Tall, Dark & Handsome
His!
This beautiful child was of his loins. Of his blood.
Bella could only stand helplessly by as Gabriel dropped to his knees beside Toby’s bed, her protest strangling in her throat as Gabriel reached out a hand to touch the little boy, the stroke of his fingers against one slightly chubby cheek so gentle, so tender, that Toby didn’t even stir.
Her heart felt as if it were breaking, shattering, as she watched the rush of love that softened Gabriel’s harshly hewn features. As she saw that love glowing in his broodingly dark gaze as he continued to stare at his son in wonder.
And she knew without a doubt that the last four years of sharing Toby only with her family were over…
‘I need a drink,’ Gabriel stated flatly some time later when he had reluctantly left his son’s bedside to return to the sitting-room, not waiting for Bella’s reply but moving to the mini-bar to help himself to one of the small bottles of whisky before pouring it into a glass and drinking most of it in one swallow. ‘So, Isabella,’ he stated as he looked across at her grimly. ‘What do you suggest we do about this situation?’
‘What situation?’ she repeated sharply, her stance wholly defensive as she stood across the room.
Gabriel looked at her through narrowed lids. He had made love with this woman a little over five years ago. That lovemaking had resulted in a child. A child whose existence she had deliberately kept from him. For that alone Isabella deserved no mercy from him.
His mouth thinned. ‘The situation that Toby, despite what you may have decided to the contrary, deserves to know both of his parents rather than just one!’
Her throat moved convulsively, but otherwise she maintained her defensive stance. ‘As I have already explained—’
‘As far as you are concerned, I gave up the right to know my own child because you believe I only went to bed with you out of jealousy and spite over my ex-girlfriend’s relationship with Paulo Descari,’Gabriel coldly repeated her earlier accusation. ‘Neither jealousy nor spite were part of my emotions that night, Isabella,’he added curtly. ‘And I certainly wasn’t feeling those emotions at the time of the accident the following day either,’ he bit out deliberately.
Bella moistened lips that had gone suddenly dry as she sensed the leashed violence in him. ‘I didn’t suggest they were, Gabriel. You did.’
He gave a scathing snort. ‘It is impossible not to do so considering Janine’s claims following the accident,’ Gabriel snarled. ‘The official enquiry proved my innocence in the matter. But perhaps you would prefer to believe that I am responsible for the accident that caused the death of two other men, rather than take my word for what happened that day?’
Bella felt the colour drain from her cheeks even as she stared at Gabriel. No, of course she didn’t prefer to believe that Gabriel had deliberately caused the accident that had killed two other men. She didn’t believe it!
Gabriel might be guilty of many things, but Bella certainly hadn’t ever believed him to be guilty of that.
Gabriel looked at her coldly. ‘I did not cause the accident, Isabella,’ he repeated firmly. ‘That was only the hysterical accusation of a woman who took advantage of the fact that I was unconscious for several days following the crash, and so was unable to deny those accusations.’
And that accusation hadn’t been the reason Bella had made no effort to contact Gabriel following the car crash, either…
How could she possibly have just arrived at the hospital and asked to be allowed to see Gabriel when they had only spent a single night together?
If Gabriel wanted to see her again, Bella had reasoned, then he would contact her just as he’d said he would. Until he chose to do that—if he chose to do that!—she would just have to get on with her life as best she could.
Her pregnancy had been something Bella simply hadn’t taken into account when she had made that decision.
Weeks later, after her pregnancy was confirmed, Bella had been forced to make choices, both for herself and her baby. Gabriel’s failure to phone had simply reinforced Bella’s suspicion that he would want nothing to do with them. Or if he did, he had the power to take her baby away from her. Something Bella would never allow to happen. It was too late now, far too late, for her to explain or undo any of those choices…
Gabriel watched the emotions that flickered across Bella’s beautiful and expressive face, too fleeting for him to be able to discern any of them accurately. ‘I did not cause the accident, Isabella, but that does not mean I have not carried the guilt of Paulo and Jason’s deaths with me every day since.’
‘But why?’ She looked totally confused now.
Gabriel turned away to look out of the window at the San Francisco skyline.
How could he ever explain to her how he had felt five years ago when he’d regained consciousness and learnt of Paulo Descari and Jason Miller’s deaths? Of Janine’s hysterical accusations?
Added to that, Gabriel had felt utter despair, even helplessness, at the seriousness of his own injuries.
The cuts and burns to his body that were still visible, five years later, in the scar on his face and those that laced across his chest, back, and legs. The crushing of his pelvis and legs had kept him confined to bed for months, with the added possibility that he might never walk again.
Worst of all, worse even than Paulo and Jason’s deaths, Janine’s duplicity, had been the knowledge that their night together had meant so little to Bella that—
No!
Gabriel refused to go there. He had not thought of Bella’s desertion for almost five years. He would not—could not—think of it now.
Now he would think only of Toby. Of his son. And Bella’s second betrayal…
He turned back to face Bella, his expression utterly implacable. ‘Toby is all that is important now,’ Gabriel told her icily. ‘I will return at ten o’clock tomorrow—or rather, today,’ he corrected, ‘at which time you and Toby will be ready to accompany me—’
‘I’m not going anywhere with you, Gabriel, and neither is Toby,’ Bella cut in immediately.
‘At which time,’ he repeated in, if possible, even icier tones, ‘you and Toby will be ready to accompany me on a visit to my father. Toby’s grandfather,’he added harshly.
Bella’s second denial died unspoken on her lips.
She had talked with her mother earlier tonight. Or rather, her mother had talked with her. A conversation in which her mother had assured Bella that the relationship between herself and Gabriel was their own affair, and for the two of them alone to unravel. However, speaking as a grandmother, she had added, she had nothing but sympathy for Cristo Danti and the fact that he had only learnt this evening of his grandson’s existence. That knowledge had been obviously so emotionally profound it had resulted in the older man’s collapse.
An irrefutable fact against which Bella had no defence.
Either earlier or now.
Her shoulders were stiff with tension. ‘Firstly, let me tell you that I deeply resent your use of emotional blackmail in order to get me to do what you want—’
‘Would you rather I pursued a legal claim, instead?’ Gabriel challenged contemptuously.
Bella swallowed hard even as she refused to lower her gaze from his. ‘That would take months, by which time I would be safely back in England.’
‘I will have my lawyers apply for an immediate injunction to prevent you, or Toby, from leaving this country,’ Gabriel warned scathingly. ‘I am a Danti, Isabella,’ he reminded her.
Her eyes flashed darkly purple at his underlying threat. ‘Secondly,’ she pointedly resumed her earlier conversation, ‘despite the fact that I resent your methods, I am nevertheless perfectly aware of your father’s claim as Toby’s grandfather—’
‘But not my own as his father!’ Gabriel was so furiously angry now that there was a white line about the firmness of his mouth and his body was rigid with suppressed emotion.
Bella looked at him sadly, knowing this conversation was achieving nothing except to drive a distance between the two of them that was even wider than the gaping chasm that already existed.
She had known when she met Gabriel again yesterday that he wasn’t the same man she had been so attracted to five years ago that she had forgotten, or simply put aside, every vestige of caution in order to spend the night in his arms.
This Gabriel was scarred on the inside as well as the outside and the coldness of his anger concerning her having kept Toby’s existence a secret from him was worse than any emotional accusations might have been.
She sighed. ‘Ten o’clock, I believe you said?’
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed on her, searching for any sign of deception in her eyes or expression. He could see none. Only a weary acceptance of a situation she could do nothing to change.
The tension in his shoulders relaxed slightly. ‘We will sit down together with Toby first and explain my own and my father’s relationship to him.’
‘Isn’t that a little premature?’ Bella protested.
‘In my opinion it is almost four and a half years too late!’ Gabriel snapped.
‘It will only confuse Toby when you have no active role in his life—’
His scornful laugh cut off her protest. ‘Do you seriously believe that is going to continue?’
Bella looked at him, knowing by the implacability in Gabriel’s expression as he looked down the length of his arrogant nose at her—the same implacability in his tone whenever he now referred to her as Isabella—that it wasn’t. That it was Gabriel’s intention to take an extremely active role in Toby’s life in future.
Precisely where that left her, Bella had no idea…
CHAPTER FIVE
‘DOES Grandad live in one of these big houses?’
‘He certainly does, Toby,’ Gabriel answered him indulgently.
Bella would never cease to be amazed by the resilience of children and by her own child’s in particular.
Having lain awake long into the night dreading, planning, how best to break the news to Toby that Gabriel Danti was his father and Cristo Danti was his grandfather, she had been totally surprised by Toby taking the whole thing in his four-year-old stride.
Even his initial shyness at suddenly being presented with a father had quickly given way to excitement as he was strapped into the back of Gabriel’s open-topped sports car to make the drive over to the house where his grandfather was anxiously waiting to meet him after being discharged from the hospital earlier this morning.
Bella’s own emotions were far less simplistic as she stared out of the car window, seeing none of the beauty of the Pacific Ocean in the distance, her thoughts all inwards.
Her life, and consequently Toby’s, was back in England. In the small village where she had bought a cottage for the two of them to live in, once she had been financially able to do so, after living with her parents for the first two years of Toby’s life. She liked living in a village, as did Toby, and he was due to start attending the local school in September.
This situation with Gabriel, his veiled threats of the night before, made Bella wonder exactly when she could expect to return to that life.
Not that she was able to read any of Gabriel’s thoughts or feelings this morning. He was wearing sunglasses now, and his mood when he had arrived at the hotel earlier had been necessarily upbeat for Toby’s benefit, his attitude towards Bella one of strained politeness. Only the coldness in Gabriel’s eyes earlier, whenever he had chanced to look at her, had told Bella of the anger he still felt towards her.
The anger he would probably always feel towards her for denying him knowledge of his son for the first four years of Toby’s life…
‘Here we are, Toby,’ Gabriel turned to tell his son after steering the car into the driveway, smiling as he saw the excitement on his son’s face as they waited for the electrically operated gates to open so that he could drive them down to the house.
His son…!
Even twelve hours later Gabriel still had trouble believing he had a son. A bright, happy, and unaffected little boy who had taken the news of Gabriel being his father much more pragmatically than Gabriel had responded the evening before to learning that he had a son.
Gabriel glanced at Bella now from behind his dark sunglasses, his mouth thinning as he noted the pallor to her cheeks, the lines of strain beside her eyes and mouth.
Deservedly so!
Whatever claims Janine Childe had made against him five years ago did not change the fact that Bella hadn’t so much as attempted to inform him she was expecting his child, that she had actually borne him a son, or that she had then brought Toby up with no knowledge whatsoever of his father or his father’s family.
‘Your own family are all aware now of Toby’s paternity?’
Bella was glad she was wearing sunglasses to hide the sudden tears that had welled up in her eyes at the emotional breakfast she had shared earlier with her parents and siblings.
There had been no words of rebuke or disapproval from her parents, only their gentle understanding as she explained the situation of five years ago to them—and Claudia’s demand, as the two sisters had returned to their hotel suite once the meal was over, that Bella ‘tell all’ about the night she had spent in Gabriel’s bed. A curiosity Bella had chosen not to satisfy.
She didn’t even want to think about that night, let alone relive, even verbally, how completely she had been infatuated with the darkly seductive Gabriel Danti five years ago!
‘Yes,’ she confirmed huskily.
Gabriel nodded in satisfaction as he accelerated the black sports car down the driveway to the house that was just as grand as Bella would have expected of this prestigious area of San Francisco. It was large and gabled, slightly Victorian in style, with its redbrick structure and the white frames to the stained-glass windows.
‘You’re sure this…visit…isn’t going to give your father a relapse?’ Bella hung back reluctantly on the gravelled driveway once they were all out of the car.
Gabriel had removed his sunglasses and left them in the car, his expression mocking as he glanced down at her. ‘On the contrary, I believe its possibilities will achieve the opposite.’
Bella looked up at him, a little confused by the cryptic comment. ‘Sorry?’
His mouth tightened. ‘Later, Isabella,’ he said curtly. ‘You and I are going to talk again later.’
Bella didn’t much like the sound of that.
And she was really starting to dislike the way Gabriel kept calling her Isabella in that coldly contemptuous way!
Once Gabriel had left the previous night Bella had thought long and hard about his claim that he hadn’t made love with her five years ago, or spent the night with her, in an effort to make Janine Childe jealous. After hours and hours of going over the situation in her head, Bella had finally come to the conclusion that it really didn’t matter what Gabriel’s reasons had been.
They had spent only that single night together. Admittedly it had been an intensely passionate, even erotic night, but nevertheless that was all it had been. On Gabriel’s side, anyway. That Bella had experienced strong feelings for him after that night didn’t change the fact that Gabriel hadn’t felt that way about her.
As the last five years of silence on Gabriel’s part showed…
He had never made any attempt to contact her again after that night although that had been his promise. Admittedly Gabriel had been involved in the car crash later that day, but he hadn’t suffered memory loss. Once he had recovered enough to be able to talk, to receive visitors, that needn’t have stopped him from getting in touch. Not too much to ask if Gabriel really had been interested in seeing her again. Which he obviously hadn’t…That was not the kind of man she wanted as a father for her child!
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think we have anything left to talk about, Gabriel,’ she told him firmly.
Gabriel gave a brief, humourless smile. ‘We have not even begun to talk yet, Isabella!’
His father was waiting for them in the warmth of the plant-filled conservatory at the back of the house, Gabriel appreciating that the informality of such surroundings was exactly what was needed to put a four-year-old boy at his ease.
That his father found the meeting highly emotional Gabriel had no doubts, Cristo’s voice husky with suppressed tears as Toby joined him and he allowed the little boy to water the orchids for him.
‘I am neglecting your mother, Toby,’ Cristo apologised some minutes later as he straightened. ‘You may continue to water if you wish, Toby, or you may come and sit with us while your mother and I talk.’
Bella knew exactly which choice her young son would make; like most small boys, Toby had absolutely no interest in the conversation of adults!
‘Bella.’ Cristo Danti’s voice was deep with emotion as he crossed the room to where she had sat in one of the half a dozen cane chairs watching him and Toby together. He took her hand in his to raise it to his lips as she stood up. ‘Thank you for bringing Toby to see me,’ he told her, his eyes slightly moist as he looked at her.
Bella felt her own tears clogging her throat as she looked at Gabriel’s father, not able to discern any reproach in the directness of that brown gaze, only the slight sheen of the tears that he made no effort to hide from her.
Bella was very aware of the menacingly silent Gabriel standing beside her. ‘I—’ she moistened her lips nervously ‘—I really don’t know what to say,’ she stuttered, aware that statement was painfully inadequate and yet totally true.
‘Gabriel has already explained all that needs to be explained.’ Cristo Danti smiled at her reassuringly. ‘All that really matters is that you and Toby are here now.’
Bella, besides feeling the heavy weight of guilt at Cristo Danti’s complete acceptance of a situation that yesterday evening had caused his collapse, also wondered exactly what Gabriel had explained…
‘You’re very kind,’ she told the older man as she squeezed his hand before releasing it.
‘Obviously Isabella and I have much to talk about yet, Papa,’ Gabriel spoke abruptly beside her. ‘If you and Toby will excuse us for a few minutes…?’
Bella felt a sense of rising panic at the suggestion, not sure she was up to another confrontation with Gabriel at the moment. She hadn’t slept much during what had been left of the previous night, and the morning had already been traumatic enough with the conversation with her family, followed by Gabriel’s arrival at the hotel and their explanation to Toby, and now this meeting with Cristo Danti.
But a single glance at the grim determination of Gabriel’s set expression was enough to tell Bella that she didn’t have any choice in the matter!
‘Toby…?’ she prompted lightly to gain her young son’s attention from watering the plants. ‘Will you be okay while I just go and have a little chat with—with—your father?’ That didn’t get any easier with actually saying out loud!
‘Of course.’Toby beamed across at her unconcernedly.
Bella wished at that moment that her young son weren’t quite so gregarious; obviously she wasn’t going to get any help at all from Toby in avoiding another confrontation with Gabriel.
To Toby, Bella knew, this was obviously all just a big adventure; he had absolutely no idea of the underlying tensions—or the possible repercussions!—of Gabriel Danti being his father and Cristo Danti being his grandfather.
Bella wanted to make sure it remained that way…
‘I am sure Toby and I will be able to keep each other amused, Bella,’ Cristo assured her.
She gave him a grateful smile, that smile fading as Gabriel stood back politely to allow her to precede him into the main house. Polite, even coldly polite, Bella could deal with—she just didn’t think that politeness was going to last for very long once she and Gabriel were alone together!
‘He’ll probably drown your poor father’s orchids for him,’ Bella murmured ruefully as Gabriel moved ahead to open a door further down the hallway.
Gabriel glanced back at her, his gaze hooded. ‘I doubt my father will mind, do you?’ he said pointedly as he pushed open the door to the room before standing back to allow her to enter.
It was a book-lined room, Bella noted with dismay, much like the study in the Danti’s English home in Surrey where she and Gabriel had first met.
Gabriel was also aware of the irony of their surroundings as he quietly closed the door behind them before moving to sit behind the green leather-topped desk, his gaze narrowed on Bella as she chose not to sit in the chair facing that desk—and him!—but instead moved to look out of the huge picture-window, her back firmly turned towards him.
She had pulled her hair back today and secured it up in a loose knot at her crown, her exposed neck appearing fragile in its slenderness, her shoulders narrow beneath the soft material of the cream blouse she wore with black fitted trousers.
She appeared slight, even delicate, but Gabriel knew that appearance to be deceptive—Isabella Scott was more than capable of defending both herself and Toby if the need should arise. In Toby’s case, as far as Gabriel was concerned, it didn’t. Bella herself was a different matter, however…
His mouth firmed in exasperation. ‘Ignoring me will not make me go away, Isabella!’
She turned, her smile rueful. ‘If only!’
Gabriel regarded her coldly. ‘You have had things completely your own way for the last five years—’
‘What things?’ she came back tartly, her body tense. ‘I was twenty-one years old at the time, Gabriel. Only twenty-one!’ she emphasised. ‘Having a baby wasn’t in my immediate plans back then, let alone one whose father wasn’t even living in the same country as me when that baby was born!’
‘It does no good to get angry, Isabella—’
‘It does me good, Gabriel!’ she contradicted him vehemently. ‘You have made it clear you disapprove of my actions five years ago, so I’m just trying to explain to you that I did what I thought was best—’
‘For whom?’ Gabriel sat back in his chair to look at her intently.
‘For everyone!’
Gabriel’s jaw clenched. ‘In what way was it best for Toby that he was not even aware of his father or his father’s family? In what way was it best for him that he did not have the comforts that being a Danti could have given him—?’
‘Toby hasn’t gone without a single thing—’
‘He has gone without a father!’ Gabriel’s voice was icy cold, his accusation indisputable.
Bella drew in a controlling breath, very aware that letting this conversation dissolve into another slanging match would settle none of the things that stood between herself and Gabriel. The main one, of course, being Toby…
She shook her head. ‘I assure you that my own parents have been wonderful,’ she told him huskily. ‘Claudia and Liam, too. And once I was able to work I made sure that Toby wanted for nothing.’
‘At what did you work?’ Gabriel asked.
Bella gave a grimace. ‘I was completely at a loss as to what job I could do once I discovered I was pregnant. But I had written my thesis at university on the life of Leonardo da Vinci. My tutor thought it might be good enough for publishing, so during the months of my pregnancy I approached a publishing company to see if they were interested. With a lot more hard work, and another fifty thousand words, they accepted it. I was fortunate in that its publication coincided with a fiction book on a similar theme that was very popular at the time.’ She gave a rueful shrug. ‘I’ve had two books at the top of the non-fiction bestseller list in the last three years,’ she added quietly.
Gabriel realised now where Bella’s self-assurance and that air of quiet self-containment came from. In spite of her unexpected pregnancy, and the difficulty involved with being a single mother, Bella had still managed to achieve success in her chosen career.