The Italian Boss’s Secret Child Read online

  ‘See,’ he said, a tone of victory injected into his voice. ‘There’s no way you can deny me. Not now.’

  ‘Damien,’ she said, stronger this time, his arrogance fuelling her determination to fight back. ‘I won’t be your mistress.’

  ‘You don’t mean that,’ he said. ‘Let me show you what you really want.’ His mouth dipped lower as if intending to claim hers but it never made its mark. Summoning strength she didn’t know she possessed, she pushed and twisted at the same time, swivelling out of his arms and swaying across the room until dozens of cubic metres of super-charged air swirled between them.

  ‘Believe me, Damien. I won’t be your mistress. I won’t be anyone’s mistress. Have you no idea what an insult that is?’

  ‘Then what were you expecting? Marriage? Is that what you were hoping for? A white picket fence and a fairy-tale ending?’

  She schooled her face blank, her chest heaving, not trusting her voice to hold steady if she uttered a word. Of course it sounded ridiculous when he put it like that. But what was wrong with wanting things to be right, wanting to bring up a child in a proper family? What was wrong with hoping love might have something to do with it?

  But there was no way she’d tell Damien that.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said, only when she was sure her voice wouldn’t betray her. ‘I told you, I don’t want anything from you.’

  Still, his eyes narrowed, focusing on something in her face. ‘Ah, but that’s what you were hoping for, wasn’t it?’

  His words cut uncomfortably close to the truth. Why had she had to go and fall in love with him? It had been so much easier in the beginning, before she’d seen beyond the arrogant businessman behind whom Damien existed, before she’d felt his lovemaking and experienced the sheer magic of his touch.

  Until then she’d been happy to think about a life with her child—Damien didn’t even have to figure. But she did love him. And now she couldn’t imagine life with his child without him.

  Her chin kicked up. ‘You must really fancy yourself. I told you and I mean it. I don’t want anything from you.’

  He watched her for a few seconds more, cold emotion drizzling down over them. ‘So be it. Because I don’t do family. It’s not going to happen.’

  He walked to the slatted timber bifold doors separating the bedroom from the rest of the apartment. ‘I’m going back to work. Let yourself out when you’re ready.’

  ‘I’ll be down shortly,’ she said, knowing it would take her a good ten minutes to get herself back together enough to appear in public.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ he said. ‘Go home.’

  And then he was gone.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘HOW is she?’ asked Enid on his return.

  ‘Gone home,’ he snapped back, ‘and if she’s got any sense, she’ll stay there.’

  Enid’s eyes narrowed speculatively, her lips tight and puckered. ‘I see.’

  ‘You do? I sure wish the hell I did. Hold my calls, Enid. Tell everyone I’m in conference.’

  ‘As you wish,’ she said as he entered his office. He closed the door behind him but for once ignored the expansive desk to his right. Instead he strode to the wall of glass, his window to the outside world, and gazed out across the city, looking for answers amongst the columns of office towers, the low-rise buildings and homes at the city’s fringe and the warehouses of the harbour near the port. The sea lay lifeless in the distance, flat and dull. He empathised. It matched his mood perfectly.

  It had been one hell of a day. To finally find the woman who’d been haunting his thoughts and dreams for so long only to discover it had been Philly all along. What was more, to learn she was pregnant with his child.

  He was going to be a father.

  The concept was as exciting as it was terrifying. Yet he didn’t want a child; he’d never wanted one. He’d survived without the whole family thing for this long. He didn’t need it.

  So why did some small part of him insist on feeling proud? He’d spent his life avoiding such possibilities with a vengeance. So why didn’t he break out in a cold sweat as he’d expect? Why did he feel such a sense of exhilaration at the idea?

  He was going to be a father.

  He was going to have a child.

  And, no matter what Philly said, he would make sure that child was properly taken care of.

  What was her problem, anyway? He’d just offered her a house, a housekeeper, nursing care for her mother and an income. She wouldn’t have to lift a finger. It was a great deal.

  So why wouldn’t she accept? What did she want? He’d made her a reasonable offer. More than reasonable. And she’d turned him down flat.

  He sighed deeply, his forehead and hands pressed against the glass as he looked down to the street below. It was a long way down. He’d been down there, at rock bottom and lower, not even within cooee of a rung to begin the long, lonely climb up the ladder.

  And he’d made it. All the way to the top on his own. No one to help him, no one to turn to for support but a drunken foster mother who had drunk his foster money blind and the faded memory of a family tragedy that had taught him never to get close to anyone.

  He lashed out with his foot, slamming his shoe into the reinforced glass and making the entire window shudder before he spun around and tracked a course round his desk.

  What the hell was wrong with him? He hadn’t thought so much about his family for years and yet today, in the feel-good hum of some of the best sex he’d had since their encounter in the boardroom—the only sex he’d had since that encounter in the board-room—the mere suggestion of a honeyed voice had dredged it all up.

  He paced the carpet, trying not to ignore the pictures that were surfacing in his mind’s eye, the pictures like dusty film clips he’d been avoiding for years. His father, tall and straight, strong featured, with hair swept back much like his own, but greying already at the temples, the white shirt and dark trousers, his standard uniform; even when picking fruit or working in the garden he had always liked to look his best.

  His brothers, loud and broad-shouldered like their father and always wrestling in the yard outside when they should have been doing homework.

  And his mother, dark and handsome, with eyes that had sparkled with love and pride, scolding her two eldest sons only to toss her thick, dark hair and leave them, laughing as she’d turned back to her cooking.

  He sucked in a jagged breath and closed his eyes but the pictures became even sharper and more distinct.

  Unrelated snippets of memories exploded into his mind like the coloured contents of a party popper.

  These were real people he was remembering, not some cardboard cut-outs that could be neatly filed away in a corner of his mind, buried deeper than the four wooden caskets that had lain side by side in the old church.

  They’d been his family and now they were gone. And he’d done his best to leave them behind, moving cities, moving states. Burying them in his mind.

  He shivered.

  Suddenly he had to get out of there. Had to go somewhere—anywhere. He pulled open the door in time to see Philly placing some papers on Enid’s desk. She jerked around guiltily at his appearance, her face pale but her eyes challenging. Then she frowned and her features softened into something closer to concern. She took a step towards him.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded. ‘I told you to go home.’

  She stopped dead, her back stiffening. ‘I’ve just had two weeks leave. I have work to catch up on.’

  ‘You’re not fit for work.’

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ she said, forcing herself taller as if that would convince him. ‘I’m not ill.’

  ‘What do you call what happened this morning then?’

  Her chin kicked up even as she coloured.

  ‘I think most people refer to it as sex.’

  ‘Not that,’ he snarled. ‘When you fainted.’

  ‘I’m ov
er it. That won’t happen again.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ He looked around, settling his gaze on Enid’s empty chair before striding to the lift. ‘Tell Enid I’m going out.’

  ‘When will you be back?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said as he allowed himself to be swallowed up by the hungry cavern of the lift.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  HE DIDN’T know where he was heading.

  Anywhere.

  Nowhere.

  It didn’t matter. He drove aimlessly with no sense of direction and less sense of time until something drew him towards the coast. It was sunny, the day was fine, the top of his black BMW convertible was down and his passing drew envious looks from the men in cars around him, wishful glances from the women.

  Normally he’d get a buzz out of the experience, a fillip to his ego, the successful businessman out enjoying the spoils of his success.

  Success.

  How did you measure that? In dollars and cents, in bricks and buildings, corporate takeovers and fast cars? Sure, on that score he was as successful as they came, no question.

  Or was success measured in more human terms—in connections built between people, in relationships, in families?

  The human factor.

  On that score, so far all he’d been successful at was avoiding that very thing. But now he was going to be a father and the one thing he’d evaded for so long was happening.

  A father. Why did that change things so much? Why should that suddenly make his business success ring so hollow?

  Finally he left the highway and crossed the train lines before pulling alongside the kerb, opposite a battered brick veneer house in a post-war building boom suburb.

  What was he doing here? He’d never been here before, he’d just snatched a glimpse of the address in some papers on Enid’s desk one day. Amazing he’d even remembered it.

  He studied the house. It had seen better days by the look of the shabby brickwork, the flaking window-frames and the tired garden, its leggy native plants wafting listlessly in the warm breeze. Once he was out of the car he could just smell the sea, the tang of seaweed and salt in the air, though the beach was nothing more than a dull promise across the train tracks and beyond the strip of kiosks and mid-rate hotels lining the highway.

  He’d never asked her about her home. He’d never asked her how her mother was. It had never occurred to him. But now it seemed important. He wanted to know more about her, about the woman who was to be his child’s mother, about her family.

  He knocked on the door. And waited.

  The clang of the crossing barriers started up, loud and insistent, as a train surged along the track, all electric whine and squealing metal before gradually the noise died down and quiet resumed. He thought about leaving but had no idea where he’d go. The train was probably already at the next station when he finally heard a sound inside the house, spotted a blurred shape moving through the panel of misted glass.

  The door edged open, a security chain clamping in place. Through the gap he could see her wary gaze, in dark-ringed eyes that looked almost too big in her sunken face.

  ‘Mrs Summers?’

  ‘Yes,’ came her voice, brittle and shaky and obviously unused to visitors during the day.

  ‘My name is Damien DeLuca. Philly works—’

  ‘Oh, my,’ she said, panic swamping her eyes as she unlatched the door and shoved it open. ‘Is she all right? Has something happened to her?’

  He held up his hands. ‘No, no. She’s fine. Really.’ He watched the panic recede and cursed himself for his stupidity. ‘I didn’t mean to alarm you. I was—just passing. I thought I’d drop in—for a chat.’

  One of her hands went to the wispy dull fuzz of her hair, the other clutched a walking stick in a white knuckled grip.

  Cancer. She had cancer and she’d lost her hair from the chemotherapy. She was tiny, a tinier version of Philly, and paper-thin under the buttoned up housecoat.

  He bristled in irritation. Why hadn’t Philly told him? He’d had no idea. How on earth was she managing a full-time job and caring for her mother?

  ‘Well,’ she said in a voice which was frail, yet years younger than she looked. ‘I’m not really dressed for visitors, but it’s lovely to meet you. And please call me Daphne. You know, I’ve heard such a lot about you.’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘Of course. You’re a very talented young man by the sounds of it. Philadelphia’s told me how you like to rule the roost. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  He somehow managed to nod while digesting that brief and unexpected character sketch. ‘Thank you.’

  She shuffled her way into the small kitchen and made for the kettle. ‘I’m sorry to take so long to answer the door. I’m not as fast as I used to be.’

  He looked at her, struggling with the walking stick to move around, wincing with the effort every few steps and trying unsuccessfully to mask the pain.

  ‘Please,’ he said, sidestepping her. ‘I’m the one interrupting you; let me get it. Why don’t you sit down?’

  She looked up at him, surprised, as if his offer of help was the last thing she’d expected—just what had Philly told her?—before a smile illuminated her gaunt face. ‘Thank you. I could do with a sit down even though that seems to be all I do these days.’ She showed him where everything was and with a sigh eased herself into an armchair while he made the tea.

  ‘I must thank you for sending Marjorie while Philadelphia was away,’ she said when Damien placed their tea on the table and sat down opposite. ‘She was a wonderful companion.’

  For a moment he scrabbled to get his head around who she was talking about. Then he realised. The trip to the Gold Coast—the nurse he’d had Enid organise. ‘It was no trouble,’ he said, casting his mind over the unwashed breakfast dishes in the sink, the picked over lunch tray waiting on the bench. It was clear Daphne could do with a little help every day.

  ‘How do you manage here, by yourself, during the day?’

  ‘Oh, we get by. Philadelphia gets me organised in the mornings and fixes me a tray for lunch.’ She sipped at her tea. ‘If I have a good day I try to start dinner to help her when she comes home from work, though sometimes it doesn’t quite work that way.’

  He nodded blankly, his mind working overtime. What the hell was Philly thinking? This was no way to live, leaving her mother alone all day out here in the suburbs, while she worked at least twenty kilometres away in the city. And yet she’d turned down his offer of a house with carers and laid on help, and she’d turned it down flat. Did she think she was managing here any better than he could provide for them? If so, she was kidding herself.

  Would her mother have found his offer so unattractive? Casting an eye around the simply decorated room, neat and tidy but long overdue for repainting and renovation at the very least, he doubted it.

  But this wasn’t just about Philly and her mother now. If she thought for a moment he would let her bring up his child in such circumstances, then she could think again.

  ‘You must find things very difficult.’

  ‘It’s harder for Philadelphia. She’s my only child now.’ She looked up, the pain of loss in her eyes unmistakable. ‘Did you know about…?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, I heard.’ He could almost feel her loss reach out to encompass him, a thick, tangible thing. Or was it simply that his own loss was now so close to the surface that he could just about taste it?

  Philly had done that. Had brought these feelings to the surface, feelings that were better off left to moulder deep down below.

  He swallowed, as if that would bury these unwanted feelings deeper again. He knew loss just as surely as did the wasted woman sitting opposite him. Loss. Such a tiny word yet it was so big—larger and more encompassing than anything anyone could ever warn you about. And if you couldn’t deal with it, tuck it away and bury it in the back of your mind, it could take over your life.

  So he’d b
uried it. Deep down inside him, concealing the site under a ton of concrete will. Until today. He groaned inwardly.

  Oh, hell, yes, he knew loss.

  ‘That must have been terrible for you,’ he said.

  Her eyes misted, a silent affirmation. ‘And of course that means that Philadelphia has to do it all, I’m afraid. She’s stuck with me and she knows I want to stay at home as long as possible.’

  ‘As long as possible?’

  She put her cup down and sighed. ‘I will have to move into a hospice in a few months the doctors say—there’s nothing else for it. Philadelphia won’t be able to look after me soon and I can’t expect her to. So if you’re worried about me getting in the way of her work…? I imagine that’s why you’re here?’

  She was dying. It should have been clear from the moment she opened the door—her bird-like frame, her gaunt features and pained walk. It should have been clear. But then he’d had plenty of experience in ignoring death, shoving it aside in his quest to reach the top.

  She was dying and she thought he was here to find out whether Philly would still make a good employee.

  ‘No,’ he said, bursting out of the chair. ‘No, that’s not why I’m here.’

  He paced around the small room, trying to banish the nervous tension invading his senses. But why was he here? What did he hope to achieve? Certainly something more than this sense of hopelessness and despair, this struggle for an answer to questions he couldn’t even frame—something that would answer this desperate need he couldn’t even put words to.

  He stopped beside a display of photographs assembled along the mantle. The history of a family, laid out before his eyes. A wedding photograph, fading with age, showing a young Daphne and her late husband on their wedding day, smiling for the camera, happy and hopeful for the future. A photograph of the young family with two children, a boy—just a toddler—and his older sister, maybe six or seven years old, with pigtails and wearing a frilly dress.