Modern Romance February 2020 Books 5-8. Natalie Anderson
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her on his bed, rip her clothes off and plunder that beautiful body. He longed to hear the soft moans that had once fallen from her lips. He longed to hear her pleas for more.
But this Orla was not the Orla of four years ago. That Orla had been impulsive. She had thrown caution to the wind and embraced the desire that had caught them both in its snare. For a short shameless passage of time she had sunk into the desire still binding them so tightly together. The way she had come undone for him had blown his mind. Orla had always blown his mind.
Four years ago they had been dynamite together and that explosive chemistry still bubbled strongly. If desire alone could bind Orla to him he’d have already won. But this Orla was a mother. Motherhood had made her cautious. She thought with her brain rather than be led by her desires. To get what he wanted, namely Finn permanently in his life, he needed to seduce her brain. He needed to make her feel that his home could be their home. Because to achieve what he wanted he needed to bring Orla into his life permanently too.
The next morning, Orla closed Finn’s bedroom door carefully and put her finger to her lips to remind her son to be quiet.
She needn’t have bothered with silence. No sooner had she taken her first step than Tonino’s bedroom door opened.
She could scream. Yet again he’d caught her at the crack of dawn looking as though she’d been dragged through a gooseberry bush backwards.
He caught the look on her face and grinned. ‘How many times do I have to tell you that I’m an early riser before you believe me?’
‘No one gets up this early voluntarily, not unless they’re a three-year-old child.’
‘Why doesn’t the nurse get up with him?’ he asked when they reached the kitchen, a space that was double the size of the ground floor of her old house. The scent of fresh coffee filled the room. So tantalising was it that Orla suddenly found herself craving a coffee for the first time in years.
‘It’s not her job.’ Tonino had been as good as his word at employing wraparound care for Finn here in Sicily. The nurses he’d employed worked shifts and were unobtrusive, present if needed but fading into the background when not required. They also spoke excellent English and had cared for children with cerebral palsy before.
‘Her job is whatever you require it to be.’ He opened a cupboard door. ‘It’s in the contract.’
‘Sure, but getting up and feeding my child is my job. Caring for my child is my job.’ And a job it had taken eighteen months of blood, sweat and tears to achieve.
He shut the cupboard he’d been looking through and opened the next one. ‘When was the last time you slept later than six a.m.?’
Her last night in the rehabilitation centre. ‘Years ago… What are you looking for?’
‘Finn’s cereal. I instructed my housekeeper to buy some for him.’
‘Where do you usually keep cereal?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘But it’s your kitchen.’
‘It’s my chef’s kitchen,’ he corrected. ‘I never cook, but I’m not a breakfast eater so she doesn’t usually start until ten. I’ll get her to start earlier while—’
‘Don’t you dare. There’s no need for the entire household to be up early just because of Finn.’
‘What if you want food too?’
‘I rarely eat more than a slice of toast in the morning. I hardly need a cordon bleu chef to butter it for me.’ A thought occurred to her. ‘If the chef hasn’t started yet, who made the coffee?’
‘It’s on a timer. If you hunt for cups you’ll find them somewhere. I have mine black.’ Tonino grinned, then made a noise that sounded like the Sicilian equivalent of aha! and pulled the box of cereal out of the cupboard.
A warm sensation flooded Orla’s chest and belly when Tonino, after rooting through a dozen other cupboards, pulled out a plastic bowl with dinosaurs on it. Her heart bloomed when he opened a drawer and removed a plastic spoon, also with dinosaurs on. He filled the bowl, added the milk and joined them at the table, where Orla had put Finn in the brand-new high chair Tonino had bought him and laid their cups of coffee down.
A strange contentment settled in her as she sat back and sipped the delicious coffee. Despite the palatial proportions of the chateau and its kitchen, there was something heartwarming to witness the uber-masculine Tonino feed cereal on a dinosaur spoon into a three-year-old’s mouth.
‘Seeing as you are averse to nurses caring for our son in anything but a medical capacity, do you not think it makes sense for me to take on the early morning parental role while you are here?’ he asked, catching her eye briefly. He adopted a cajoling tone. ‘Think of those extra hours in bed.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ she muttered, knowing full well there was nothing to think about but also knowing Tonino would never understand her feelings on the subject. He’d been deprived of their son for the first three years of Finn’s life but he hadn’t known about it because he hadn’t known of Finn’s existence. He hadn’t missed Finn because how could you miss something you’d never had? Orla had spent eighteen months fighting her own body just to be well enough to hold her child, missing him with every breath she took. Finn had been the focus she’d needed to get through those dark, terrifying days and even darker nights. Getting up early to feed Finn his breakfast was a privilege that she would never take for granted but she couldn’t share this with Tonino.
How could she trust that he wouldn’t use her injuries against her in a custody battle?
She wanted to trust him but until she could, she would try to keep the extent of her injuries from him.
The early morning turned into a sunny day lazily spent exploring the grounds of Tonino’s magnificent estate. After lunch on the terrace, Orla sat on a sunlounger by the huge swimming pool, shades on, a sheer navy kaftan covering her body and the swimsuit she would never get wet, and watched her son squeal with delight to be dipped into the fresh water by his father.
The joy on Tonino’s face sliced through her too, just as acutely.
She’d been so certain that not telling him until after the birth was right. She remembered taking the pregnancy test and minutes later searching his name online to discover his engagement to Sophia was over, her heart thumping. She’d been thankful that she wouldn’t have to break the Sicilian woman’s heart a second time but this confirmation of Tonino’s sudden ‘availability’ had not made Orla feel any better about her predicament. If anything it had made her feel worse. With no fiancée at his side, there would be nothing to hold him off launching a custody battle. Orla’s father had wanted nothing to do with her but Tonino was not her father. Tonino wanted children. Lots of them. He had the wealth and connections to get custody of the tiny life in her belly. She’d made the conscious decision to wait until after the birth before telling him. That would allow her a relatively stress-free pregnancy and allow her to register her child as an Irish citizen and to put whatever protection in place she could to stop him using his connections against her. She remembered being terrified. In her mind she’d painted Tonino as a monster. She’d painted him as a cheat, a liar and an all-powerful deity with the ability to snap his fingers and snatch her baby from her.
She’d forgotten that he was a flesh and blood man. She’d forgotten that their time together had been wonderful because he’d been wonderful… No, she hadn’t forgotten. She’d just convinced herself it had all been an act while he’d had his fun with her.
Guilt that Finn and Tonino never had the chance to be father and son from birth gnawed at her. She remembered carrying the guilt in her…