The Italian's Stolen Bride. Emma Darcy
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slim-hipped, a strong muscular physique with not an ounce of flab anywhere. He had the kind of perfect masculinity that automatically drew a woman’s attention, looking strikingly sexy in any clothes, especially none at all.
He was wearing black jeans, no doubt with a designer label. A black sports shirt showed off the impressive width of his chest and the bared strength of his forearms. One hand was gripping the top of her gate, as though ready to block any escape from him.
He had no right to. No rights at all where she was concerned. And he still had to prove he had any paternal right to Matt. She glared furious independence at him, shifted her gaze pointedly to the trespassing hand, then back to him with a belligerent challenge. He dropped his hold on her property, moving the offending hand into a gesture of appeal.
‘Could I have a word with you, Skye?’
The deep timbre of his voice struck more painful memories, how he’d used it to make her believe he loved her, intimate murmurs in bed, reinforced by how he’d touched her, kissed her. A flood of heat raced up her neck and scorched her cheeks—shame at having let him remind her of how it had once been between them.
She kept a safe distance, halting a metre away from him, a blazing demand in her eyes. ‘Please move aside from the gate. I’ll stay and have a word with you but my son needs to go inside.’
He opened it before stepping back, giving Matt free passage. ‘I’d like you to introduce us,’ he said, smiling down at the boy that might be his, pouring out all his Italian charm in case it was.
Steel shot up Skye’s backbone. ‘He’s my child. That’s all you need to know.’ She released Matt’s hand and nudged his shoulder forward. ‘Go on now. Do as I told you.’
He obeyed, at least to moving past the opened gate. Then he stopped and turned, delivering his own childish challenge to Luc Peretti. ‘Don’t you hurt my Mummy!’
Luc shook his head, a surprisingly pained look on his face. ‘I didn’t come to hurt her. Just to talk,’ he answered gently.
Matt glared at him a moment longer, then glanced uncertainly at Skye who gestured for him to leave them. Much to her relief, he did, running up the front path to the door. She watched him unlock it and close it behind him before she looked back at the man who had no right to be here. No moral right. And he had to know it!
‘What do you want to say?’ she clipped out, hating him for what he’d put her through, was putting her through now with this intrusion on their lives.
‘He’s my child, too, Skye,’ he stated with not the slightest flicker of uncertainty in the darkly burning eyes.
‘No, he’s not,’ she retorted vehemently, needing to sow doubt, to make him leave them alone.
‘I’ve seen a copy of his birth certificate,’ he started to argue. ‘The date alone…’
‘No father was named on it,’ she whipped back. ‘I wrote unknown. After all, I was a bed-hopping slut, remember?’
He flinched at the hit. ‘I was wrong about that.’
She raised a derisive eyebrow. ‘A bit late to revise your opinion, isn’t it?’
‘I’m sorry. I should have believed you, Skye. You weren’t the woman in the photos. I know that now.’
She wrenched her gaze away from the glittering apology in his. It didn’t change anything. Nothing could change the deep, bitter hurts of the past, the grief, the hardships, the loss of all he’d taken from her on that one life-shattering night. And she would not let him soften her up with a facile apology.
Regathering her defences against the insidious attraction that could still tug at her, Skye swung her gaze back, hard and straight. ‘How do you know it?’ she mocked. ‘Your brother was a starring player in those photos. Who better to believe?’
His jaw tightened. The expression in his eyes clouded, taking on a bleak distance. ‘My brother…died…a month ago.’
Roberto dead?
So young?
The shock of Luc’s flat statement completely smashed Skye’s concentration on rejecting him as fast and as effectively as she could. An image of Roberto Peretti flew into her mind—a head of riotous black curls, wickedly flirtatious eyes, teasing smiles backing up his playboy charm, not as tall nor as solidly built as Luc, not as strikingly dynamic, but with a quicksilver energy that had instant appeal. She had liked him, laughed with him, but as far as serious attraction went, he’d always faded into insignificance beside Luc.
Roberto had been fun.
Until she’d seen him in the damning photos.
That reminder swiftly brought Skye back to her current crisis. ‘I’m sorry for your loss, Luc,’ she said stiffly. ‘But it has nothing to do with me.’
‘You were on his conscience just before he died. His last words were about you, Skye,’ he said quietly.
So Roberto had confessed the truth, removing the totally undeserved stain on her character. And, of course, Luc would believe his brother’s deathbed confession. ‘It makes no difference,’ she muttered.
‘It does to me,’ he shot at her.
‘You don’t count,’ she flung back. ‘You ceased to count for anything in my life a long time ago.’
He grimaced, sucked in a deep breath, then slowly nodded. ‘Fair enough.’ The concession was swiftly followed by more resolute purpose. ‘But the fact of your pregnancy was kept from me until Roberto revealed it. And I now know there is a child to consider. Our child, Skye.’
‘No. Mine!’
Everything within her revolted at any claim of possession from him. His ignorance of her pregnancy had no bearing on Matt’s life—the life she had given Matt—the life the Peretti family had wanted to snuff out, along with all involvement with her.
Luc gestured an appeal for reason. ‘DNA tests can prove—’
‘Have you spoken to your father about this?’ she cut in, needing to know if Luc was acting alone, without the backing of the very powerful and wealthy Maurizio Peretti. The threat he embodied was bad enough, but if he had his father’s approval to make this approach…
‘It’s none of his business,’ came the terse reply.
‘He made it his business,’ Skye corrected him, relieved to be able to use her last piece of ammunition against any claim on Matt. ‘Your father paid out a thousand dollars for an abortion. He killed your child, Luc.’
‘No!’ He shook his head, appalled at the accusation. ‘He wouldn’t do that. He’d never do that.’
‘He did. So don’t think you can resurrect a paternity issue six years down the track. My son is my son. I chose to have him.’
‘Skye—’ an anguished appeal in his eyes ‘—I had nothing to do with any of this.’
She hardened her heart against him. ‘Yes, you did, Luc. You didn’t believe me. You accepted what your family told you. Go back to them and the life they planned for you. You’re not wanted here.’
The gate was still open.
He was clearly in shock over what she had revealed.
Skye took the chance he wouldn’t try to stop her. With bristling dignity she stepped past him, closed the gate behind her without so much as a glance at him and proceeded up the path to the front door, her ears alert to any sound that might indicate pursuit, her heart pounding hard with the fear of not making good her escape.
Matt had left the key in the door for her.
Good boy! she thought in fierce relief.
Her whole body was tense, expecting a call or some preventative action from Luc, but it didn’t come.