Fascination: The Sicilian's Ruthless Marriage Revenge

This had to stop, Robin told herself achingly.

Had to!

But for the moment she had no will to bring an end to Cesare’s assault on her mouth. His tongue was moving in a sensuous caress against her bottom lip as he quested for entry—an intimacy she couldn’t deny him as her lips parted and his tongue plunged into the waiting heat of her mouth.

Dear God, she wanted this man! she acknowledged, as her fingers became fiercely entangled in the dark thickness of his hair.

She wanted Cesare as she had never wanted any man before—not even Giles, the man she had been married to for three years. The man who had cast her aside when she no longer suited his plans for the future—

She wrenched her mouth from Cesare’s. ‘No!’ she protested, even as she pushed against him. ‘I don’t want this.’ She breathed raggedly, glaring up at him as his arms remained like steel bands about the slenderness of her waist, moulding her body to the hardness of his.

‘No?’ he taunted knowingly, eyes dark, a nerve pulsing in the rigidness of his jaw.

‘No,’ she repeated firmly.

Cesare noted the slight trembling of her bottom lip, knowing that she lied—that at that moment she wanted him very much.

As he wanted her.

But she was right. This was not the time. Perhaps later, once Marco was asleep.

He released her abruptly to step back. ‘It is time that you met Marco,’ he told her haughtily.

‘Now?’ she breathed shakily, her fingers arresting in the movement of smoothing back her hair as she stared up at him with a haunted expression.

Cesare’s mouth tightened at her obvious reluctance. ‘Yes—now,’ he grated. ‘I will go through to the nursery and get him—’

‘Oh … couldn’t I just come through with you and say goodnight to him there?’ she suggested. ‘It seems a pity to disturb him if he’s already tucked in,’ she added lamely.

‘He is not in his cot yet,’ he assured her firmly. ‘And even if he were, I am sure, like all children, he would welcome this break in his routine.’

No escape there, then, Robin acknowledged with a grimace, her emotions too battered by Cesare’s kisses for her to even attempt to hide the fact that meeting his baby nephew was an ordeal she would rather have forgone.

‘I will only be a moment,’ Cesare assured her distantly, before turning to stride from the room.

Robin picked up her glass of champagne before moving back to stand in front of the window, seeing nothing of the magnificent view outside as she took several nerve-bolstering sips of the wine.

What would he be like, this young nephew of Cesare’s? If he looked anything like his uncle then she had no doubt that he would be a handsome baby—

He looked exactly like his uncle! Robin acknowledged achingly, having turned sharply to look at Cesare as she heard him come back into the sitting room, the little boy held securely in his arms.

Marco’s hair was as dark as Cesare’s, with the same silky curl, and his eyes were that same dark chocolate brown. His beautiful face creased into an excited smile as he looked across the room and spied her standing in front of the window, revealing two endearing little white teeth in his bottom gum.

He looked very tall for six months, his long legs and body encased in a cartoon-patterned babygro, his little hands resting trustingly on his uncle’s chest.

Robin felt her insides melt just looking at him.

‘Let’s go and say hello to Robin, Marco,’ Cesare murmured encouragingly, and he walked across the room towards her with the baby still held firmly.

Robin took an involuntary step backwards, her back instantly coming into contact with the window behind her, its slight chill sending a shiver down her spine.

Cesare’s mouth tightened as he saw Robin back away from him as they approached, the way in which she quivered with distaste even as her eyes remained riveted on Marco.

What was wrong with this woman? Apart from caring for Carla when she was a baby, Cesare had had little contact with babies himself, but he had fallen in love with Marco from the moment he was born. He could not believe it possible for anyone not to do the same once they had seen the tiny boy.

But Robin no longer looked as if she just wanted to run, but as if the devil himself were chasing at her heels!

Cesare’s mouth hardened. ‘He does not bite, Robin,’ he said pointedly.

‘No?’ she came back tautly. ‘Those teeth say otherwise.’ She attempted a lightness she was obviously far from feeling.

Cesare looked at her searchingly, noting the way she held herself away from them, as if she were afraid even to touch Marco.

But Marco obviously had other ideas, gurgling happily as he reached out his small arms towards Robin.

‘Cats do the same thing, I believe,’ Cesare observed, as Robin seemed to shrink even further into herself.

‘What …?’ she breathed shakily, with barely a glance at him as she continued to stare at Marco as if hypnotised.

Cesare shrugged his shoulders as he maintained his hold on the now squirming Marco. ‘They have an unerring instinct to go to people who show a dislike for them!’ he explained sharply, and his young nephew launched himself at Robin in the total belief that she would catch him.

Something she did most reluctantly, holding the baby slightly away from her as Marco made a grab for the long honey-coloured hair that Cesare had so recently released from its confinement.

Cesare’s gaze was deliberately unreadable as he looked down at the two of them.

Carla had been a natural mother, totally at ease with her baby son from the moment he was born. But Robin looked as if she was holding a time bomb in her arms—one that was set to explode at any moment.

Marco knew no such inhibitions, grinning at Robin unconcernedly as he twisted a long length of her hair into his baby fist and talked to her in the gibberish that only he could understand.

Cesare frowned darkly and held himself ready to take his nephew from her if it became necessary. If—as she looked in danger of doing!—Robin collapsed completely.

Unless this was just a ploy on her part to try and shake Cesare’s resolve to marry her in order to settle the blood feud between their two families?

He had made no secret of the deep love he had for Marco, and Robin was intelligent enough to know that he would have no desire to present the baby with a mother who didn’t even want to hold him, let alone laugh and play with him.

Was Robin using his love for Marco against him?

If she was, then she was in for a disappointment!

‘I will take Marco back to bed now,’ Cesare told her coldly.

Robin turned to give him a startled look, having briefly forgotten Cesare was even in the room, all of her attention focused on the baby she held in her arms.

‘He seems quite happy where he is,’ she pointed out ruefully, and Marco turned to grin at his uncle as his fingers tightened in her hair.

‘Nevertheless, it is past his bedtime,’ Cesare informed her reprovingly. He reached out to take the resisting baby from her, Marco’s happy gurgles instantly turning to cries of protest.

Robin reached up to untangle the tiny fingers from her hair. No easy feat when Marco seemed determined not to let go.