‘I don’t believe that.’
Her huge aquamarine eyes that were neither blue nor green and changed according to her mood flashed at him, but she compressed her lips and remained silent.
‘Would you like coffee?’ Gaetano was finally moved to ask in the smouldering silence. He felt curiously reluctant to let her go. On some level, he simply wanted to feast his eyes on her because, aside of the absurd shoes, she was every bit as beautiful and sexy as he recalled. He recalled other things about her as well, things he tried to bury but that often returned to him when he was alone. The way she smiled when the sun shone, the way she reached for him in the darkness, the way she laughed when he said something she deemed silly or unrealistic. And a whole host of other far more sexual recollections such as what it felt like when her tiny body clenched round his in climax, how shy she got in daylight, the ridiculous inhibitions about time, place and frequency she had harboured in the field of intimacy.
Recognising the heat building below his belt, Gaetano had cause to be grateful for the concealment of his suit jacket. Yes, she still turned him on, turned him on more than other women, but he had to walk away from that kind of temptation and do his duty. He had to have a wife and children. That he hadn’t been trained to accept that sacrifice wasn’t an excuse. The responsibility that had once been Vittorio’s was now his and there was no point complaining about it. In the most basic sense, producing the next generation with an acceptable woman lay at the very heart of his role as monarch.
‘No, thanks. I’m not staying.’ Indeed, Lara was already rising from her seat, eager to be gone.
Her cheeks were pink, her striking eyes downcast as she disconcerted him by reaching for the pen and scrawling her signature on the document that Dario had given him.
‘You shouldn’t sign a legal document without your own lawyer at hand to represent your interests,’ Gaetano remarked tautly.
‘That’s your world, not mine,’ Lara parried in a tone of scorn. ‘I don’t require a lawyer to tell me I want to be free of you. You have disappointed me in every conceivable way, Gaetano.’
‘I regret that you feel that way,’ he breathed curtly.
‘No, your only goal is that I sign this form so that you can shed any responsibility you might have for me as discreetly as possible. That doesn’t surprise me but I’m angry on myson’sbehalf!’ Lara countered, throwing her head back. ‘He is an innocent party here and you didn’t evenlookat him at the park!’
‘You’re trying to say that your son is also...myson?’ Gaetano framed in open disbelief.
‘He’s sixteen months old, Gaetano. Who else could be his father?’ she fired at him in disgust. ‘But don’t worry, we’re getting along fine without you and we need nothing from you. Even so, your lack of even polite interest in him is unforgivable!’
With that ringing indictment of his attitude, Lara dealt him a seething look of condemnation and stalked out of the room, down the corridor and into the hall. ‘My coat?’ she urged with an edge of desperation when the little manservant appeared.
Pulling her coat on, she stomped down the steps and across to the car. Her mobile began ringing. She ignored it and knew she would block his calls. She didn’t want to exchange another word with Gaetano. She was too angry with him and too hurt by his indifference to their son...
CHAPTER FOUR
THEFOLLOWINGMORNING, Dario was talking in legal mode, a habit that often led to Gaetano beginning to tune him out while on one level he continued to listen without engaging. They were both in shock but while his friend reacted as a lawyer, Gaetano was reacting as a man who had just learned that he might be a father. His brain was in a state of freefall because Lara’s claim had shattered him.
How could he have a child he didn’t know about?
How could Mosvakia have a crown prince it had yet to learn existed?
Why the hell hadn’t Lara told him that she was pregnant? He should have been involved from the start. He should have been there at the birth of his child, and it galled him that he had been denied that right and all the other rights that fatherhood bestowed.
‘You didn’t even think there was a possibility that the child could be yours?’
‘The investigation agency assumed the child was older and that misled me,’ Gaetano murmured, refusing to elucidate on that topic further. ‘We should have waited until the birth certificate was available.’
‘You will need DNA tests.’ Dario was not to be silenced. ‘Had I known there was the possibility that the boy could be your heir I would have advised a very different kind of approach to the mother.’
Gaetano gazed out of the window, impervious to the view. ‘I didn’t realise conception could be that easy. I watched Vittorio and Giulia struggle for years trying to have a child, going through all that fertility treatment...’ His shapely mouth compressed, and he said no more about his brother’s misfortunes in that department. But his visceral response to the concept of being a father and of that being a huge honour as well as a life-changing responsibility was steadily increasing.
His mother had abandoned him as a toddler and hadn’t even thought better of that move when only months later his father was killed in a car crash. To all intents and purposes, Vittorio had become his half-brother’s father as a twenty-year old. Even at that young age, Vittorio had made a real effort to be a parent to the lonely child in the royal nursery and Gaetano had loved him accordingly. Recalling that truth, Gaetano swore that he would do no less for his own child and, hopefully, he would do a great deal more bearing in mind that he was older and wiser.
‘Imustsee him!’ he exclaimed abruptly. ‘How can I not even know my son’s name?’
‘You shouldn’t rush into anything before there’s proof.’
‘Dario, stop being a lawyer,’ Gaetano interrupted with a frown. ‘How would you feel if you discovered you were a father purely by accident? What if I hadn’t searched for Lara? What if I hadn’t been able to track her down? I mightneverhave known I had a son!’
‘In your position, I’d hang her out to dry for this,’ Dario countered. ‘I understand your anger.’
Gaetano almost groaned out loud at that response. He wanted to see his child, but Lara appeared to have blocked his number. He suspected that Lara was endeavouring to ignore the destruction she had wreaked and remained in denial.Hehad disappointedher? Why didn’t she turn that around and accept how much she had disappointedhim?
By that evening with his patience running out, Gaetano chose to ignore Dario’s dire warnings and he called in person at Lara’s home. The door was opened by her friend. She was very respectful but firm in her certainty that she could not allow him to see his child without Lara’s presence. Gaetano cursed the fact that he had forgotten that Lara worked nights. He rang Dario to get him to look up the file and get him the name of the cleaning firm.