The Italian's Love-Child: The Italian's Stolen Bride / The Marchese's Love-Child / The Italian's Marriage Demand

‘Not your fault.’

The struggle for more breath was dreadful to watch. Smashed ribs, so much internal damage from the car accident…it was a wonder Roberto was still alive. And conscious.

‘Got to tell you—’

‘You’ve said enough,’ Luc cut in tersely, wanting to block out thoughts of Skye and determined to save his brother any more extreme distress. ‘It’s okay. I’ll deal with it.’

‘Listen…’ His eyes begged patience.

Luc waited, hating having to watch Roberto dragging up the effort to say more.

‘Skye… was pregnant…’

‘What?’ Luc’s mind reeled again. His memory of her denied any sign of pregnancy and she certainly hadn’t told him there was any chance of one. She’d been on the pill. Yet the certainty in his brother’s eyes made Luc question, ‘How do you know?’

‘Her stepfather came to Dad…with proof.’

‘Why not to me?’

‘He was…after money.’

‘Did he get it?’

‘Yes. I don’t know if Skye…had the child…but you might have one…somewhere, Luc.’ Tears filmed the pain and his eyelids closed over them as he heaved for more breath and choked out, ‘I leave none.’

‘Don’t give up, Roberto!’ Luc commanded. ‘Don’t you dare give up! You’re my brother, dammit, and I don’t care what you’ve done or not done!’

A faint smile tilted his mouth. ‘I liked it…when we were kids…and you were the leader, Luc.’

‘We had a lot of fun,’ he gruffly agreed.

‘Sorry…the fun…got lost.’

‘We can have more together, Roberto,’ Luc promised, fighting the finality he felt coming from his younger brother. He reached out and grasped his hand, willing his own strong life-force into the broken body on the bed. ‘You’ll make it through the operation. I won’t let you die on me.’

The faint smile lingered.

The hospital orderlies came to take Roberto to the operating theatre. Luc had to let go, get out of the way. He found himself hopelessly tongue-tied, wanting to say more, yet floundering in the face of imminent separation…possibly final separation. It was Roberto who spoke the last words between them.

‘Find…Skye.’

CHAPTER TWO

SKYE enjoyed walking her five-year-old son home from school. Matt was always bubbling over with news of what he’d done: the activities in the classroom, praise he’d received from the teacher, games he’d played with his new friends. Today he was bursting with pride at having shown off his reading skills, having been asked to read a story to the whole kindergarten class.

‘What was the story about?’ she inquired.

‘A rabbit. His name was Jack and…’

Skye smiled as he recounted every detail of the story for her. Matt was so bright, so advanced for his age. She had worried about him fitting in with other five-year-olds who had yet to learn what he had somehow absorbed just through her reading bed-time stories to him every night. But he was still very much a little boy at heart and loved having play-mates.

It was now a month since he’d started school—no tears from him at having to leave his mother for most of the day. Excitement had sparkled from his lively blue eyes as he’d waved her goodbye, more than ready to charge straight into the new adventure of a bigger world for him. So far it was proving a very happy one.

Much to her relief.

It wasn’t easy being a single mother with no-one close to advise her or simply listen to her concerns. Matt seemed well adjusted to their situation. In fact, he’d coped extremely well with it, rarely pestering her when she was working with clients. Though now he was at school with children from normal families…what was she going to say when he asked about his father? As he inevitably would.

For so long there had just been the two of them. Matt didn’t remember his grandmother, who’d died only eighteen months after he’d been born. And Skye herself had been the only child of an only child—no aunts or uncles or cousins. Her pregnancy, having the baby, caring for her mother through the bouts of chemotherapy that had proved useless in the end…the friendships she’d made at university had just dwindled away. Then setting up her massage business…no time for making social contacts.

If she’d gone out to work…but she hadn’t wanted to leave Matt to a baby-sitter or put him in day-care. He was her child. Best to work at home, she’d thought. However, it had been a very closeted life these past few years. A lonely life.

Now that it was opening up for Matt, she should start re-thinking her own situation, look at other options for her future, maybe complete the physiotherapy course she’d had to drop, put herself in the way of meeting a possible husband, a father for Matt.

They turned the corner into the street where they lived and Matt instantly broke off his school chatter, pointing excitedly as he cried, ‘Wow! Look at that red car, Mummy!’

Her gaze had already jerked to it. A red Ferrari—instantly recognisable to her, having been driven around in one by Luc Peretti. It was like a stab to her heart seeing it here, opening up painful memories, especially as she’d just been thinking about a father for Matt.

‘Could we get a car like that?’ he asked, clearly awe-struck by its brilliant colour and racy style, as she’d once been.

‘We don’t need a car, Matt.’

Nor could she afford one. Paying the rental on their small, two-bedroom cottage, plus living expenses, ate up most of her income. What she saved was emergency money. In fact, given that this neighbourhood was very modest real estate, and relatively cheap because of being under the flight-path to Mascot Airport, she wondered why such a classy and extravagant car was parked in their street.

‘Other Mummies pick up their kids from school in cars,’ Matt argued.

Skye grimaced at the all-too-true comment. The comparisons were starting. She tried emphasising the positive side of their own situation. ‘I guess those kids don’t live so close to school, Matt. We’re lucky, being able to walk and enjoy the sunshine.’

‘It’s not so good when it rains,’ he pointed out.

‘I thought you liked wearing your yellow rain boots.’

‘Yes, I do.’

She smiled at him. ‘And splashing in puddles.’

‘Mmm…’ His gaze darted across the street to the red Ferrari. ‘But I like that car, too.’

Skye rolled her eyes to the seductive object of little boys’ dreams and shock ripped through her, thumping into her heart, halting her feet, making her stomach contract with tension. The driver’s door was open and the man emerging from the car…it couldn’t be, her mind reasoned frantically.

Then he turned his head, looking directly at her, and it was. It was Luc Peretti! No mistaking those distinctively carved features, the hard handsome maleness of that face, the riveting, heavily lashed, dark eyes, the thick black hair dipping with a wave at his right temple, just as Matt’s did.

Matt!

A wave of panic churned through the shock. Had Luc somehow found out she’d kept her baby—the money given to her not used for an abortion? But why look for a child who—in Luc’s mind, she thought savagely—might not even be his? Not Roberto’s, either, given he believed she was a bed-hopping slut.

He half-turned to close and lock the car door. Maybe she was panicking for nothing. One look…She and Matt were the only people walking nearby. He could have been checking them out before leaving his high-class car—harmless people, just a young mother escorting her son home from school.

She didn’t look eye-catching with all her hair drawn into a single plait down her back, no make-up apart from a touch of pink lipstick, unremarkable clothes—just white cotton slacks and T-shirt, which she wore to work in. He might not have recognised her at all, might have parked in this street for some other reason entirely, not because she lived here.