The Italian's Baby of Passion: The Italian's Secret Baby / One-Night Baby / The Italian's Secret Child

A muscle in his lean cheek clenched more obviously with each successive insult she flung at him. Scarlet knew she was being wildly unfair, but hitting back at him was a knee-jerk reaction she had no control over.

His face went blank, his eyes flat and cold as they scanned her face.

‘This isn’t a situation of my making, but I’m going to do the right thing whether you like it or not. You’re going to have to work with me on this, Scarlet.’

He was obviously very comfortable with issuing ultimatums, but Scarlet was not at all comfortable about meekly acquiescing!

When he got bossy her automatic response was to do the opposite of what he said and, if at all possible, in a manner that would dent his air of ineffable superiority.

‘And if I don’t?’ People must have been doing what he said all his life to make him so damned sure of himself.

His shoulders lifted expressively as his eyes moved briefly across her faintly flushed face. ‘We both want what is best for Sam, so you will.’

Scarlet felt a shiver trace its icy path up her spine. The silky words held an unmistakable threat and, even though he never deliberately used his undoubted physical presence to intimidate, it was hard not to be daunted by his tenacity.

‘If you wanted what was best for Sam you’d go out that door and forget we exist,’ she charged in a furious hiss.

‘It’s not going to happen.’ His tone was not without sympathy, but there was no room for negotiation in his manner. The expression on his lean face was totally implacable. ‘I have a son, Sam has a father and a family who will all want to know him. Are you going to deprive him of that?’

She blinked, an expression of confusion spreading across her face. How often had she wished that she could offer Sam a large, loving family? ‘Do your family know about Sam?’

‘My mother doesn’t need the results of a DNA test; she was totally confident from that first moment she saw him that Sam is my son. She’s completely over the moon about having a grandchild. I would imagine the champagne is even now on ice.’

‘And will she have told your father?’ Despite herself, Scarlet found herself interested by his colourful background.

Roman shook his head.

She got the impression he didn’t want to discuss his father. It was only a feeling, his cloaked expression was un-revealing, but it was enough to make her speculate.

‘But he’s not going to be happy about having a grandchild?’

‘My father is an inflexible and obstinate man. You understand him better if you accept one thing: he is blind to shades of grey. For Dad things are either right or wrong. You can safely assume that having a child outside marriage will fall into the wrong category.’

‘He would reject Sam?’ The thought that anyone could wish to punish a child for what they, in their narrow-minded way, perceived as the sins of the parents brought a ferocious, protective scowl to her face.

‘No, of course not.’ Impatiently he brushed aside her anxiety.

His response seemed spontaneous enough, but Scarlet remained unconvinced. Sam’s grandfather sounded pretty scary and not at all nice.

She shook her head slowly from side to side. ‘You mean not on the surface, that he’ll be acting one way and feeling another…?’ She shook her head with even more vigour as she thought about it. ‘There is no way I’m having Sam exposed to that sort of atmosphere.’

‘Dad isn’t intolerant.’

‘Isn’t that slightly contradictory? You’re the one who called him “inflexible” and “obstinate”.’

‘He’d probably say the same thing about me.’

His candour took her aback. ‘Well, he doesn’t sound like an ideal role model for a little boy to me.’

Roman adopted a mock bewildered expression. ‘How can you say that when you can see how well I’ve turned out?’

Scarlet frowned. She hated it when he made fun of himself that way; it made him almost likeable. She knew it was very important not to like him.

‘You don’t get on with your father?’

Would it do Sam any favours to be accepted into the bosom of this dysfunctional family? Or am I just grasping at straws? Looking for a reason, any reason, not to cooperate when deep down I know full well I have no right to deny Sam a father and an extended family.

‘That hardly makes me unique, but, yes, we disagree on most things. My father holds some firm views on everything including modern morals—mine mostly.’ He rotated his head as if to relieve the tension in his shoulders.

‘That’s silly; surely he knows most of the stuff in the papers is exaggerated to sell newspapers.’ Dear God, if you took every article about him seriously he could be in Paris and New York at the same time!

‘Scarlet Smith…are you defending me?’ He studied her for several seconds before adding, without the mockery that had laced his previous comment, ‘I’m touched.’

Their eyes collided and Scarlet blushed to the roots of her hair. ‘Everyone knows that you should take the celebrity stories with a pinch of salt,’ she retorted crossly.

Her face got even hotter and her scowl even fiercer as he continued to look at her, one dark brow raised.

‘My father believes there’s no smoke without fire,’ he commented after a painfully long pause—painful for Scarlet anyway.

‘People do and I suppose his generation—’

‘Sure, there is the generation gap, but it’s more than that,’ Roman interrupted. ‘Before he met my mother, Dad had planned to enter a seminary.’

Scarlet’s eyes widened. ‘Seminary? Isn’t that where you train to be a priest?’

‘It is,’ Roman confirmed.

‘Gracious!’ she exclaimed unthinkingly. ‘No wonder he doesn’t approve of you!’

‘You and he will get on famously,’ Roman predicted drily. ‘There’s also…’ Betraying an uncharacteristic indecisiveness, he stopped and raked a hand through his dark hair. ‘Well, you might as well hear the story from me as you’ll undoubtedly hear a version of it from my father when you meet him.’

Scarlet was so curious she let the assumption that she would one day meet O’Hagan senior pass without comment.

‘I was engaged to a girl—Sally.’

Her eyes widened. ‘You were engaged?’

‘Yes, about five years ago. Why so surprised, Scarlet? Most men of my age have had at least one serious long-term relationship.’

‘But I thought you were…’

‘A shallow, womanising pig?’ he suggested. He observed the surge of guilty colour in her cheeks with a cynical smile. ‘Relax, there’s no need to totally retrench, the two are not necessarily mutually incompatible.’

‘Did your father not approve of her?’

‘Far from it, he adored her. He still does. I’d known Sally since we were children—her parents are tenant farmers on the estate. We were always in and out of each other’s houses.’

‘The girl next door?’