‘I don’t do nice in these circumstances, but you are, of course, welcome to sit down,’ Gio breathed tautly. ‘My apologies, if my businesslike approach has offended you.’
‘It hasn’t,’ Leah hastened to assure him, although she could feel the heat of mortification rising over her skin in betrayal of that brave claim and she felt too uncomfortable to take a seat.
‘To answer your question,’ Gio continued smoothly, ‘no, I didn’t mean proof that you’re pregnant, I meant proof that any child you may be carrying ismychild—something which can easily be established by a simple DNA test. We each give a blood sample at a laboratory and paternity can be established right now.’
Her eyes widened with bewilderment. ‘Why would paternity have to be established?’
‘Let’s not be naïve,’ Gio urged very drily. ‘You’ve waited a long time to tell me that you’re pregnant. You could be pregnant by some other man you metafteryou were with me.’
All the heat in Leah’s skin retreated, leaving her very pale. She blinked rapidly, biting back an angry response. Not since she had broken up with Oliver had she felt so insulted or humiliated. Gio seemed to be insinuating that her very first sexual experience had set her on some immediate path of loose living in which she moved on very quickly from him to sample other men. ‘I haven’t been with anyone else. I’ve only been with you—’
‘Surely you understand that I can’t just take your word for that?’ Gio shot back at her arrogantly.
‘No. I’m afraid I don’t accept that,’ Leah countered stiffly. ‘Not at this stage anyway. After all, I require nothing from you while I’m pregnant. I only contacted you now and came to tell you that I was pregnant because I felt that you had the right to know. Now that I’ve done that, I’ll leave again.’
Gio stared at her in growing frustration. He was being realistic, totally realistic in his request that she take a DNA test to prove that her pregnancy washisresponsibility. ‘Are you saying that you refuse to take that test?’
‘Right at this moment, I think it is humiliating for you to expect me to take a test when the only reason I’m here is to tell you that I’m pregnant,’ Leah countered tightly. ‘It’s unnecessary and I won’t agree to it. When the baby is born I will agree to a DNA test, not before. For the present you can keep your nasty suspicions that I could be trying to con you in some way to yourself.’
‘I didn’t make such an accusation,’ Gio parried curtly, a hint of colour highlighting his exotic cheekbones. ‘Women have been known to make an honest mistake in that line and I think it is wiser to establish the truth from the outset.’
Leah shrugged a slight shoulder, not prepared to concede that she was at fault because she could tell from his reaction that in some way she had drawn blood with her words, just as he had done with his. She supposed that made them even and each of them knew where the other stood, even if it was on opposing sides. Even if it had taken her a long time, she had done her duty in telling him about their baby. It was up to him if he chose not to believe her. ‘We can agree to differ,’ she murmured flatly and began to turn on her heel.
‘Are you still living with your foster mother?’
Leah glanced back at him. ‘No. I’m back in London.’
‘I’d like to have your address.’
Grudgingly, she gave it and he put it into his phone.
Leah returned to her bedsit with the lowering sense that she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. She didn’t know what she had expected from Gio but it had not occurred to her that he would question that any child she had conceived was his. She had been naïve, she told herself ruefully. He was a very wealthy man, probably used to people trying to take advantage of him. But no matter how much she tried to make excuses for him, she could only think of how alone she felt in her current predicament and how small and somehow soiled his attitude had made her feel. For that reason it was wonderful that evening to receive a phone call from Sally, asking if it was all right to pass on her contact details to a solicitor, who was keen to get in touch with Leah, concerning ‘a confidential family matter’.
Leah’s heart leapt with hope at that information, and she urged her foster mother to give her address and phone number to the solicitor. Was it possible that after all this time her twin brother or her kid sister could be trying to find her?
A busy two weeks passed as Leah settled into her job. She missed Spike terribly, but she had not been able to bring him with her. Towards the end of the second week she received a call from the solicitor offering her an appointment at an office in central London. Infused with curiosity, Leah attended, only to immediately recognise by the older woman’s grave demeanour that she might be about to receive bad news. And so it proved.
Leah learned that her father had passed away several years earlier. As she had barely a blurred memory of the man, the discovery suffused her with only bemused sadness, more regret for what might have been than true grief. The announcement that her half-brother, Ari Stefanos, wished to meet her had a much more powerful effect on her. She was stunned by that idea, having always assumed that her father’s legitimate son would want nothing to do with his children by another woman.
She was even more pleased to learn that Ari had been trying to trace her siblings as well and indeed that he had already had some success in that field. Finding out that her twin brother, Lucas, had died from a drug overdose was a crushing blow and a wrenching disappointment for her, however. She had last seen Lucas when she was a student, by which time his substance abuse had made him almost unrecognisable. He had stolen their mother’s jewellery from her, presumably to sell the items and buy drugs. Leah had been devastated to lose those keepsakes, particularly as nothing in that small collection had been valuable. Even then she had suspected that her twin’s addiction would eventually kill him and had felt hammered with guilt that she could not get through to him and change his outlook and habits.
By the time she had expressed keen interest in meeting her half-brother, Ari, Leah was in a daze and increasingly upset by the discovery that she had lost her twin for ever. The little boy she remembered playing with so innocently was no more and it broke her heart that her twin had been unable to cope with the world he found himself in to the extent that he had tried to block it out with his addiction.
When the solicitor went on to inform her that she had been left a large sum of money by her late father, she was very much taken aback. Discovering that the man she had barely known and whose name she had no longer recalled because it was not on her birth certificate had left her several million pounds bereft her of breath and she struggled to accept the concept of her sudden wealth, because she had lived her entire life stressing about money. She signed the document extended to her in a state of astonishment. Only as she travelled back home did she process the idea of having inherited sufficient money to have choices that she had never had before.
And thanks to that inheritance, her child would never know the insecurity that had been Leah’s lot from an early age. Sudden intense relief assailed her, piercing and lightening the veil of grief that had consumed her. Perhaps she would buy a house somewhere near Sally or some sort of small business that would provide her with an income. She felt wonderfully liberated by the truth that she would not need Gio Zanetti’s financial help to survive.
When the doorbell rang early that evening, she was surprised because her employer already had a friend visiting with her. It was a shock to open the door to Gio. Leah froze in the doorway, her lips parting in surprise, her heart hammering as if she were engaged in a race and rushing to the finishing line.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked helplessly, intimidated by the sheer size of him that close. In the dusk light, his stunning eyes were pure silver, enhanced by lush black lashes as effective as eyeliner. He was gorgeous, particularly with a dark shadow of stubble outlining his stubborn mouth and jaw, arrestingly masculine, shockingly sexy. As always, that lean bronzed face momentarily froze her to the spot. A lot of good that sexiness had done her, Leah scolded herself impatiently.
‘I wanted to check that you were OK,’ Gio advanced with precision, connecting with eyes as intriguing as tiger’s eye gemstones, brown streaked with warm gold and honey, striking in their colour and intensity. The passion she couldn’t hide drew him like a burning flame on a cold day. He was learning that it didn’t matter that she wore no make-up, that her hair was tousled and her clothing unflattering. None of those facts mattered when it came to the fierce sexual blaze she lit inside him.
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ she asked defensively.
‘May I come in?’
Leah wanted to say no but reckoned that would be pointlessly provocative and there was no advantage to being on bad terms with the father of her child. ‘I suppose so...’