Bound By Their Christmas Baby. Clare Connelly
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were bared like a wolf’s, he said, ‘My son is going to grow up with two parents.’
‘Who hate each other? Do you really think that’s best?’
‘No.’ His eyes glowed with silent warning. ‘But it’s the best decision you can make. I have a son, Abigail. A three-month-old boy I knew nothing about. If you think I am leaving this country without him, if you think I have any plans of walking out of his life, even temporarily, then you are deranged.’
She sucked in a breath but her lungs didn’t fill sufficiently. She dug her fingernails into her palms, taking strength from the gesture. ‘Then stay here,’ she said after a moment, the words sounding reasonable and calm despite the tremors taking over her central nervous system.
He looked around the room with scathing contempt.
‘Not here here,’ she amended. ‘In New York.’
His eyes locked onto hers. ‘I have no intention of raising my child anywhere other than Italy. We will go there tomorrow and as soon as possible we will marry. Raf will grow up believing that he is wanted.’
‘He is wanted by me!’ she shouted and then winced at the very real possibility that such loud arguing would wake their son.
‘And by me,’ he said warningly.
‘No. I think it’s time for you to leave, Gabe. We can discuss this in the morning when you’re thinking straight.’
‘Do you think you have any right to dictate to me after what you’ve done?’
‘What I’ve done?’ she demanded, taking a step closer, wishing she were taller so that she didn’t have to crane her neck to look up at him. ‘And just what am I supposed to have done?’
‘You set all this in motion when you came to my hotel last year. Even if there had been no baby, no Raf, you have still shown yourself capable of making very poor decisions.’
‘You got that right,’ Abby muttered. ‘Sleeping with you was the biggest mistake of my life.’
She swept her eyes shut, instantly wishing she could retract the words because of course she could never really regret anything that had resulted in Raf. Besides, even without Raf, she’d be hard-pressed to regret what she and Gabe had shared. Only that her father’s machinations had been the cause of it.
‘I feel exactly the same way.’ The coolly delivered response slammed right into her heart and suddenly all the emotions of the previous year filled her up, like water in a bathtub.
‘Oh, go to hell,’ she muttered, slumping back against the wall and dipping her head forward.
‘I think I’m already there.’
The volley landed squarely in her chest, twisting her organs and supercharging her blood. She swallowed, but her throat was drier than the desert.
Two days ago she’d been working as a kitchen hand for one of New York’s most renowned chefs. She’d been exhausted and lonely but she’d been making it work.
And now she had this man, this handsome, arrogant billionaire who she couldn’t be in the same room as without breaking into a full-blown fight, demanding that she move halfway around the world and become his wife? Mrs Gabe Arantini?
She couldn’t marry him! God, what a nightmare! Why had she ever thought she had to tell him about his son? At least without seeing a lawyer first! Why had she been so naive? She should have kept Raf hidden from him. She should have moved heaven and earth to avoid this.
What an idiot she was!
‘I won’t marry you,’ she said angrily, her blood simmering. ‘I can’t. It would never work.’
‘Believe me, the last thing I want is to legally bind myself to you—or your father, for that matter.’ His eyes glazed with determination. ‘But it is the only way this will work. These are my terms, tempesta.’
‘It makes no sense.’ The words were stoic when her chest was crushing under the weight of his demands.
He stared at her long and hard. ‘I told you, I want our son to have a family. That’s...very important to me.’ The words were spoken with an iron-like determination but, even without that, Abby found the concept dug deep into her chest. A family? What would that be like? It had been so long since her mother had died, she could barely remember a time when they’d been a collective. Her father had emotionally shut her out many long years before he’d finally cut their ties altogether.
Abby was alone in the world. Her beloved mother was dead, her father had slammed the door on her, and now Gabe was threatening to take Raf away. She couldn’t lose her son; she wouldn’t let her son lose her either!
But, far from losing him, what if she could give him exactly what Gabe was offering? What if she could give Raf a real family?
‘A marriage born of hate cannot work,’ she said dubiously, her eyes flicking to his before skimming away.
He spoke softly, considering each word. ‘There is love too. I saw my son and loved him instantly. You are his mother. That means something to me, Abigail. No matter how I feel about you personally, I wish you no ill. I want to take care of you as well. Raf deserves that—to know that his father will protect his mother.’ Deep emotions rang through that last sentence, as though he’d dredged it up from deep within his soul.
She wanted to fight him. She wanted to tell him that what she most needed protection from was the power Gabe wielded over her, and the ease with which he could hurt her. She wanted to shout at him and rail against him but the last year had been long and draining for Abigail, and all the pluck she’d once held in her armoury had been dulled to the point of non-existence. Her fight had been washed away; sleeplessness and loneliness, abandonment and discord with her father had made her heart sore and heavy. She wanted to fight Gabe, she wanted to fight him so badly, but every day had been a battle and she found—in that moment—she had very little fight left.
What he offered was so tempting. She swept her eyes shut, desperately trying to rally some strength, some fight, some determination to keep him at a distance.
‘I don’t know how it would work.’
‘We don’t need to discuss semantics now.’
‘It’s not semantics!’ she insisted, reaching out a hand and wrapping her fingers around his wrist. ‘This is my life. Mine and Raf’s. You can’t expect me to just marry you.’
He expelled a sigh, a sound of impatience. ‘Why not?’
‘Seriously? Why not? I could give you a thousand reasons.’
‘I’m not interested in a thousand. Give me a single good one.’
His manner was imposing at the best of times but now, in this conversation, she could barely scrape her thoughts together.
She clutched at the first straw she found. ‘I hardly know you.’
‘How is that relevant?’ he said with a shake of his head.
‘You’re asking me to move to Italy and become your wife...’
‘I’m suggesting you choose the best-case scenario in this situation.’ He stared at her resolutely. ‘It is, of course, your decision.’
Her heart sank.
Her decision?
She was broke, alone, and hardly ever saw her tiny baby because of the hours she had to work just to get by. Everything she did was for Raf; wouldn’t she hurt her son by denying him all that Gabe could offer?
She was terrified of the way this man made her feel, but wasn’t motherhood about putting your child’s needs above your own? All she had to do, in order to make this decision, was ignore her own needs and wants and think of what was best for Raf.
Then the decision was a simple