Italian Tycoon, Secret Son

made love, and without that you might not have believed me.

‘But after last night I hoped. I was going to tell you this morning, but you had to hurry away. Then Sue called me-she’s the friend who’s taking care of Danny-and she put him straight on. We talk every day. He can manage quite a few words, and the rest of the time he gurgles. I talk to him as though he can understand everything. He’s so bright.’

‘You called him Danilo,’ he murmured.

‘What else should I call him? He’s yours. In here-’ she touched her heart ‘-you never died. I couldn’t let you go, and you’re there in Danny. He’s a beautiful baby. Just wait until you see him.’

‘When will that be?’

‘I’ll call Sue and she can bring him over. It’s probably too late for her to travel today, but tomorrow. Before I left England I fixed him up with a passport so that he could travel at a moment’s notice. I was always going to bring him-if you wanted him.’

‘If?’ he breathed. ‘Please, get him here as soon as you can. We’ve lost too much time already.’

She called Sue, who promised to call back when she’d booked tickets. An hour later it was all sorted.

‘Tomorrow,’ Mandy said, hanging up. ‘The flight lands at midday.’

Renzo didn’t reply in words and she wondered if he’d heard, but the next moment he embraced her in a hug so fierce that it almost squeezed the breath out of her.

‘We’ll be there,’ he said fiercely and walked away, leaving her standing alone.

Mandy was too wise to follow him. It would have been wonderful to laugh and rejoice together, but she knew by now that this was a deeply troubled man and there was still some distance to travel. For the moment it was enough that he was glad about his son.

She found Teresa, told her everything and smiled at the older woman’s beaming delight.

‘I get a room ready for your friend,’ she said. ‘There’s a nice one right next to yours.’

It was a perfect choice. The room was large and airy. Teresa had a maid cleaning it out within minutes, decorating it with flowers until it was fit for a queen. Mandy gave her an impulsive kiss of gratitude and only wished she could call Renzo to see how his household was preparing for his son.

She didn’t meet him for the rest of the day. As dusk fell she looked out of the window and saw him in the garden by the fountain, staring into the water.

By late evening she still hadn’t spoken to him, and sadly she decided to go to bed. She heard him go to his own room and the door close with a depressing sound of finality.

But a moment later there came a soft knock on her door, and when she opened it she found him looking like a man who wasn’t sure of his welcome.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ he said.

‘You can disturb me any time you like, surely you know that?’ When he didn’t move she took his hand. ‘Come in.’

He let her draw him in until they were both sitting on the bed, but when she tried to kiss him he stopped her.

‘Don’t you have something you want to say to me first?’

‘About what?’

‘About the way I behaved this morning, hurling abuse at you after last night.’

‘Perhaps remembering last night made it worse. We were so close, and if you thought I’d betrayed you-’

‘You’re very generous, but we both know I was out of control. I was cruel. I’ve never thought of myself as a cruel man, but I said terrible things just to hurt you. Can you forgive me?’

‘There’s nothing to forgive.’

‘Yes, there is. I shouldn’t have flown at you like that. I should have asked you calmly who you’d been talking to.’

She could almost have laughed at the way he said ‘calmly’.

‘You could have been calm if you didn’t care,’ she said gently. ‘Let it go. There’s no harm done.’

She spoke confidently but in her heart she knew that it wasn’t really that simple. Somewhere in a distant place in his mind Renzo’s demons were still howling. And he knew it. And was afraid.

CHAPTER TEN

‘THERE’S no harm done,’ Mandy repeated gently. ‘You’re not a cruel man, just one who’s been very ill, and isn’t well yet.’

‘That’s nice of you, but-’

‘Renzo, stop it. You can’t blame yourself for everything, especially with me. Who knows better than I do what you’ve been through? And even I only half know. I didn’t suffer anywhere near as much as you did, but we know things that other people have never dreamed of, and we don’t have to explain ourselves to each other.’

He was about to speak again but she silenced him, drawing him towards the bed and down onto it. Now he was content to follow her lead, letting her undress him and reaching to undress her, but she was ahead of him, eager to be naked with him, eager to love him, because only her love could ease his darkened mind.

She went slowly, waiting for him to relax, teasing and enticing until he was ready to take command, then yielding herself up to him with joy. At last she had what she wanted when she looked into his face and knew that she had driven care from his mind.

But perhaps not for long. She knew the demons would return. She prayed that she would be powerful enough to banish them for good, but when she tried to look into the future she saw a twisted road with no sign where it led.

Afterwards, he lay in her arms. ‘How could I ever have forgotten making love to you?’ Renzo asked in a wondering tone. ‘It’s all clear now, everything-it was so cold that we had to huddle together for warmth, and so dark that we couldn’t see each other. It’s all come back.’

‘That’s what really matters,’ Mandy told him fondly.

‘We thought we were going to die,’ he mused, ‘and all I wanted was you.’

‘For however long we have-and afterwards,’ she reminded him.

‘Yes, I said that. And you said you loved me. Do you remember?’

‘I remember,’ she whispered, kissing him.

‘What happened when you got back to England, when you found you were pregnant?’

‘Sue was living with me by then. She’s a nurse and she was doing agency work, just accepting temporary jobs so that she could look after me at the same time.

‘She spotted that I was pregnant. I thought I was just having dizzy spells after what had happened, but she made me see the truth. On the very same day I read in the paper that you were dead and buried.

‘Until then, I’d clung to the hope that you might still be alive. After that, it was only Danny who helped me to go on living. It meant you’d left me part of yourself, and he was doubly precious.

‘I used to talk to him about his father, even before he was born, and more afterwards. If you really had been dead, he’d still have grown up knowing about you. But now-’ she gave a happy sigh ‘-now you’ll get to know each other as father and son. It’s going to be marvellous.’

‘Is it?’

An odd note in his voice made her look at him quickly.

‘You have more faith in me than I have in myself,’ he said quietly. ‘How can I ever be a father?’

‘You are a father,’ Mandy insisted.

‘Only in name. You’ve managed very well without me so far.’

‘Oh, no, we haven’t,’ she said fervently. ‘We haven’t managed well without you at all. There’s always been a great gap where you belonged. You’re Danny’s father. Nothing can take that away.’

When he didn’t answer, she shook his shoulders gently.

‘Renzo, what’s the matter? When I told you, you couldn’t wait to see him.’

‘Yes, that was my first impulse, but since then I’ve been thinking. I told you once that with all I’ve got in here-’ he tapped his breast ‘-I’d better not have children.’