The Italian Doctor's Wife
Lorna bit her lip and he lifted an eyebrow.
‘There is something else you wish to ask me?’
‘You say we must trust you….’ Lorna hesitated and then took a deep breath. ‘Are you good?’
Nico seemed momentarily taken aback by the question and then he gave a wry smile and touched her cheek briefly with a long finger.
‘The best.’
Abby stayed silent as Lorna visibly relaxed and started to ask all the questions that had clearly been bothering her for some time.
Finally she seemed happier and Nico rose to his feet in a fluid movement and flashed her a smile.
‘I hope you feel a little better now.’
Lorna nodded and gave him a weak smile. ‘I do feel better, thank you, although I can’t pretend I’m not worried.’
‘Of course you will be worried.’ Nico slipped his pen back into his pocket. ‘You are a mother and it is a mother’s role to worry. If there are any other questions that you wish to ask me then just ask one of the nurses to contact me and I will be happy to speak to you at any time. I will come and find you after the operation tomorrow so that I can tell you how it went.’
At the reminder of what lay ahead, Lorna swallowed and he reached out a hand and squeezed her shoulder.
‘It will go well. Trust me.’
With that he strode out of the room, leaving Abby to follow in his wake, stunned by what she’d witnessed.
It wasn’t at all what she’d expected.
She’d never seen a doctor take so much time with a family before and she was impressed by how skilfully he’d translated the technical aspects of the operation into language that the family could understand. She was also impressed by the way he’d picked up the signals that Lorna hadn’t understood the previous explanations that she’d been given.
Maybe she’d misjudged him.
‘Thank you for giving them so much time. I’ve never heard a doctor give such a clear explanation. You were amazing with them,’ she admitted quietly, as she walked back along the corridor beside him.
He stopped dead and turned to face her, a frown touching his forehead, almost as though he’d forgotten she was there until she’d spoken.
His eyes locked with hers and suddenly she remembered the way he’d looked at her in the side room.
Accusingly.
Which was utterly ridiculous, she told herself firmly. What could he possibly be accusing her of?
Or maybe he’d recognised her but couldn’t place her.
Maybe she should tell him that she used to go to school with Lucia?
His gaze was cool and assessing and something in those fabulous dark eyes chilled her to the bone.
‘Are you staying for my teaching round?’
‘I can’t.’ She was off duty at four and nothing was going to stop her seeing Rosa. She’d nipped down to the crèche in her lunch-break to check that the baby was all right, but she’d be happier when they were both at home.
‘And will you be at home this evening?’ His voice was silky smooth and she nodded, taken aback by the question.
Why would Nico Santini be remotely interested in her plans for the evening?
His eyes scanned her face with disconcerting thoroughness and then he turned on his heel and walked back onto the main ward, leaving her staring after him, thoroughly confused.
Nico completed his teaching round and glanced at his watch.
‘Are you busy this evening?’ Jack Gibbs was clearly about to extend a social invitation and Nico was quick to make his excuses.
There was only one place he intended to be that evening, and that was confronting Abby Harrington. Incredibly skilled at interpreting body language, he’d instantly recognised her nervousness when they’d been introduced.
His mouth twisted into a bitter smile. After all these years he didn’t think that he made mistakes about women, but he’d certainly been way off the mark in her case.
He’d thought her extremely shy, but she’d also seemed to him to be sensible and intelligent and he’d hoped that she might be a favourable influence on his dizzy sister. She certainly wasn’t the sort of person he would have credited with telling lies or choosing to become a single mother.
It was no wonder she’d looked nervous when he’d walked onto the ward.
She was afraid that he’d discovered her secret and at this very moment she was probably pacing the floor of the tiny flat that she was being forced to vacate, dreading his next move.
And she was right to dread it.
Perfect father material.
Wasn’t that what Lucia had said when she’d persuaded him to be the donor? That they’d decided that he had all the qualities that a man should have. Looks and intellect. Unfortunately for them, they’d failed to realise that being perfect father material also included a sense of responsibility towards fatherhood and it was that same sense of duty that had driven him to check on the child that he’d fathered.
He wondered how Abby Harrington would react when he announced that he intended to claim his child.
For some reason she’d wanted a child of her own and had clearly been prepared to use any means to achieve her objective. Including persuading his sister to lie about her circumstances, he reminded himself grimly.
She’d played a dangerous game and lost.
And now she was going to pay the price.
CHAPTER TWO
ABBY tucked Rosa into her cot and stared down at her with a worried frown. Her cheeks were pink and she’d been unusually fretful again during the evening.
Abby kept trying to convince herself that it was probably just teething, but all her instincts were telling her that the child was coming down with something.
She gave a sigh and stroked the little girl’s hair as she slept.
She loved her so much…
The sound of the doorbell disturbed her and she glanced at the clock, her heart accelerating like a roller-coaster.
Was it the landlord?
He’d given her two more weeks to find somewhere else to live but so far she hadn’t found the time to start hunting.
Remembering what had happened during their last encounter, her breathing grew more rapid and she glanced at the phone.
Should she call the police?
Surely it was illegal to double the rent just because the tenant had refused sex with the landlord!
The bell went again, more insistent this time, and she walked purposefully towards the door, sparks in her blue eyes.
She didn’t need the police. This time she’d handle him herself. She didn’t even care about the flat any more. It wasn’t anything special and in the winter it was freezing. But she needed time to find somewhere else that she could afford and that was impossible in London. She already had to take two buses to get to work and if she moved further out then it would make the journey even worse and that wasn’t fair on Rosa.
But if he tried what he’d tried last time…
Determined to ask for a bit more time, Abby jerked open the front door and gasped in surprise as she saw who was standing there.
It was Nico Santini.
What did he want?
And how had he known where to find her?
For a moment she didn’t speak, too taken aback to think of anything sensible to say, then finally she found her voice.
‘Well—this is a surprise…’
Instead of answering, he stepped past her and strode into her flat, ducking his dark head slightly to avoid banging his head on the doorway.
Abby’s jaw dropped. The arrogance of the man!
Closing the front door behind her, she followed him into the shabby sitting room and paused in the doorway. He was standing with his back to her, his powerful shoulders tense as he examined a photograph.
A photograph of Rosa.
Abby bristled, outrage overwhelming her usual shyness. ‘Did you want something?’
He didn’t even look up, his dark eyes intent on the photograph.
Abby tensed. ‘That’s my daughter.’
He looked up then, his gaze lifting slowly from the photograph to meet her eyes. ‘I know exactly who she is, Abby. I know everything about her.’
Everything?
What exactly did he mean, he knew everything?
She hid her dismay. What was he saying? That Lucia had told him about her treatment at Carlo’s clinic?
She watched, struggling to think logically as he returned the photograph to the shelf with the others, his lean brown hand totally steady.
Why was Nico even interested? she wondered frantically. Why would her daughter be of interest to him? He’d never even passed the time of day with her before.
He took a final look at the photograph and then turned, supremely confident, every inch the arrogant, dominant male as he faced her across the sitting room.
Abby fought the instinct to take a step backwards. This was her sitting room, for goodness’ sake.
But his self-assured masculinity stifled her powers of speech and she dug her fingers into her palms and took a deep breath. There was something about this man that punctured her confidence levels.
‘Secrets have a way of coming out, Abby.’ He spoke slowly, his voice loaded with meaning, and she started to shake.
He definitely knew.
‘Let’s not play games. It isn’t my style. I assume you’re referring to Rosa’s conception,’ she said flatly, deciding that pretence was clearly a waste of time. ‘That should have been confidential but I suppose between siblings anything goes. What I don’t understand is why you could possibly be interested.’
‘No?’ His black eyes glinted slightly and he tossed a file onto the small writing desk by the French doors that led into the tiny garden.
Abby glanced at it, startled, realising that she hadn’t even noticed until now that he’d been carrying a file.
She stared at it now with trepidation, instinct telling her that the contents would be unpleasant.
‘Wh-what is that?’
‘Take a look,’ he suggested, his tone lethally smooth, and she looked at him with a total lack of comprehension.
What was this all about?
Staring at the file as though it were a deadly animal which might strike at any moment, she forced herself to cross the room. It had a plain brown cover which revealed nothing of its contents.
Pausing momentarily, she lifted a hand and flipped it open and then jerked her hand away as if it had been scalded.
The file was about her!
Her and Rosa.
Her whole body trembling, she flicked through the pages, nausea rising in her throat as she read intimate details about herself and her daughter. Intimate and exhaustive details.
Details that no one should know.
An intensely private person, she felt painfully exposed, flayed by the knowledge that this man was in possession of such detailed facts about her.
Appalled, she lifted her eyes to his. ‘H-how did you get this information?’
Nico lifted a broad shoulder dismissively. ‘That isn’t important.’
It was important to her. She’d always hidden the truth about Rosa’s conception from those around her. And here it was staring up at her, taunting her from the page of a file delivered by a virtual stranger.
The fact that he knew about Rosa’s history was bad enough, but to know every detail of her life…
She stared at him, seeking some clue as to the game he was playing, but he was everything that his reputation suggested. Iceberg. If he was feeling anything at all, it certainly didn’t show. There was no doubt as to who had the upper hand, and it wasn’t her.
‘Why? Why are you interested in us?’ Her words were barely a whisper, almost a plea, but there wasn’t a glimmer of sympathy in those hard black eyes.
‘Dio, you really ask me that? Are you still pretending that you don’t know why I am here?’ He walked purposefully towards her and when he finally came to a halt he was standing so close to her that she could feel the warmth from his powerful body. ‘Did you really think I wouldn’t find out the truth, Abby?’
‘The truth about what?’ She swallowed, her breathing shallow as she struggled to understand what was happening. She was obviously missing something. And whatever it was that she was missing, it was clearly something very serious.
‘Are you really pretending that you don’t know who I am?’
Her chin jerked up and she met his gaze. ‘I know who you are.’ Clearly she should have confessed straight away, but it just hadn’t seemed that important and she’d thought it unlikely that he even would have remembered her. ‘You’re Lucia’s brother. I met you a few times when we were at school.’
‘And?’ he prompted her softly, and she felt her heart hammering uncomfortably in her chest.
He hadn’t even raised his voice but somehow his tone had filled her with dread.
‘And nothing.’ She looked at him helplessly, her fingers curled into her damp palms. ‘I haven’t seen you since we left school. I truly don’t know what this is all about.’
‘But you’re not denying that you had treatment at my brother’s clinic?’ His tone was silky smooth, challenging her to dispute the truth.
‘No.’ She swallowed painfully, accepting the fact that he obviously had all the facts at his disposal. The file was nauseatingly comprehensive. ‘What would be the point of that when you’ve gone to so much trouble to find out every last detail about me? But that information should have been confidential.’
His mouth tightened. ‘And you were doubtless depending on that fact when you lied to us all. You were confident that you wouldn’t be caught.’
‘Lied?’ Abby’s eyes widened and she shook her head, totally confused by the conversation. It was like taking the lead part in a play when she hadn’t read the script. ‘I didn’t lie to anyone.’
‘Maybe not directly, but you were happy for Lucia to do it for you,’ he said harshly. ‘She lied about your age and your marital status.’
Abby blinked. ‘No, I—’
He made an impatient sound. ‘I have been intimately acquainted with your sex since I was fifteen years old and I can assure you that I am no longer taken in by a pair of wide blue eyes and an innocent expression. I know everything there is to know about female manipulation.’
Abby grabbed the back of a chair, shell-shocked. Nico was accusing her of something, but she still didn’t understand what. He was making no sense at all.
‘What am I supposed to have lied about?’ She let go of the chair and hugged her arms around herself. ‘I really don’t know what this conversation is about.’
He stared at her, his black eyes merciless. ‘No? Then let me spell it out.’ He paced across her small sitting room and she couldn’t help comparing him with a caged tiger. Only maybe a tiger would have been safer, she thought weakly. Nico in a rage was a lethal force. ‘You played a dangerous game and you have lost.’
She stared at him stupidly, her powers of speech temporarily suspended by shock.
He barely seemed to notice her lack of communication. As far as he was concerned, she’d been tried and found guilty. The only problem was, she had absolutely no idea what crime she’d supposedly committed.
‘I was willing to help you only because I believed your circumstances to be worthy of intervention. I have now found out otherwise and this changes everything.’
Was the man mad? When had he helped her?
She struggled to find her voice. ‘Perhaps you should be more specific,’ she croaked. ‘What exactly does it change?’
‘Everything. I no longer consider you a fit mother,’ he delivered in a cool tone. ‘I agreed to father your child because I believed you to be a woman in your late thirties in a stable relationship with a limited chance of producing a child naturally. That was what you and Lucia led me to believe. The truth was very different, as we both know. I never would have agreed to be the donor had I known that you were so young and on your own.’
She stared at him blankly, her brain slower than her hearing. ‘Donor?’
He ignored her croaked response.
‘You are clearly not able to give her the type of care I would wish for a child of mine, so I intend to apply for custody myself. I want my child.’
His child?
Donor?
The world stopped dead and Abby stared at him in mute horror.
Nico Santini thought that he was Rosa’s father?
She opened her mouth and then closed it again, unable to voice the words aloud because that might have given credence to his absurd claim. And it was absurd, of that she was sure.
‘Don’t bother denying it,’ Nico drawled, but Abby wasn’t listening. Her mind was locked on something he’d said a few sentences earlier.
Something about Lucia…
A hideous suspicion formed inside her mind and Abby lifted a hand to her head as she tried to clear the humming in her ears.
It was possible, just possible that…
Nausea rose in her throat and she reached out and grasped the bookshelves for support, but it made no difference. The room suddenly started to spin and she heard Nico swear softly in Italian.
‘Dio, fainting will not attract my sympathy.’
Sympathy? She didn’t want his sympathy. She just wanted him to be lying!! And she wanted him out of her house.
‘Sit down and put your head between your knees.’ His voice was rough and before she could protest he’d scooped her up into his arms and dumped her unceremoniously into a chair. Then she felt his long fingers biting into the soft flesh at the back of her neck as he forced her head between her knees.
She gulped in air, trying desperately to control the nausea that threatened to engulf her.
Finally the blackness receded and she gingerly tried to sit up. ‘You can move your hand now,’ she muttered sickly, ‘I’m fine.’
The pressure at the back of her neck eased and she sat up slowly, one palm placed across her chest. She needed to check that her heart was still beating.
Nico stood in front of her, his legs placed firmly apart in an aggressive stance, his expression brutally unsympathetic.
‘I always thought Lucia took the prize when it came to drama, but it seems I was wrong. I hate to disappoint you but I’m never impressed by female hysterics,’ he informed her. ‘Even less so in your case since you’ve always known that I might find out the truth.’
Abby was forcing herself to breathe normally in an attempt to get oxygen to her fuddled brain.
Finally she felt well enough to speak. ‘Are you really telling me that you think you’re the father of my baby?’
Her voice sounded thick, clogged with emotion. Totally unlike her own.
‘I don’t think.’ He spoke the words with dangerous emphasis. ‘I know.’
Her voice was little more than a whisper. ‘You were the donor?’
Please, let it be a mistake….
His black eyes flashed with impatience. ‘You know very well that I was. And we also know that you and Lucia fed me false information so that I’d agree. She knew that I would never agree to father a child for a woman in your circumstances. Family is something that I feel very strongly about. The two of you concocted the sort of story that you knew I would respond to.’
Abby licked dry lips. Was he telling the truth? Could Nico Santini be the father of her child?
She and Lucia had discussed the qualities that would make the ideal donor, but she’d never asked for any details.
What would have been the point? She’d assumed that the man in question would have been a stranger to her.
Had Lucia really persuaded her own brother to be the donor? Surely she never would have done that.
But if she had…
Abby sank her teeth into her lower lip, refusing to face the awful possibility that Nico might be Rosa’s father.
It was too shocking even to contemplate. She could see instantly that a man like Nico, an Italian who’d had the sanctity of the family injected into his veins from the cradle, wasn’t going to sit back and allow his child to be brought up by a single mother. What had Lucia been thinking of?
And he’d said something about taking Rosa from her.
The colour drained from her face and she lifted a hand to her mouth. She was going to be ill.
Muttering an apology, she stood up hastily and sprinted to the toilet where she was violently sick. For endless moments she hung over the bowl and then finally she sank onto the floor of the bathroom, her eyes closed, every muscle in her body aching from her body’s physical reaction to Nico’s shocking announcement.
She had no idea of how long she sat there. Time was of no consequence. All she could think of was the fact that he just might be Rosa’s father. And if he was then he was going to claim her.
Her baby.
Panic swamped her like a tidal wave and she wrapped her arms around her body, trying to settle her churning stomach. She had to stay calm, she told herself, clutching her shaking knees to her tummy and gulping in a lungful of air. Nico was exceptionally clever and so emotionally controlled that if she didn’t get a grip and concentrate, he’d run rings around her.
She was still wrestling for control when Rosa suddenly cried out.
Struggling to her feet, she splashed her face quickly and ran down the hall as fast as her shaking legs would allow.
Pushing open the door of Rosa’s nursery, she stopped dead. Nico was standing there, speaking softly in Italian, Rosa held firmly against his shoulder. The little girl lifted a chubby hand and patted his blue-black jaw, gurgling with laughter and blowing bubbles.
Abby watched in dismay.
Did her daughter have no sense of self-preservation? She should have been behaving like the child from hell so that there was no way on this planet he’d want to take her away. Instead of which, Rosa was being her usual sweet-natured self and she could see that Nico was totally enchanted by the little girl.
He held her against his broad chest with one large hand while he used the other to tease the baby gently.
Abby shook her head in disbelief as she watched them together. What a contrast. There was no sign of the hard, ruthless, male who had been prowling around her sitting room only moments earlier. With the baby Nico was a different person—incredibly gentle, tolerant and mildly amused by her antics.
Looking at the two of them together, Abby felt her heart sink into her boots.
How had she not noticed it before?
Rosa was the spitting image of Nico. They had the same jet-black hair, the same incredible dark eyes. Only the mouth was different. Rosa’s mouth was a small rosebud whereas—Abby glanced at him and then glanced away quickly, her face suddenly hot—Nico’s was tough and sensual, and it wasn’t something that she wanted to focus on. Whichever way you looked at it, physically Rosa resembled Nico closely.
Which meant that he was probably telling the truth.
The realisation hit her in the pit of her stomach and she sank against the doorframe for support. Even if she’d been thinking of contesting his claim to be the child’s natural father, one look at the two of them together would have been enough to make her realise the futility of such an exercise.
Suddenly Rosa noticed her mother and squirmed in Nico’s hold, reaching out her chubby arms towards Abby.
Distraught and not thinking clearly, Abby pulled herself together enough to cross the room and take her daughter from him.
Just feeling the familiar warmth of Rosa’s little body made her feel better. There was something so comforting about her innocent hug and the smell of her skin and hair.
‘She’s mine.’ Not wanting to upset Rosa, she spoke quietly, but her voice quivered with passion and sincerity. ‘She’s always been mine. It doesn’t matter if you’re the biological father. You can’t take her away from me.’
Her words were sheer bravado and she met his cool gaze, hopelessly out of her depth. She had no idea about the legalities of the situation and she couldn’t afford to pay anyone to tell her, not with the present state of her finances. Surely no one would give him custody? But, then again, they probably would, she reflected miserably, hugging her daughter even closer. The Santini family was loaded. When Lucia had been at school it had been bodyguards and helicopters all the way. They had enough money to buy the entire legal system if necessary. Whereas she—she closed her eyes briefly as she faced the painful truth—didn’t even have the money for one consultation with a lawyer. If she had then she probably would have already seen one about her unscrupulous landlord.