The Italian Boss’s Secret Child Read online

  “I’m carrying your child.”

  “This is ridiculous,” he said. “We’ve never even had sex. The only time we came anywhere near close was at the Gold Coast, and you threw me out of your room before I had hardly a chance to kiss you. Remember? So if you’re pregnant from that time, someone else must be the father.”

  “You really must have a pretty low opinion of me if you think I’m capable of falling into bed with any guy who crosses my path.”

  “Well…” He pointedly gazed at her lower abdomen. “Given your condition, you’ve obviously fallen into bed with somebody.”

  “Maybe not,” she said, a smile emerging at her lips for the first time in their conversation. “Who said this baby had anything to do with bed?”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  She looked right at him, desperate to take the smug look off his face. “The office Christmas party. Tell me, exactly how many women did you make love to in the boardroom that night?”

  Relax and enjoy our fabulous series about couples whose passion ends in pregnancies…sometimes unexpected! Of course, the birth of a baby is always a joyful event, and we can guarantee that our characters will become wonderful moms and dads—but what happened in those nine months before?

  Share the surprises, emotions, drama and suspense as our parents-to-be come to terms with the prospect of bringing a new baby into the world. All will discover that the business of making babies brings with it the most special love of all….

  Delivered only by Harlequin Presents®

  Trish Morey

  THE ITALIAN BOSS’S SECRET CHILD

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  WHAT a day! So far he’d chewed out two suppliers who’d let him down, put the fear of God into his IT guru for delivering late—again—on the new system and had a stand up fight with the HR manager, who seemed to think it was a good idea to pay every single employee a Christmas bonus generous enough to rival the gross national product of any number of tiny Third World nations.

  Not yet eleven o’clock and already he’d been through the wars.

  Not yet eleven o’clock and already it was shaping up to be the perfect day.

  He pushed back in his leather recliner chair until he was almost horizontal, hands clinched behind his neck, legs stretched out with feet on the desk, and breathed deeply. Closing his eyes against the Melbourne skyline shown to full advantage from the floor to ceiling glass windows of his Collins Street office tower, he relived the turbulence of the morning’s altercations.

  Ruthless, difficult and a man to be feared, Damien DeLuca’s reputation as the toughest CEO south of the equator wasn’t likely to come under threat today.

  Which suited him just fine. He was proud of his reputation—after all, it had taken him long enough to build. As a first generation Australian, the youngest son of Italian parents who’d left everything they’d known to make a new life in Australia over thirty-five years ago, he’d worked hard to get where he was. From humble beginnings helping out in the family’s former market garden, he’d made the most of a scholarship to a top college, then followed it up with a successful stint at university. Seven years later he’d walked away with a double degree plus a masters in business and a raft of eager employment offers to select from.

  It had given him the start he’d needed. Within two years he’d set up his own financial sector software company and begun making inroads into the same competition that had been so desperate to snap him up.

  A few more years on and he’d taken over two of his rivals and was an acknowledged innovator in the industry. Other companies now looked to his for an example of how to succeed. It was hardly a secret. He hadn’t built Delucatek by being soft. He’d got where he was by being tough, by expecting a lot from himself and from his staff.

  And he’d done it on his own. He had no time for partnerships, no time for sharing control. He was the boss, pure and simple. That was the way he ran his life, in the boardroom as well as in the bedroom. The women that flitted in and out of the scene were soon made aware of it too, even if they sometimes thought they could change him. They were wrong. He didn’t need them.

  Damien DeLuca didn’t need anyone.

  He pulled an arm out from behind his head, flashed a look at his TAG Heuer watch and frowned. Enid Crowley, his PA, should be returning from her break with his coffee any minute. Meanwhile his marketing manager, Sam Morgan, was late for his meeting to present the international marketing proposal to launch Delucatek’s newest software package.

  Very late!

  He swung his legs down off the desk, irritated that someone who needed his approval to splash hundreds of thousands of the firm’s dollars on what he understood was a radically different campaign hadn’t even bothered to show up yet. It didn’t augur well for the proposal.

  It augured even less well for Sam.

  What a day! She didn’t need this. Not today.

  Philly Summers hugged the file containing the proposal to her chest, her eyes still itching with the threat of tears, her throat tight and constricted, and knowing that all too soon she’d be deposited at the executive level of the DeLuca Tower whether she liked it or not.

  Of all the days for Sam to go down with flu!

  In normal circumstances she’d be celebrating being called in at the last minute to present the marketing plan to the famous if feared head of Delucatek. After three months working as Sam’s deputy, it was clear to her that he was a man more than happy to take a disproportionate amount of credit for the work of others.

  In normal circumstances she’d consider it a real coup, having the chance to present what was ninety-nine per cent her very own proposal to the man who could make or break her career in a moment.

  In normal circumstances…

  But these weren’t normal circumstances.

  Today she had more important things to worry about than where her career might be headed or in seizing opportunities when they came knocking.

  She sucked in a deep breath, seeking fortification, but the oxygen charged air was no match for the memory of the words that played over and over again in her mind. “I’m sorry but legally we can’t help you. If you were married…”

  If she was married! Now there was a joke. Bryce had well and truly put paid to any chance of that when he walked out two months ago, barely one week before their wedding. Besides which, if she’d been married she wouldn’t have had to seek the help of the IVF clinic in the first place—she might already be pregnant.

  But she wasn’t married.

  No man. No prospects. Not a chance of conception unless she considered trawling the late night bars and clubs for a stud. Her teeth dragged a path through her lip-gloss. Would she dare? Was a promise made to a dying woman worth stooping to such levels?

  Her mother’s pain-racked face flashed in her mind’s eye, her once soft features twisted and hardened with both the progress of her disease and the anguish of deep, unbearable loss. She thought she’d do anything to assuage her mother’s pain, to give her hope, but could she resort to picking up some no-name one-night stand in order to fulfil her promise?

  ‘No,’ she whispered on a shiver, her voice cracking in the empty lift. No question. She might be desperate but reckless
wasn’t her style. She lifted a hand and swiped at the sudden moisture on her cheek, recognising that maybe it meant there was no way she’d be able to fulfil the promise she’d made.

  Maybe she’d just have to accept that she wasn’t going to be able to give her mother the grandchild she craved more than anything—the grandchild she needed to make her smile again. It wasn’t fair but maybe it just wasn’t going to happen.

  The button marked forty-five lit up with a ding, breaking into her thoughts as the door slid open on to the plush foyer of the executive level. She stepped out, fingers white-knuckled on the file as she tried to turn her thoughts back to the proposal. This meeting needn’t take long. She could focus on the proposal for the few minutes it would take. She knew it by heart after all, given she’d written just about every word of it.

  Then she’d go back to her office and think this whole thing through again. She couldn’t give up now—not while there was still time. Based on her mother’s prognosis, she still had three months to conceive. Three chances to fulfil her promise. She would come up with something. There had to be another way.

  There had to be.

  ‘Sam! You’re late. Come right through.’

  The voice, deep and edged with impatience, emanated from the open office door adjacent to the unmanned workstation to her left. Dazzling light from the windows beyond illuminated the door, bright and radiant, before splashing into the corridor and bouncing along the walls.

  ‘Sam!’

  It had to be him. She’d only spoken to him once and that had been very early on in her three months with the company when she’d answered Sam’s unattended phone, but if she wasn’t mistaken that was the voice of Delucatek’s esteemed and highly feared leader, Damien DeLuca. Admittedly it had been a very brief conversation as Sam had just about wrenched the phone from her ear when he’d discovered who was calling, but she’d lay money on those strident and demanding tones originating from the man everyone quietly and reverently called Numero Uno.

  She tugged at the hem of her sensible tweed jacket, steeling herself for her meeting with a man coffee room chatter insisted was more to be feared than the Godfather.

  ‘Sam!’

  Philly jumped in irritation. Godfather indeed! Just where did this guy get off? He might be her boss and admittedly he might even be a genius where his business was concerned, but she just wasn’t in the mood to put up with some egomaniac today. Especially not some shouting egomaniac.

  She sucked some air into her lungs and pushed herself down the corridor in the direction of the open office door. The voice beat her to it.

  ‘Well?’ the voice rang out again impatiently before someone suddenly dimmed the lights. She blinked and opened her eyes to see the body that owned the voice filling much of the doorway. At least that accounted for the diminution of light—as his broad-shouldered body effectively blocked the dazzling rays. She stopped dead, just paces away, as his backlit form loomed tall and dark over her, his outline glowing like an aura, features indiscernible as her eyes tried to adjust to the sudden shift in the light.

  She knew what he looked like, the marketing department had a filing cabinet full of photos of the boss in various poses—working at his desk, leaning over an employee at his computer, standing in the forefront of the building named after him.

  She knew what he looked like, from the calculating, sharp eyes topped with thick, dark brows to his rugged, square jaw and the cleft in the centre of his chin. Dark hair backswept to control the strong natural wave and generous classic bow lips. He had features that film stars would envy. Some would have to spend a fortune on cosmetic surgery in an effort to attain the same brooding good looks.

  Yes, she knew exactly what he looked like—yet still she felt a frisson of sensation shimmy down her spine. None of the photos hinted at what she now felt, at what his shadowed face spoke to her.

  Danger.

  Excitement.

  And maybe, just maybe, something more…

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘WHO are you?’

  The woman in the mousy-brown suit seemed to stiffen, her jaw open as if in shock as her eyes searched his face. She clung on to the folder in front of her as if it was body armour and, given the size of her, she could do with it. There was so little to her it looked as though the folder was the only thing anchoring her to the earth.

  ‘You’re not Sam,’ he accused.

  Her mouth snapped shut and her chin kicked up. The action added only millimetres to her tiny frame but by the sudden spark in her eye he got the impression she imagined she was looking straight into his. Then her eyebrows arched and her lips curved into a smile.

  Momentarily he relaxed. She wasn’t completely mousy, now that she was smiling. In fact, in a way, she was quite pretty—in a homely sort of way. Of course, the tortoiseshell glasses and shapeless brown suit didn’t do her any favours.

  ‘Mr DeLuca,’ she said, tilting her head to one side, her surprisingly husky voice edged with honey as she relaxed her grip on the folder enough to hold out a hand to him. ‘They told me you were a genius. Obviously they were right.’

  The way her hazel eyes glinted told him she hadn’t just paid him a compliment.

  He sucked in a breath, desperate to replace the lungful that had just been knocked out of him, as she kept right on smiling and holding her hand out in the air between them as if she hadn’t meant a thing with her last comment.

  ‘I’m Philly Summers, from Marketing. Pleased to meet you.’

  He looked at her hand, hanging there, then crossed to the fake smile she was brandishing, and knew she was lying. She was no more pleased to meet him than he was to find Miss Brown Mouse lurking outside his office. What on earth was Sam Morgan thinking to send her? He gave her hand a brief shake, momentarily annoyed that someone so diminutive could have such a firm grip, before he swivelled around and stalked across the floor of his office.

  ‘Where’s Sam?’ he asked once he’d deposited himself back in his deep leather chair, elbows on arm rests, a Mont Blanc fountain pen spinning between his fingers.

  She hesitated for a moment by the door before apparently assuming he’d invited her to follow him, taking a few tentative steps towards the desk.

  ‘Hopefully home by now. He’s got the flu. He just about collapsed at his desk half an hour ago. We sent him home in a taxi.’

  ‘And no one thought to inform me?’

  Her head tilted to one side again and her eyes narrowed to slits, almost as though she thought he had a nerve asking the question.

  ‘I was led to believe you were informed.’

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  She considered him for a second, looked for a moment as if she would argue, but then thought better of it.

  ‘In any event I assume it is more important that your presentation goes ahead as planned. I understand you have a very tight schedule and who knows when Sam will be back on deck? And we really need your go-ahead on this proposal today if we’re to meet our timelines for the new product launch.’

  And her taking the initiative was meant to impress him?

  Dammit but it did. Everything she said made sense. So why did he still feel so aggrieved?

  Because he should have been told!

  He grunted in response, waving to a seat. ‘So long as you have some idea of what the proposal is. I don’t want to waste my time here.’

  The muscles tightened around her mouth as if she’d just had to button it, but she kept on standing. ‘I’ll do my best not to waste a moment. However, I’ll need to access your computer, if you don’t mind. I’ve put a PowerPoint presentation on the share drive we can go through. This hard copy…’ she indicated the file in her hands ‘…is for your records.’

  He shrugged and gestured to the laptop on his desk. ‘Be my guest,’ he said, without moving an inch.

  A blink was her only response. Good. Did she really expect him to make this easy for her after the lip she’d given him? If she wanted his computer, she could
come and get it.

  ‘I’m all ears,’ he invited, a smile finally finding its way to his face. At last it looked as if he’d turned the tables on Miss Mouse. He wouldn’t be surprised if any moment now she scampered back to her hole in the wall.

  He watched her swallow, following the movement in her throat to her chest, which rose on a deep breath, considerably further than he would have expected. But then, with her jacket buttoned up to her neckline, there was no way of saying what lay beneath the uninspiring cut of her suit.

  ‘All right,’ she said, rounding the desk until she was on his side. She surveyed his legs, currently providing a very effective barrier between her and easy access to the computer, and almost as if she’d determined they were an immovable object reached over them to the laptop on the far side of his desk. A faint hint of something fruity and sweet stirred his senses as she stretched across him.

  He prided himself on knowing the names of all the top perfumes and he had a talent for picking them for his dates. A different perfume for a different skin, a different personality, a different woman. To Carmel, sleek and elegant, he’d given the classic Chanel No. 5. Warm and lush, Kandy had adored the heady tones of Opium, while for Belinda, fair and dreamlike, he’d chosen Romance.

  But this perfume was something new, totally unlike anything else he’d come across. Something tantalisingly unsophisticated.

  It suited her. She sure looked innocent enough. Though the way her skirt hugged her as she stretched over his legs—there was shape hidden away under that skirt after all. She straightened and his nostrils caught a second subtle whiff. Apricot? Yeah, she smelled like apricots. That was different.