She expected him to argue. Instead, something in his black eyes gleamed gold. He lifted one finger as if to shrug without bothering to expend the energy required. Somehow that small gesture was breathtakingly infuriating.
“Fair enough,” he said. Which was even more irritating. Cecilia hadn’t expected him to be remotely agreeable—and in fact, she went still when he smiled at her, because she knew better. “But I know about him now. There’s no going back from that, no matter how much of a grace period I give you to deal with the reality you already knew. Surely you must understand this.”
Hewas givinghera grace period—Cecilia ordered herself to breathe before she exploded. Especially because there was something about the way he gazed at her that made her think an explosion was precisely what he wanted.
“I would prefer not to be threatened by you at every opportunity,” she managed to retort. She laced her fingers together in her lap when all he did was raise that dark brow of his, because throwing lamps would not solve the problem. No matter how satisfying it might be in the moment. “I cannot deny Dante access to his father. Just because he hasn’t asked about you before now doesn’t mean he won’t in the future. I suppose I’ve been in denial about that.”
He only watched her, and though he still lounged there on the sofa, she didn’t make the mistake of imagining that he was at ease. His entire body was poised. Alert. As if he might spring into action at the slightest provocation. She didn’t want to speculate what kind of action that might be.
Cecilia swallowed and found her throat dry. And forced herself to keep going, even though it was hard, because this was ultimately about Dante. And there was nothing she wouldn’t do for him. Even this.
“I don’t have a father,” she said matter-of-factly. “There’s no possibility of my figuring out who he was, and at this point in my life, I’m not sure I would want to even if I could.” She held his gaze, though it made her skin feel much too tight. “And I know your experience with your father was no easier.”
He didn’t laugh, though his dark eyes gleamed. “That is putting it more politely than he deserves.”
She inclined her head and extended her olive branch. “I don’t see any reason why Dante should have to suffer the things that we did, if we can prevent it.”
“This is very noble-minded of you, Cecilia, after all these years that handily belie that sentiment,” Pascal said, and his tone was so sardonic it seemed to lodge itself between her ribs like a bullet. “How exactly do you imagine this high-minded approach to our child’s life will unfold, practically speaking?”
That was certainly not the expression of gratitude she’d anticipated. Cecilia sat a little bit straighter in her chair, and frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
“I assume you will oversee the initial introduction, as it were.” Another flick of that finger, a shrug and a dismissal in one. She wanted to slap at it. “That makes sense. Perhaps you should take this opportunity to outline your ideal visitation schedule.”
She felt herself go still as if she’d blundered into a trap in the woods and had only just noticed the steel jaws lying there, primed to slam closed. “If everything goes well, you can come and visit him whenever you like.”
“Very generous indeed.” His dark eyes glittered. “But you see, I do not understand why you should get to control how much I see the child that you’ve concealed from me all this time. Perhaps he should come and live with me, and you can come visit him whenever you like.” He smiled then, and it was not a pleasant smile. It was all steel and jagged edges. “Behold my generosity.”
“I’m his mother!” she snapped at him, not sure if it was fury or fear racing through her then. Both, perhaps. She caught herself. “A child needs his mother.”
“A child needs his father,cara. Particularly a boy. Everyone knows this.”
“Are you threatening to take him away from me?” she asked, throwing it out there because it was the worst thing. And it was better to keep it right there in the light, where she could see it.
Not that seeinghimin the cheery light of this cottage that had always seemed so safe and happy to her before tonight was doing her any favors.
“I do not make threats.” Pascal was still lounging, one arm tossed down the length of the couch’s back, his long legs thrust out before him. But his gaze was dark and intense and focused entirely on her. “You have vastly underestimated the seriousness of the situation, I think.”
“Of the two people sitting in this room, I’m the one who’s been raising a child alone. I don’t think it’s possible to underestimate that situation.”
“I mean me.” And she realized for the first time that he wasn’t sitting like that because he was pretending to be at ease. He was doing it to keep himself in check. He was doing it to keep his hands to himself, and not on any lamps. Or her. Cecilia felt a terrible chill sweep over her. “You have underestimatedme,Cecilia.”
It occurred to her then, as he looked at her with that same lethal steel she could hear in his voice and see all over his powerful body, that she really didn’t know this man at all. The Pascal she remembered had been compelling, magnetic and charming. But the kind of power that emanated from the Pascal sitting before her tonight had been little more than a spark in that man. The Pascal sitting before her had created an empire in his name. He had taken what little he had and made it a force to be reckoned with on the global scale.
She had known a grateful patient in a hospital, alone and conversant with his own near-death experience and the relief that he’d survived it.
This man was fully alive in every sense of the term.
And he’d made himself a king.
Had she ever been in control of this situation? But even as the question flashed through her, he was speaking again.
“I allowed the shock to get to me,” he said in that same dark, deliberate way that was far more terrifying than any display of temper or emotion. “I spent the first few days here in some kind of a daze, trying to make sense of this thing. But your refusal to engage with me was actually a favor. I should thank you.”
“I was protecting my son.”
There was a hint of a curve on that stark mouth of his, but no more, and she thought it was cynical, at best. Not anything like a smile.
“You can call it what you like. Once I saw the child, so similar to me in every way, everything crystallized.”