CHAPTER FOUR

      AT THE SOUND of the doorbell Sadie put down her paintbrush, trying not to feel irritated that somebody had taken the time to call on her on a Sunday afternoon, when the few hours Leo spent with her parents each weekend were always used for losing herself in creating paintings to sell locally. Art was a passion she wished she had more time for.

      The doorbell sounded again, its insistence reverberating through the small apartment like an omen of bad tidings. What did someone want today of all days? She quickly checked her reflection in the small mirror in the hallway, brushing her hands over her hair to smooth down the wayward strands which always managed to escape the confines of her ponytail.

      The doorbell sounded once more as she pressed the intercom button, but before she could ask who it was, a male voice knocked her completely off balance. ‘I need to speak to you, Sadie.’

      ‘Toni?’ A frown furrowed her brow as she tried to pinpoint why she wasn’t completely sure if it was the mechanic who was about to leave and head back to Rome. He sounded different. A shiver of apprehension rushed down her spine. ‘Is that you?’

      ‘Yes.’ Toni’s voice was definitely different. Was that because he wasn’t with her, because she couldn’t see his face?

      ‘What do you want?’

      ‘To see you—before I leave for Rome.’

      ‘Come up.’ Sadie somewhat reluctantly pressed the street door open and inwardly cursed Daniela, who she suspected had told him her address. She really didn’t want the complication of seeing Toni again, especially after she’d made her thoughts more than clear on that subject the last time they’d spoken.

      With a sigh of resignation she opened the door to her small but neat apartment as the sound of footsteps on the stone steps drifted up to her. She turned and walked back into the hallway of her apartment, wondering what it was Toni had to say now, when they’d established she wasn’t interested in any kind of relationship at all. She’d thought reminding him she was a single mother had dealt with that.

      Could her ever-increasing doubts about him be right?

      She glanced in the mirror again as a man’s figure filled her doorway. She stared at the reflection, unable to believe the image of the man behind her. Antonio Di Marcello stood there, confident, powerful and on the threshold of the life she’d created for herself after he’d abandoned her. A life he had wanted no part in.

      He was the man she’d given her heart and soul to, only to be treated with cold disregard for the last four years, and now he was here. Every unsettling suspicion she’d had over the last two weeks must have been right. Toni Adessi had been sent to work in the garage by this man to find out all about her. And she knew exactly why. Leo. The moment she’d dreaded, yet had wanted, had arrived.

      ‘We need to talk, Sadie.’ His deep voice sent a shiver of awareness rippling all over her and she bit down hard, drawing in a deep breath. She couldn’t be affected by him still. She just couldn’t.

      She put back her shoulders and turned round to face him, her chin held high as she tried to fill herself with the kind of confidence needed to deal with this situation—this man. It took all her willpower not to drink in the image he created as he stood there in his expensive dark suit, exuding the kind of dominance best suited to a boardroom.

      ‘We didn’t have anything to say four years ago, Antonio, and we certainly don’t now.’ She didn’t move—couldn’t move. The hallway suddenly seemed dark and narrow as he moved towards her, into her home, into her new life. The one she’d built without him for herself and Leo—his son.

      ‘I don’t recall being given the opportunity to say anything four years ago or being told that I was to be a father.’ The unconcealed menace in his voice as he came to stand so very close to her should have intimidated her, but, to her complete horror, the spark of attraction ignited and her heartbeat raced as she inhaled the intoxicating freshness of his aftershave, stirring up the past.

      ‘If my memory serves me right, you were more concerned about the marriage you were due to make only a few weeks later. You used me, Antonio, in the cruellest way possible. You showed me things I could never have, made me want something that could never exist, not with you anyway. After that, you were lucky I even tried to contact you.’

      The fire of indignation rushed through her and she glared angrily at him, all the words she’d rehearsed over the years completely forgotten in the passion of the moment. The cool, level-headed woman she’d so desperately wanted to portray when she finally came face to face with the father of her child was nowhere in sight. One look at the man she’d lost her heart to and that woman had evaporated.

      ‘I didn’t promise you anything, Sadie.’ His cool and insanely calm exterior began to chip away at her confidence, but she couldn’t let him know. She had a job to do and that was to protect Leo from the man who could upset his life, the man who could inflict the worst kind of pain on him when he walked away again, putting his own needs before those of his son.

      He’d walked out on her, left her all but destitute in a country she’d lived in for only a short time. Then, if that wasn’t enough, he hadn’t done anything for Leo—he hadn’t even bothered to find out if his child was a boy or a girl. Despite asking—no, pleading—in a letter she’d written after that horrible visit to his family home, he hadn’t contacted her at all. He’d completely turned his back on her—and Leo. If he’d done it once, he could do it again.

      ‘Neither did you own up to your responsibility. All you were concerned about was your duty to your family, duty to the woman they’d always wanted you to marry.’

      The hurt of hearing those words still speared through her, even four years later. As did the shame that she’d foolishly believed what they’d had was different, that somehow the love she’d instantly felt for him would change things. Change him.

      ‘We could never have been anything, Sadie. I made that clear.’ The harshness of his words and the severe set of his jaw intensified the hurt, serving only to inflame her anger. This wasn’t just about her and the way he’d let her down. This was about Leo and she’d fight to the bitter end for her son. But was it right to deny Leo his father? The question pushed forward in her mind. She ignored it.

      ‘Yes, you certainly did. After you’d taken me to your bed, taken from me the one thing you didn’t deserve.’ She fired the blame back at him, even though deep down she knew it was her own foolish dreams which had set all this in motion. If she hadn’t been so taken in by his charm, by the fact that a man so undeniably sexy and handsome had sought her out at the party she’d been coerced into going to by friends, then they wouldn’t be standing here having this discussion.

      Neither would she have Leo. That was unthinkable.

      He moved closer, as if he sensed her change of mood, and reached out to push her hair back from her face and she fought hard not to tremble. She wanted to be angry, to retaliate with every disappointment-filled moment she and Leo had endured, but he was too close.

      ‘I took nothing you didn’t want to give, Sadie.’ His deep voice had become seductive and hoarse, doing untold things to her pulse rate. After all he’d done, how could he still affect her like this?

      His dark gaze locked with hers and she hurtled back four years to the luxury of the hotel room where they’d spent one passionate weekend locked away. His eyes had been so full of passion and desire it had filled her with power, intensifying the need to experience the thrill of being possessed by a man. As he’d kissed her lips she’d sighed against his, knowing then and there that there was only one way it would all end. She’d wanted him, wanted his kiss, his touch and, more than anything, his possession. She’d wanted to be his—completely.

      What was she thinking? Shock snapped