The Italian's Love-Child: The Italian's Stolen Bride / The Marchese's Love-Child / The Italian's Marriage Demand

CHAPTER SIX

HER beautiful hair, soft, silky, incredibly sensual…the feel of it, the feel of her, had started this, propelling him down a path he hadn’t meant to take yet, and certainly not with the frenzied need that had driven his every action. He had to start thinking now, seize advantage of the knowledge that the need had been mutual.

She was clasping him tightly to her. Was it reaction to the physical upheaval of climaxing, or a desire to hold onto him? He had to move, take his weight off her before she became too conscious of it, too conscious of what she had allowed to happen, regretting it, spurning him as he’d once spurned her.

He rolled onto his back, carrying her with him, keeping one of her legs trapped by his to retain an intimate entanglement, using his hands to travel up and down the curve of her spine, over the soft roundness of her bottom, wanting her to feel him loving her, everything about her.

The sex had been too crude, too fast. He’d meant to woo her, win back her trust. Her fear of him had been intolerable, a barrier he’d had to break, though he’d lost sight of that aim as her tension had collapsed into tears. Holding her in his arms again—impossible not to remember how it had once been with her, stirring the urge to make her remember, too.

Show her, kiss her…

He hadn’t anticipated the fierce response.

Given Skye’s hostility—justified hostility—what was behind her burst of passion? He couldn’t believe it was a raging desire for him. Though there was no doubting she had wanted the sexual connection, responding to it all the way. That certainly hadn’t changed. But was it enough to build on?

It had to be because there was no going back to a more careful courtship. Besides, it would be better for Matt to have both parents as a constant in his life. And it would prove his own commitment to fatherhood to Skye, removing her fear of a transient and possibly damaging dalliance with his son. So best that he speak now, before her mind got active against him again.

Her head was resting over his heart. He wound a long tress of her hair around his hand to hold her there. He told himself she could not be more vulnerable to the idea than she was at this moment with both of them naked and intimately entwined, reinforcing what they could and did share.

It would come out baldly, he knew, but dressing it up with feelings she might scorn could very well tip the scales in a very negative fashion. She wouldn’t trust emotions. Working from her reaction seemed the most viable option. He had to use reason and do it convincingly.

Trying to keep the enormous tension he felt out of his voice, Luc simply announced what he was aiming for.

‘I want you to marry me.’

* * *

Marry him…

The shock of the proposal rolled through Skye’s sluggish mind, setting off alarm signals. She hadn’t wanted to think of what she’d done with Luc. Much easier to just drift in a haze of feeling, blocking realities out until they had to be faced. But a proposal of marriage… it was so off the wall, Skye struggled to get her head around what it meant.

She started to shift, acutely aware of his heart drumming under her ear—a soothing sound just a few moments ago—a disturbing one now.

‘No. Stay with me.’

The brusque command unsettled her further. He had no right to force her compliance to his will, not over anything so personal as this. She’d conceded his right to involve himself with Matt, but what happened between her and Luc was most certainly a matter of choice. Just because she’d had sex with him didn’t mean he could do anything he liked with her.

‘Don’t make this a fight, Luc,’ she warned, trying to gather wits enough to understand what had motivated his proposal. ‘Let me move.’

‘Why do you want to?’

‘I’ve just remembered who you are,’ she answered, not caring if it hurt him, instinctively using shock to give herself room for retreat to a less vulnerable position so she could think straight, not be influenced by the strong sexual connection he was pressing.

‘Don’t give me that!’ He whipped her over onto her back and propped himself up, one arm on either side of her so that she was looking directly into his eyes—eyes blazing with a certainty that poured into passionate words. ‘You knew who was kissing you…knew who brought you to this bed…knew who was—’

‘Screwing me again?’ she fired at him, angered by the physical domination he was exerting when she had made a clear request to be released.

His face tightened, his mouth compressing into a thin line. ‘You wanted this, too, Skye,’ he bit out, shaking his head over her accusation.

He was using it against her—the far too shortsighted surrender to what had probably always been a fantasy—her and Luc together, their love so strong it could ride through anything. It hadn’t. And he’d moved on to other women while she had struggled on by herself. He’d still be moving on, but for Matt.

‘Was it good for you, Luc?’ she asked, resenting all his infidelities.

‘Yes. And you wouldn’t have responded as you did if it wasn’t good for you,’ he retorted, determined on making her admit it.

‘So you think you can capitalise on it, move straight in and take over my life.’

‘We’re good together. We always were,’ he argued.

‘A pity you didn’t remember that when it counted.’

‘It counts now,’ he snapped back, ignoring the past, accentuating the present. ‘We have a son. We should be a family.’

Matt. She was right about what Luc really wanted. ‘There’s more to marriage than having a child. I don’t want you as my husband.’

‘You came to bed with me.’

She couldn’t leave him with that weapon to use against her. ‘I wanted you to remember what you gave up, Luc,’ she said mockingly.

His brows beetled down into a deep frown.

‘How many women have there been since me?’ she asked, hating him for moving on, leaving her behind, then thinking he could turn around and take her as his wife when it suited him.

‘They’re irrelevant.’ It was a fierce mutter, wanting her to forget them.

‘When you shared a bed with them, did you remember me?’

‘Yes, I did. Nothing was ever like what we had together.’

For a moment, his vehement reply rocked Skye out of her bitter train of thought. There had only ever been Luc for her. No one else. If he felt the same way… But he couldn’t. He’d put his brother’s word ahead of hers, his family’s view of her ahead of his own.

‘I don’t believe you!’ she cried, and with all her strength, slammed her hands against his shoulders and thrust him far enough away for her to scramble off the bed, out of reach.

‘It’s true!’ he hurled after her.

‘Be quiet! Matt’s in the next room,’ she hissed at him as she grabbed her houserobe from the one chair in her bedroom, putting it on as fast as she could, determined on shutting out any resumption of intimacy with him.

‘Our son, Skye,’ he swiftly reminded her, his voice lowered but still emphatic in delivery. ‘Don’t you think it would be better for him to have a full-time father as well as mother?’

She wrapped the robe around her and tied the belt savagely as she swung to face him again. ‘That’s what you’re after, isn’t it? Matt. Not me. Get the mother, get the boy.’

‘Wrong! I want both of you.’

He was still stretched out on the bed, propped up on one arm, looking moody and magnificent, every part of him male perfection. No wonder she hadn’t wanted any other man. And maybe never would. Which gave her pause for thought. She could have him. All she had to do was say yes to his marriage proposal.

But could she live with him—live with his family—and be happy? How could she trust any of them to really care about her, given how they’d treated her in the past?

She had to finish this—get him out of her bedroom, out of her house—not let him play on the desires he could so easily tap into. Treacherous feelings! The sense of intimacy still swirling in this darkened room drove her over to the light-switch by the door. She flicked it on, telling herself she would see more clearly now, think more clearly.

But it didn’t help. Luc’s nakedness gathered even more power in the light, vividly reminding her of how every part of him had felt. And his claim of wanting her burned from his eyes, heating her skin all over again, making her toes curl, making her stomach contract, making her breasts ache, her nipples tighten into tell-tale prominence.

Panicking over his effect on her, she folded her arms across the wildly fluttering beat of her heart and rushed into defensive speech. ‘Don’t think having sex with you means anything, Luc.’

‘You can’t make me believe you’d have sex indiscriminately, Skye.’ His mouth curled in bitter irony. ‘I believed it once and made the biggest mistake of my life. No one can sell it to me a second time.’

‘This is different,’ she hotly argued.

‘How is it different?’ he mocked.

She frantically sought a convincing explanation. ‘Being pregnant hardly makes you desirable to other men. And having a baby takes up all your time, not to mention nursing your mother through chemotherapy, losing her, then trying to establish a life while being a single parent. I haven’t had sex since I was with you six years ago and you caught me at a weak moment. That’s all it was.’

‘Because it was me,’ he pointed out with arrogant certainty.

She glared at him, unable to deny a truth which was only too self-evident, anyway.

He stretched out an inviting arm. ‘Come back to bed. Let me show you…’

‘No!’ The physical pleasure she knew he would give could not be allowed to cloud her mind again. ‘I want you to get dressed and go, Luc.’

‘Let me answer your needs, Skye,’ he promised temptingly.

‘You can’t answer all of them,’ she retorted. ‘And please do as I ask. This wasn’t in our agreement. If you have any integrity at all…’

He moved, swinging his legs off the bed. Fear of him coming at her choked off any further speech and drove her into instant recoil. She shrank back against the doorjamb, hugging herself even more tightly.

Luc sat on the edge of the bed, absolutely still, frowning at her. Every nerve in her body screeched with tension as she waited for his next action. The silence was electric with barely contained emotions and challenges she was too frightened to acknowledge, yet the strong sense of them pinned her to the wall, draining her of any further initiative.

‘Integrity…’ The word fell from his lips, heavy with guilt and regret. ‘I lost faith in yours so you have no belief in mine.’ He lifted deeply pained eyes, probing her soul with searing intensity. ‘Did it ever occur to you that I cared too much about integrity, Skye? That seeing you…in bed with my brother…was such a killing blow…’

‘I was never in bed with your brother!’

‘Goddammit!’ He rose to his feet, towering up to his full height, pumping out waves of violent energy as he hurled out his truth. ‘It wasn’t just the photos! You were charmed with Roberto’s wit and you didn’t stop him from flirting with you. Every time the three of us were together, Roberto would claim your attention and you gave it to him. Willingly!’

‘He was nice to me, Luc. Your parents looked at me as though I was trash, treated me with icy politeness. Why wouldn’t I warm to your brother?’ she flung back at him.

‘Warm…’ His hands lifted, fingers outstretched like upturned talons, left empty and frustrated because what he’d wanted to hold on to had been ripped away. ‘Where does warmth turn into heat? Roberto swore it was so…swore I was making a fool of myself for loving you…and there were the photos to prove it, to prove there was no integrity in your love for me…’

‘It wasn’t true,’ Skye cried, deeply agitated by the pain pouring from him and the artful lies that had been woven around her behaviour.

‘He was my brother! We’d shared all our lives together! Why would he confess to such a divisive and destructive truth if it wasn’t the truth?’

A killing blow…she could see it now, feel how it was for him.

‘You were the light of my life and he tore it out of me and left me in darkness. A darkness so black I couldn’t see you any more. Not the person you were.’ His hands dropped in a helpless fashion as the raw anguish on his face fell into a terrible bleakness. ‘All in the name of integrity…which he sacrificed…to please my father.’

He shook his head and slowly bent down to pick up his clothes as though there was nothing left to do and there was certainly no joy to be had from any more exposure. On any level.

A poignant sense of loss permeated the sudden silence and Skye’s heart felt as though it was being wrung by merciless hands. The hurt was too great—his hurt and hers—what had been done to both of them! Her mind was a chaos of confusion. Was it wrong of her to keep blaming him for turning traitor to their love when he had suffered the devastation of a double treachery? The woman he loved…the brother he loved…

‘Don’t be frightened of me, Skye,’ he said softly, looking at her with an expression of rueful appeal. He was putting on his shirt, doing up the buttons. ‘This time around… it’s not about taking from you. It’s about giving.’

She couldn’t bring herself to speak. She wasn’t so sure of her ground any more. All she could think of was how much she had loved this man and maybe she could love him again if…but weren’t there too many ifs? And Matt was in the middle of them. Her precious son whom she had to protect against the Peretti family. She mustn’t forget Matt, just because Luc could still get to her, twisting her around, making her feel…

Watching him pull on his underpants and jeans, everything within her quivered, not from fear but from the freshly awakened sexual memory of how it had been with him…the intimacy they’d shared on the very bed she had to sleep in tonight. Alone…as she’d been alone all these years. She had Matt but a child’s love—her love for him—was different. Being a mother did not fulfil everything she wanted as a woman.

Luc tucked his shirt in, did up his zipper, shot her a look that mocked the security she’d wanted from him being clothed again. ‘It won’t go away—the chemistry between us, Skye. No matter what you’re telling yourself, it will still be there next week, next month, next year, and all the years to follow.’

The relentless beat of his prediction struck chords of truth that twanged through her entire body. Her mind could produce no answer to it. She simply stared back at him, silently demanding the distance she needed right now, telling herself not to concede anything more at this point.

He sat on the bed to put on his socks and Reeboks, doing it with commendable alacrity, not dragging out his time with her. He stood up and she stiffened her backbone, determined on an air of self-containment as he walked over to the doorway, emanating a dynamic energy that would not acknowledge defeat.

He paused beside her, his dark brilliant eyes engaging hers in an intense battle of wills. ‘I can’t give you back the years that were taken from us but we can make a future together,’ he said quietly.

They had to…around Matt. But she now knew Luc was intent on pushing for more, and even as she thought it, he laid it out to her again.

‘I doubt any marriage is perfect, but I promise you this. I’ll work damned hard at making it as good as I can for you. Think about it, Skye. I’ll be back next Saturday…as agreed.’

He walked on into the hallway. She heard the front door click open, then shut behind him.

Gone.

Air whooshed out of her lungs on a huge sigh of relief. She sagged against the wall, staring at the bed where she had wantonly surrendered her independence. Was it possible to claw it back? Did she want to? Did she have to?

She needed to know the answers before Luc came again.

Next Saturday.

As agreed.

Because he was Matt’s father.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘DADDY’S here!’ Matt yelled from the front porch. ‘And he’s come in his red car!’

The Ferrari! The excitement in her son’s voice shot Skye out of dallying in the kitchen. He’d been outside, waiting and watching for his father in a fever of impatience, and the double attraction of the Ferrari spelled danger! She raced down the hallway to the opened front door in time to see Matt unlatching the gate and Luc emerging from his car on the other side of the street.

‘Don’t run onto the road, Matt!’ she called.

It alerted Luc, who instantly spotted him and held up a hand. ‘Wait on the sidewalk.’ Commanding authority.

Matt obeyed, but he literally jiggled with pleasure as Luc strode across the road towards him, smiling his own pleasure in this obvious welcome from his son. He swooped down, picked him up and hoisted him up against his shoulder, laughing as Matt laughed—the sound of mutual happiness. ‘So how did it go at soccer training?’ he asked.

And Matt bubbled over with news of the two after-school sessions he’d attended during the week. No shyness. A quick and easy rapport with his father, plus unadulterated delight in his interest and company.

Which put a little hollow in Skye’s heart. It was hard, realising she couldn’t supply all her son’s needs. Not even years of loving him, doing everything she could for him, was enough. He wanted his father.

She waited on the porch, watching them bonding as Luc carried Matt back to her. They were alike, though maybe she was seeing the similarities more acutely now that it was impossible to deny them with Luc right in front of her again. And he wasn’t going to go away.

The only question was…how far should she let him into their lives?

All week she had been weighing it up in her mind and was no closer to an answer. It was no use even trying to think of him as the much younger Luc she had loved. He was different, just as she was different. He’d spoken of darkness and she sensed it ran very deeply, married to a steely resolve that encompassed her because of what had been done to him.

She wasn’t sure love had any part in it…yet watching him with Matt, seeing him drink in the innocence of his child’s natural response to him…his heart was surely being touched. It wasn’t just ownership.

So maybe he was still capable of loving. Whether that could extend to her…if she was his wife…but there was still the Peretti family in the background, a powerful father who would hate having his will thwarted.

Then Luc turned his gaze from Matt to her, a direct blaze of power that thumped into her heart and burned into her brain the unequivocal fact that he wasn’t about to have his will thwarted, either.

‘Daddy said I had to ask you if I can have a ride in his car,’ Matt piped up. ‘Can I, Mummy? Can I?’

‘May I,’ Skye corrected automatically, wrenching her gaze away from Luc’s, ‘We can’t all fit in that car, Matt. If we’re going to Darling Harbour…’ The outing agreed upon.

‘Perhaps a quick spin around the block?’ Luc suggested.

‘He’s not a stranger any more, Mummy. It can’t be a bad thing to do.’

Skye flushed at the reminder of the argument she’d used in a protective need to keep Luc a stranger to Matt. ‘Just a short ride then,’ she muttered, feeling hamstrung by her own dictate.

‘Five minutes at most,’ Luc promised, undoubtedly realising it was stretching her trust to let him go off alone with their son. It was against their agreement.

‘Okay, five minutes,’ she conceded, shooting him a warning look. One transgression didn’t mean he could trample anywhere he liked.

He grinned at her, triumph dancing in his eyes. Matt whooped with joy and they were off, leaving Skye to fret over the feeling that control was slipping away from her.

In fact, it had been slipping away ever since Luc had re-entered her life. Her independent stance was gone. Any peace of mind was gone. The future directions she had been considering were hopelessly blurred by the now prime consideration of whether or not she should entertain the idea of marrying Luc Peretti.

With a helpless sigh, Skye retreated into the house, checked that everything needed for their day out had been put in the backpack before zipping it shut, slung it over one arm, grabbed both her hat and Matt’s, and went back out to the porch, locking the front door behind her.

The Ferrari came vrooming down the street as she walked towards the Alfa. Luc had kept his word. He didn’t want her to be frightened of him. The problem was it was difficult not to be when her knees went weak at the sight of him.