thank him for. He had been insensitive, hostile and frankly insulting throughout those tortuous couple of hours in the wine bar. He had refused point blank to believe a word she had told him and had accused her of being a gold-digger.

Julia hurried up to her front door, the rain washing down on her as she fumbled in her bag for the wretched front-door key. She was only aware of his presence when he removed the key from her hands and shoved it into the lock smoothly.

‘I want you to tell me what you hoped to gain by spinning me that ridiculous, far-fetched story,' he rasped, following her into the hall and slamming the door behind him.

Julia looked anxiously over her shoulder towards the staircase, which was shrouded in darkness.

And Riccardo, following her gaze, ground his teeth in
intense irritation. She had clung to her fabrication like a drowning man clinging to a lifebelt and he was determined to hear her admit the truth. In fact, hearing her admit the truth had become a compulsion during the forty-minute drive to the house. If not, it would remain unfinished business, even if he never saw or heard from her again, and he was not a man interested in unfinished business.

‘I told you…' Her voice was half-plea, half-resigned weariness. Both heated his simmering blood just a little bit more.

‘A lie! Caroline would never have kept such a thing from me, whatever her feelings.'

‘OK. If you want me to admit that I made up the whole thing then I admit it. All right? Happy?'

Wrong response. She could see that from the darkening of his eyes and the sudden tightening of his mouth. When she had set out on her mission to be honest she had had no idea about the man she would be meeting. She should have. She had heard enough about him over the years, and particularly in that first year, when Caroline had been pregnant and her hormones had unleashed all the pent-up emotion she had managed to keep to herself during her marriage. But time had dulled the impact of her descriptions, and certainly for the past six months Julia had begun to wonder whether her sister-in-law's opinions might not have been exaggerated. Moreover, people changed. He would have mellowed over time.

Looking at his dark, hard face and the ruthless set of his features, she wondered whether anything or anyone was capable of mellowing Riccardo Fabbrini.

‘No. No, I am not happy, Miss Nash.' He gripped her arm and leant down towards her so that his face was only inches away from hers. Julia felt herself swamped by him, struggling just to breathe, never mind control the situation.

But her eyes never left his. She was angry and, yes, intimidated, but he could see that inside she was as steady as a rock and he wanted to shake her until the steadiness turned to water.

No woman had ever roused him as much. This was a contest and he sensed that he was losing.

‘Come into the kitchen,' she finally said wearily, shaking her arm, which he released. ‘I'll explain it all to you, but you'll damned well stop calling me a liar and listen to what I have to say!'

‘No one speaks to me like that,' he rasped.

‘Sorry, but I do.' Julia didn't give him time to contemplate that assertion. Instead, she turned on her heels and began walking through the dark flagstoned hallway into the kitchen, her backbone straight, refusing to be totally squashed by the powerful man following in her wake.

She could feel him and the sensation sent little shivers racing along her spine. It was a bit like being stalked by a panther, a sleek, dangerous animal that was waiting to pounce.

‘Sit down,' she commanded as soon as they were in the kitchen and she had closed the door gently behind them.

This had been Martin and Caroline's house and she wondered whether he would recognise any of the artefacts in the room. Doubtful. Caroline had sold their marital home almost as soon as the divorce had come through and had disposed of the majority of the contents, sending the valuable paintings back to him and selling the rest of their possessions, none of which, she had later told Julia, he wanted. She, along with her lover and every single thing in the house, could go to hell and stay there, for all he cared. The few things she had kept had been little mementoes she had personally collected herself, ornaments and one or two
small paintings that had been passed on to her by her own parents when they had been alive.

‘Would you like a cup of coffee?'

‘This is not your house, is it? Was it theirs?'

Julia looked at him, watched as his shuttered gaze drifted through the room, picking out the homely array of plates displayed on the old pine dresser, the well-worn, much-loved kitchen table with all its scratches and peculiar markings, the faded, comfortable curtains, now blocking out the dark, rain-drenched night.

‘Yes, it was. It belongs to me now.'

He began prowling through the room, divesting himself of his jacket in the process and slinging it on the kitchen table. The notice-board, pinned to the wall, was littered with Nicola's drawings. He stared at them for such a long time that Julia could feel the tension searing through her body mount to breaking point. Abruptly she took her eyes off him and began making some coffee.

‘Your daughter's works of art,' she said with her back to him.

When she finally turned around it was to find him looking at her, his coal-black eyes narrowed. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

‘She started school in September and…'

‘Why do you insist on sticking to your ridiculous story?'

Julia didn't reply. Instead, she moved to one of the kitchen drawers and with trembling fingers extracted a photo of her brother, which she handed to him. Martin had been the fair one of them. Even in his thirties, his hair had remained blond, never turning to the mousy brown that hers had. His eyes were blue and laughing.

‘That's my brother.'

Riccardo glanced at the picture and very deliberately crumpled it and threw it on the table. ‘Do you imagine that
I am in the least interested in seeing what your brother looked like?' he asked in a frighteningly controlled voice. ‘I was not curious then and I am not curious now.'

‘I didn't show you that picture because I thought you might be interested or curious,' Julia told him. She walked towards the kitchen table and rested his cup of coffee on the surface. She had no idea how he took his coffee but somehow she assumed that it would be black, sugarless and very strong. And she was right. He took the cup, sipped and placed it back on the table, his eyes never leaving her face.

‘I showed you the picture so that you could see for yourself how fair Martin was. Almost as fair as Caroline. Of course, he was not nearly as striking as she was, but from a distance they could almost have passed for brother and sister, their colouring was so similar.'

‘Where is all this going?'

‘I want you to follow me. Very quietly.' She didn't give him time to question her. The more she tried to explain, the more obstinately dismissive he became, the more convinced that she wanted something from him. Money. She would reveal her trump card now and hope that proof of her words would make him see reason.

She put her cup on the counter and began walking back through the house but this time up the dark staircase, pausing only to turn on the light so that she could see where she was putting her feet. For a large man he moved with surprising stealth. She could barely hear his footsteps behind her and, once at the top of the stairs, she turned round just to check and make sure that he was still there. He was. His face grim and set. Julia placed one finger over her lips in a sign for silence and began walking towards Nicola's bedroom.

Her mother, who was already asleep in the guest room,
would have switched on the small bedside light on Nicola's dressing table. Nicola had always been afraid of complete dark. Monsters in cupboards and bogey men lurking under the beds. The stuff of childhood nightmares which no amount of calm reasoning could assuage.

Julia pushed open the door to the room very quietly and went across to the bed and stared down at the child.

Nicola was a living, breathing replica of her father. Her hair, which had never been cut, was thick and long and very black and her skin was satiny olive, the colour of someone accustomed to the hot Italian sun, even though it was a place she had never visited. Her eyes were closed now, but they, too, were dark, dark like her father's, who had joined Julia in contemplation of the sleeping figure.

‘You could take a paternity test, but look at her. She's the spitting image of you.'

There was complete, deathly silence at her side, then Riccardo abruptly turned around and began walking out of the room. The sleeping child had aroused sudden, overwhelming confusion in him such as he had never felt before. It had instantly been replaced by rage.

Was it possible to feel such rage? He would have thought not, but he felt it now. Five years! Five years of being kept in ignorance of his own child's existence! His own flesh and blood. Because the minute he had laid eyes on her he had known that the child was his. There could be no doubt.

He thought of his ex-wife and her husband, bringing up
his
child, laughing with
his
daughter, relishing the precious moments of watching those milestones, and his fingers itched with the desire to avenge himself for what he had missed. What had been
his
by right.

He heard Julia running down the stairs behind him and, in the absence of Caroline and her cursed lover, he could
feel his body pulsating to unleash his terrible wrath on the slightly built woman following him.

She would have been party to the decision to keep him in the dark about the birth of his child. Whatever her motives for contacting him now, and those motives would surely have something to do with money, she had agreed with the plan to say nothing to him.

He reached the bottom of the staircase and strode into the kitchen. He had to stop himself from smashing things on the way, destroying the contented little nest around him, a contented little nest in which his daughter had been raised. By another man.

Once in the kitchen, he paused and tried to control himself, to regain some of his natural self-composure, which had been blown to smithereens in the space of three short hours.

Somehow he would deal with this. And somehow Julia Nash would be made to pay for the torture she had subjected him to. It mattered not that Caroline and her lover were now no longer around to be held accountable for their vile actions.

Julia Nash was here, accessory to the crime as far as he was concerned, and she would pay the price.

She ran into the kitchen, her face distressed, and he looked at her in stony silence.

‘Don't even dare think that you can make excuses for Caroline and what she did! Don't even imagine for one minute that you can justify the immorality of her decision!'

Their eyes locked, Julia helpless to break free from the ice-cold blackness of his stare.

‘How dared she think that she could play God and make decisions that would affect my life and the life of my own flesh and blood? And you…' he added in a voice thick with
contempt, ‘how did you feel watching your brother do the job that should rightfully have been mine?'

‘That's not fair!' Julia protested, even though she knew that she was doing little more than shouting in a wind because he was not going to listen to a word she said. But still, she had to defend them both. She might not have agreed with what they had decided to do, but she had been able to see their point. Caroline was terrified that Riccardo, had he known of the existence of his daughter, would do his best to gain custody. The thought of having the fruit of his loins raised by another man would have been anathema to him. So she had silenced Julia's objections. She had reasoned that, however much the courts decided in favour of the mother, Riccardo Fabbrini had the power and the wealth to get exactly what he wanted.

‘How dare you talk to me about fair?'
he gritted. He slammed his fist on the counter, tipping the edge of the saucer resting beneath her cup, and sent both shattering to the ground. She doubted that he was even aware of it.

‘You wouldn't have been married to her!' she persisted, mutinously defying the warning in his eyes. ‘You're not comparing like with like. You might have seen Nicola on weekends, but you still wouldn't have shared the completeness of a family home. The marriage was over well before she was born. Before she was conceived, even!'

Riccardo refused to hear the sense behind what she was saying. He felt like a man who had suddenly and inexplicably had the rug pulled from under his feet and in the process found himself freefalling through thin air off the edge of a precipice. No, reason was the last thing that appealed.

The small brown sparrow in front of him might be pleading for his understanding, but understanding was the least emotion accessible to him right now.

‘Now that you know, we need to talk about Nicola, decide how often you want to see her.' Julia spoke even though her mouth felt dry, and she had to move to the kitchen table and sit down, because her legs were beginning to feel very uncooperative.

She sat down and ran her fingers through her thick shoulder-length hair, tucking it nervously behind her ears. This meeting had all gone so very wrong that she had no idea where anything was heading any more. She had expected a more civilised reaction, a more accommodating approach. She knew that he was a force to be reckoned with in the world of business. She had reasonably deduced that, that being the case, he would respond with the efficient detachment which would have been part and parcel of his working persona. She had not banked on his natural passion, which now flowed around him in invisible waves, putting paid to any thoughts of a reasonable approach.