His Reluctant Bride: The Marchese's Love-Child / The Count's Blackmail Bargain / In the Millionaire's Possession

‘He’d have needed changing too.’ God, she thought, she sounded so carping—like a miserable shrew.

‘I even managed that,’ he returned. ‘After a struggle. Although I do not guarantee my handiwork,’ he added drily.

‘You did that?’ Polly turned then, staring down at him.

‘But of course. He was uncomfortable.’

‘Well—thank you for that,’ Polly said reluctantly. She shook her head. ‘I can’t understand why I didn’t hear him myself. I always do …’

‘You were dead to the world.’ His voice gentled a little. ‘You did not even scream “rape” when I joined you on the bed. Perhaps you sensed Carlino was there to act as chaperone.’

‘Maybe so,’ she agreed stiffly.

‘A friend warned me that when you have a child, the concept of “three in a bed” takes on a new meaning,’ he went on. ‘I now know what he means.’

Polly looked away, her mouth tightening, and he sighed. ‘That was a joke.’

‘An inappropriate one,’ she said, hating the primness in her voice. ‘I’ll get the coffee now. And—thanks again for helping with Charlie.’

‘It was my pleasure,’ he said, his voice faintly weary.

By the time she returned, Charlie had woken and was in a grizzly mood.

‘You are sour in the mornings, figlio mio,’ Sandro told him. He slanted a faint grin at Polly. ‘Like your mammina.’

She sipped the strong, scalding brew she’d made. ‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice was defensive. ‘But this isn’t easy for me.’

‘Or for me, cara mia,’ he said. ‘Or for me.’

He swallowed his own coffee with the complete disregard for its temperature that she remembered so well, then rose, swinging Charlie up into his arms. ‘Come, my little grumbler. Come and take a bath with Papa and see if it improves your temper.’ He glanced at Polly. ‘You have no objections, I hope.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘None.’

She occupied herself with stripping the bed and turning it back into a sofa, while attempting to ignore the noise of splashing and Charlie’s gleeful squeals coming from the bathroom. Trying hard, too, not to feel envious and even slightly dejected, because that would get her nowhere.

Her path might have been chosen for her, but she had to follow it, whatever the cost.

What would happen next? she wondered. She supposed she would have to see Mrs Terence and tell her that Safe Hands would be losing her earlier than planned.

And she would have to visit her parents and break the news to them too—a situation which had all the makings of a Class A nightmare.

And if Sandro was serious about moving her into a larger flat, and so far he seemed to have meant everything he said, then she would have to pack.

She wandered into the tiny kitchen and poured herself some orange juice. She felt as if she needed all the vitamins she could get.

It was as if her life had been invaded by a sudden whirlwind, all her plans and certainties swept away.

And at some point she would have to stand beside Sandro in a church or registry office, and listen to him making promises he had no intention of keeping as he put his ring on her finger.

Three years ago, all my dreams were of marrying him, she thought unhappily. And now it’s happening at last, but not in a way I could ever have hoped. Because I’m being offered the façade of a marriage, without its fulfillment. And, for Charlie’s sake, I have to find some way—to endure.

She rinsed out her glass and put it on the draining board.

What was the old saying? she wondered drearily. Be careful what you wish for, in case your wish comes true?

Well, she had wished so hard to be Sandro’s wife—once.

She gave a small wretched sigh, then went into Charlie’s room to choose his clothes for the day, and that was where Sandro found her a few minutes later. He was fully dressed, while Charlie, capering beside him, was in a towel draped like a Roman toga.

‘Do you have a mop, or a cloth, perhaps? I need to dry the bathroom floor.’ Sandro’s tone was faintly rueful.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Polly said too brightly. ‘I’ll clear up when I have my own bath.’ She paused. ‘You seemed to be having fun together,’ she went on with an effort. ‘Somehow—he’s not shy with you.’

‘Why should he be?’ Sandro lifted a hand and touched his scarred cheek. ‘Did you think, perhaps, that this would terrify him—make him run away from me screaming, and force me to think again?’ he added sardonically.

‘No—oh, no,’ Polly stammered. ‘But he can be tricky with people he’s only just met. But not you.’

Sandro shrugged. ‘Blood calling to blood, perhaps.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That must be it.’

He was watching her. He said quietly, ‘Paola, I am not trying to take your place. You will always be his mother. But he needs us both.’

Her throat closed. She nodded, unable to speak, her hands restlessly folding and unfolding a little T-shirt.

His hand closed on her shoulder. His touch was gentle, but she felt its resonance through her blood and bone.

‘Go and dress yourself,’ he directed quietly. ‘I will see to our son.’

She didn’t want his kindness, his consideration, Polly thought wildly as she fled. She needed antagonism to feed her anger—her determination to stay aloof from him at all costs. To blank out forever the memories of those days and nights when her universe had narrowed to one room, and the bed where she lay in his arms.

She needed to hate him.

The state of the bathroom was a spur to that, of course. It looked as if it had been hit by a tidal wave, and it took ten minutes’ hard graft with a mop and bucket, and a roll of paper towels, to render it usable again.

But even then the recollection of Charlie’s crows of delight diffused her resentment.

And it occurred to her, too, that next time Sandro chose to play submarines or whatever with his son it would be someone else’s task to do the clearing up after them.

It was clear that her life was going to change at all levels, not just the strictly personal. And would she be able to cope?

Although she would not be Sandro’s wife in the accepted sense, she would have some practical role to play in his life, and maybe she should ask to have it defined.

She sighed. So many things she needed to know—not least how he’d acquired the scar on his face. Her own assumptions had been totally and embarrassingly wrong, of course, but she’d been offered no other explanation for an injury that must have gone dangerously deep.

She could only suppose that Sandro found the circumstances surrounding it too difficult and painful to discuss. So what could possibly have happened, and could she ever persuade him to talk about it?

Then there was his family. It seemed that he had other cousins apart from the contessa. How much did they know about her existence? she wondered. And what would they feel about her arrival—an interloper with a child?