The Marchese's Love-Child

He grinned at her, making her realise that the scar had done little to diminish the powerful sexual charisma he’d always been able to exert, which was as basic a part of him as the breath he drew. He was lounging on the sofa opposite, jacket discarded and tie loosened, his long legs thrust out in front of him, totally at his ease. Enjoying, she thought bitterly, his control of the situation. While she remained shaken and on edge, unable to comprehend what was happening. Or why. Especially why …

‘No? Perhaps we should have stayed in the bedroom after all, cara mia, and continued the argument there.’ The topaz eyes held a familiar glint.

‘You dare to lay a hand on me again,’ Polly said, through gritted teeth, ‘and I’ll go straight to the police—have you charged.’

‘With what offence? The attempted seduction of my future bride?’ He shook his head regretfully. ‘A girl who once spent a summer as my lover. I don’t think they would take you seriously, carissima.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I expect they have to do what you want—like the contessa. And where is she, by the way?’

‘On her way back to Comadora, where she lives.’

‘But she was supposed to be staying here.’

He shook his head. ‘No, Paola mia. I reserved the suite for myself.’ He smiled at her. ‘And for you to share with me.’

‘If this is a joke,’ Polly said, recovering herself from a stunned silence, ‘I don’t find it remotely funny.’

‘And nor do I,’ Sandro said with sudden curtness. ‘This is no game, believe me. I am entirely serious.’ He paused. ‘Do you wish to test my determination?’

He hadn’t moved, but suddenly Polly found herself remembering the strength of the arms that had held her. Recognised the implacable will that challenged her from his gaze and the sudden hardening of the mobile, sensuous mouth which had once stopped her heart with its caresses.

She bit her lip, painfully. ‘No.’

‘You begin to show sense at last,’ he approved softly.

‘Not,’ she said, ‘when I agreed to come to Italy today. That was really stupid of me.’

‘You must not blame Zia Antonia,’ he said. ‘She shares your disapproval of my methods.’ He shrugged. ‘But if you and I had not met again tonight, then it would have been at some other time, in some other place. Or did you think I would simply allow you to vanish?’

She said coldly, ‘Yes, of course. In fact, I counted on it.’

His head came up sharply, and she saw the sudden tensing of his lean body. ‘You were so glad to be rid of me?’

You dare to say that—to me? After what you did?

The words trembled on the tip of her tongue, but she fought them back. He must never know how she’d felt in those dazed, agonised weeks following his rejection. How she’d ached for him, drowning in bewilderment and pain. Pride had to keep her silent now. Except in defiance.

She shrugged in her turn. ‘Do you doubt it?’ she retorted. ‘After all, when it’s over, it’s over,’ she added with deliberate sang-froid.

‘You may think that, mia cara.’ His voice slowed to a drawl. ‘I do not have to agree.’

She looked down at her hands, clamped together in her lap. ‘Tell me something,’ she said in a low voice. ‘How did you find me?’

‘I was at a conference on tourism. A video was shown of a British company which looks after single travellers. You were its star, cara mia. I was—most impressed.’

Polly groaned inwardly. Her one and only television appearance, she thought, that her mother had been so proud of. It had never occurred to her that it might be shown outside the UK.

She said coldly, ‘And you were suddenly overwhelmed by nostalgia, I suppose.’

‘If so,’ Sandro said with equal chill, ‘I would have sighed sentimentally and got on with my life. But it reminded me that there are issues still unresolved between us.’ He paused. ‘As you must know, also.’

She moistened her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘I need to say something. To tell you that—I’ve never talked about you. Never discussed anything that happened between us. And I wouldn’t—I give you my word …’

He stared at her, frowning. ‘You wished to wipe me from your memory? Pretend I had never existed? But why?’

She swallowed, her throat tightening. Because it hurt too much to remember, she thought.

‘Once I discovered your—your background,’ she said, ‘I realised it was—necessary. The only way …’

His gaze became incredulous. ‘It disturbed you to find that I was rich. You’d have preferred me to be a waiter, existing on tips?’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Dio mio.’

Polly sat up very straight. She said coldly, ‘It was the way you’d acquired your money that I found—unacceptable. And your—connections,’ she added bravely, controlling a shiver as she remembered the man who had confronted her. The scorn and menace he’d exuded.

‘Unbelievable,’ he said slowly. ‘But if you expect me to apologise for my family, Paola, you will wait a long time.’ The look he sent her was hard—unrelenting. ‘I am what I am, and nothing can change that. Nor would I wish it to.’

He was silent for a moment. ‘Certamente, I hoped—at one time—that you would find it possible to live in my world. Understand how it works, and accept its limitations.’

But you soon changed your mind about that, Polly thought painfully. In fact, once you realised that I’d never be suitable, you were willing to pay a small fortune to get me out of your life altogether—and I should be grateful for that. Relieved that you sent me away, and saved me from an impossible moral dilemma. Prevented me from making a choice I might have hated myself for later, when I was sane again …

And knowing that has to be my salvation now. Has to …

She said stiltedly, ‘That could—never have happened. It was better—safer for us to part.’

‘You think so?’ He drew a harsh breath. ‘Then how is it I have been unable to forget you, Paola mia, no matter how hard I have tried? Or how many other women there have been in my life since you?’

She lifted her chin, resisting the sudden anguish that stabbed her. ‘Am I supposed to feel flattered?’

‘You ask me about your emotions?’ Sandro asked derisively. ‘What did I ever know about your thoughts—your feelings? I saw what I wished to see—believed what I needed to believe.’

He shook his head. ‘Madonna, how many times in these long months I have wished I could simply—dismiss you from my mind.’ He paused. ‘Forget you as easily as you have rejected the memory of me.’

Oh, God, Polly thought numbly, how little you know …

She tried to speak evenly. ‘Life doesn’t remain static. It moves on—and we have to go with it.’

‘Do you go alone?’ Sandro enquired, almost negligently studying his fingernails. ‘Or do you have company on your journey?’

Polly tensed. ‘That,’ she said, ‘is no concern of yours.’

‘Then let us make it my concern,’ he said softly. ‘Because I wish to know the truth. Do you live alone?’

The question seemed to hang in the air between them while her mind ran in frantic circles, looking for a way out.

Useless to go on telling him it was none of his business. That would not deter him. On the other hand, it would be a humiliation to admit that since him, there had been no one in her life. That she existed in self-imposed celibacy.

She could invent a lover, but she’d always been a terrible liar, and the risk of him seeing through her story was too great.

And then, as if a light had dawned, she realised there was no need for invention after all.