She tugged her arm out of my grasp. I could see she hadn’t expected that demand. I could also see she wanted to refuse the request.
Satisfaction and a strange sense of regret powered through me.
I was right. I had not been her first. She didn’t know if the child was mine or Remy’s. Why else would she want to avoid a DNA test? Either she knew the boy was Remy’s or she didn’t know which of us had fathered her child.
For all I knew, she might have slept with us both that day.
The memory of her face from five years ago, so open, giving and compassionate, flashed before me. I dismissed it. Just another lie. Another act.
She blinked furiously, as if close to tears, but then her chin firmed and she stared back at me.
‘Okay,’ she said, surprising me with her capitulation. Clearly she had decided to gamble with the possibility I was the boy’s father.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, the emotions confusing me again.
Did I secretly want to be the child’s father? How could that be true when I’d never intended to become a parent? When I knew Remy had always been the best of us. That it would be much better if he could claim this legacy now not me.
I shut down the foolish rush of yearning that the boy was mine.
It made no sense. And, anyway, until I had the results of the test, I did not have to deal with this confusing tangle of emotions.
‘But I want it conducted discreetly,’ she said. ‘And I don’t want my son to know what’s going on until...’
She glanced down at her hands. They were clasped together, the knuckles white. ‘Until I’ve had a chance to prepare him,’ she finished, releasing her fingers and shoving her open hands into the back pocket of her jeans.
She forced her chin up to meet my gaze.
The defiant yet oddly defensive stance pressed her breasts against the soft cotton of her camisole.
I bit into my lip, determined not to let the inevitable endorphin-rush distract me. And found myself drowning in those mossy eyes when our gazes met, the way I had all those years ago.
Damn it, Galanti, snap out of it. She’s an actress and a gold-digger.
But with her face devoid of make-up she looked so young, as young as she had been that night, still a teenager, and it was harder to make myself believe it. I could see the sprinkle of freckles across her nose, could remember her sweet sighs as I kissed every one of them before devouring those plump lips which had tasted of cherry cola and eagerness.
‘Once you have the proof you need, what do you intend to do?’ she asked.
I frowned at the direct question, the guilelessness of it disturbing me. Until I got a grip.
It’s just an act. She looks artless, innocent, but she’s playing you. No one is ever really honest. There’s always an agenda. Once you’ve found out exactly what her agenda is, you’ll be back on solid ground again.
Obviously it made no sense that she would keep the boy’s existence a secret from me for five years, and had never contacted me for the severance cheque, if this was a simple case of extortion.
But maybe her agenda was more sophisticated than that. Was she playing a longer game, to get more? And why did I really care anyway? As long as I took control of the situation, it didn’t matter what her agenda was, because my agenda was the one that would prevail.
‘I don’t know,’ I replied, even though I knew what I wanted was likely to conflict with what she wanted.
Never show your hand until you are ready to play your cards.
It was a motto I had lived by for a long time. It had won me considerable amounts at the high-stakes game in my friend Dante Allegri’s casino and had also been a guiding principle in my business and personal life.
‘I wasn’t expecting to find out I had a four-year-old son today,’ I said.
Or that Remy had one, I added silently to myself, even though that strange yearning for the boy to be mine was still pulsing in my chest. I’d figure that out later too. ‘Once I have the information, I’ll be in touch.’
Whatever the outcome of the DNA test, I planned to claim the child as a Galanti. And punish her for not having told me of the boy’s existence a lot sooner. I also planned to have her thoroughly investigated.
Is she sleeping with Renzo?