‘Roman.’
‘This is Roman and he has come to have tea with us.’
‘Tea...’ The lower lip came out. ‘I don’t want tea. I wanna play football with Ash and afterwards—’
‘Enough football for one day, mate. It’s my afternoon off,’ the nanny interjected.
Hands clenched at his sides, the little boy aimed a kick at the football that Ashley had placed on the ground. It went sailing away before he swung back to the trio of adults, looking mutinous, though most of his ire seemed aimed at Roman. ‘But that’s not fair...’
‘Not fair is expecting someone else to pick up your toys...’ Ashley nodded towards the ball that had sailed into a bed of flowers. ‘Go get it, and I’ll see you on Monday.’
Roman watched, the empty space in his chest aching, as the child gave a deep sigh and trotted off across the expanse of green grass.
‘He has quite a kick.’
Roman turned towards the nanny. Somehow the word did not fit a six-foot-three man with a tattoo on his neck, even one as innocuous as a rose with fallen petals.
He said nothing, seeing that the younger man was standing beside Marisa now. Clearly they’d been talking but he’d been too focused on his son to register the conversation. His eyes narrowed as he noticed how close the two were standing together, their posture, their body language revealing how comfortable they were with one another. He inhaled sharply. Jealous, she had said.
He made himself exhale again. She might not be sleeping with this particular man but it would be naïve of him to imagine that a woman of her sexuality had spent the last few years living the life of a nun.
Ashley made his goodbyes and turned to Roman with a polite, ‘Nice to meet you.’
Roman could only manage a nod in response, his glacial stare still in place, and he could see Marisa heave a sigh of exasperation before she added, ‘Enjoy your long weekend, Ash.’
‘I will.’
Roman watched as the nanny jogged off and out of view.
‘That was rude.’
One dark brow lifted. ‘If that was rude, what would you call not telling a man he is the father of your child?’ In his head the retort had not sounded quite so brutal but the result was the same.
All the animation went out of her face, and she stiffened, seeming to almost physically shrink back from him.
He should have felt satisfied at her reaction but her discomfort afforded him surprisingly little pleasure.
With clenched hands set on her hips, she turned to face him, her luminous eyes calm but determined in her pale face.
‘If you imagine you can close down any conversation by playing the victim card, I think you should go for another strategy,’ she advised him tartly.
And he had started to feel a glimmer of sympathy for her. Stung, he snapped back, ‘Victim?’
On another occasion Roman’s expression of outraged incredulity would have made Marisa laugh but at that moment laughter was beyond her. This was an impossible situation, which she couldn’t see getting better any time soon, but for Jamie’s sake she had to try.
‘If you’re always going to resent me, fine, that is your choice, but if you actually do want to form any sort of relationship with our son—’
‘A child should know who his father is.’
Her brow creased. ‘That wasn’t what I asked,’ she threw back, annoyed by his politician’s response.
Was he saying that he didn’t want a relationship with Jamie, that he didn’t want to be part of Jamie’s life after all? She shouldn’t be surprised and she definitely shouldn’t be disappointed...after all, it would make her life a hell of a lot easier.
As Jamie breathlessly trotted back with his beloved football, she flashed Roman a warning glance and dropped into a crouch. ‘That knee looks sore.’
‘I didn’t cry.’
‘Well, I would have,’ Marisa retorted.
‘You’re a girl.’
‘Boys cry too.’
Her son looked doubtful. ‘Do you cry?’ he asked Roman.
She held her breath, fully anticipating a tough male macho response, only to release it when he replied.
‘Everyone cries.’
‘Come on, let’s get that knee sorted and have some cake,’ she said.
CHAPTER SIX
ROMAN WAS STANDING by the window when the door was flung open and Jamie bounced into the room displaying a boundless energy that made it hard to imagine him as a child who had had a life-threatening illness, his knee sporting a sticking plaster and his hands now clean.
Marisa followed close behind carrying a tray, which she set carefully down on the table between the two big comfy sofas, then she took a place on one and motioned Roman to sit opposite her.
He considered ignoring the invitation and sitting beside her but practicality won out over perversity. Even across the room the scent of her perfume—or was it just the scent of her skin?—brought back too many distracting memories, and hunger clawed in his belly.
‘Do you want a biscuit, Jamie?’
‘Can I have two?’
‘No.’ The child responded with a small shrug and grinned. ‘Tea?’ Her eyes brushed Roman’s face.
He would have much preferred brandy but he nodded, unable to take his eyes off the little boy who was busy cramming his biscuit in his mouth. The son he had imagined in his head had been a blank canvas but he was discovering the reality was very different. Jamie was already a personality.
‘Are you my mum’s boyfriend?’
Roman’s eyes flew wide as the four-year-old did what few others ever had—threw him totally.
Marisa choked on her first sip of tea. ‘Jamie, you can’t say something like that!’
‘Why?’ The child’s mystification was genuine.
‘Indeed, why?’ There was nothing genuine about the puzzled look on Roman’s face, but the taunting gleam in his eyes spoke volumes as he glanced at a pink-faced Marisa.
As the child exchanged a look with his father, oblivious to his identity, Marisa was suddenly struck by the striking similarity in their body language. Her throat aching, she jerked her eyes downwards, feeling something she didn’t want to feel as she swallowed against the ache in her chest.
‘Sam at nursery, his mum has a boyfriend
