Page 3 of Italian Baby Shock

Lark dropped her outstretched hand and gave him her brightest smile instead. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘If I could just have a look at these pieces your representatives talked to us about and perhaps take a few photos, then I’ll get out of your hair.’

It washer.There was no doubt. No doubt at all.

Cesare stood in the middle of his family’s centuries-old salon, very conscious of the blood pumping hard in his veins and the shock that rippled like an earthquake through him.

It had been nearly two years ago, but he still remembered that night as if it had been yesterday.

The aunt who’d brought him up after his parents had died had just passed away after a heart attack, which meant he was now the last of the Donati line, and even though he’d been determined not to let that bother him in any way, it had. He’d gone out walking the streets, sending his bodyguards away because he’d craved solitude. They hadn’t been happy about it, but since he was the boss and they valued their jobs, they did what they were told.

He’d walked for hours, telling himself he felt nothing, that the toxic combination of grief and fury in his gut didn’t exist, and he’d been on the point of finding a bar to make sure the embers of it were well and truly drowned, when he’d come across a tourist who’d just had her handbag stolen. She hadn’t spoken any Italian and she’d been upset. She hadn’t recognised him, either, and though he didn’t normally go out of his way to help people—he’d inherited his parents’ selfish natures and he knew it—when she’d burst out that she’d just lost her mother, he knew he couldn’t leave her on her own.

So he’d mobilised his staff to help her and while they’d dealt with the police, the banks, and the British embassy for a replacement passport, he’d taken her out to dinner. She’d had no money and was hungry, and he needed the distraction.

And what a distraction she’d proven to be, with her wealth of honey gold hair and beautiful sea-green eyes. He’d always had his pick of beautiful women, and while she wasn’t who he’d normally choose for a partner, he’d found himself drawn to her all the same. She’d been so expressive and open, and even in the midst of her grief, she’d smiled. It had been the mostastonishing smile he’d ever seen in his entire life, warm and generous and utterly sincere. No one had ever smiled at him that way and it felt like the most precious gift he’d ever been given.

Lark, she’d said her name was. Like the bird.

She hadn’t had anywhere to go that night, and so he’d offered her a guest room in his villa. They’d sat up till midnight talking in the library and then the chemistry he’d felt all night and yet tried to ignore had sparked and ignited. And she’d been just as warm and expressive and sincere in bed as she had been during their dinner. Passionate too. Giving herself to him with an abandon that had spoken of deep trust. Another precious gift.

She hadn’t known him, yet she’d trusted him with her body implicitly.

He’d never had a night with a woman with whom he’d felt such a connection.

It couldn’t go anywhere, of course. Because by then he’d already decided that the toxicity of the Donati line would end with him. Selfish, his parents would have called it, and yes, it was. Petty and selfish, revenge for a childhood where he hadn’t been a child so much as a possession to be fought over and used. A weapon his parents had aimed at each other.

They’d done their best to leave their scars on him, but he’d refused to be marked. And as for the legacy they’d thought had been so important, well... He could be as petty and selfish as they once had been.

He’d break up the precious Donati legacy, sell it off bit by bit, even Donati bank would go. He’d never marry, never have children. There would be no one else to take the name, no one else to shoulder the weight of that toxic history, no one else to ensure the whole bitter bloodline carried on.

Once he was dead, so were the Donatis.

Anyway, he’d made sure she knew that it would be one night and only one, and the next day, he’d left her sleeping in his bed. By the time he’d got home that evening, she was gone. He’d never heard from her again.

Until today.

Now, here she was, standing in the middle of the salon, dressed in a tight-fitting pink skirt and a blouse with roses on it, outrageously pretty and colourful in his overwrought, overdecorated palazzo. Giving him that beautiful smile he remembered and yet looking at him as if she had no idea who he was. As if she hadn’t spent an entire night, writhing in pleasure in his arms. He didn’t understand. How could she have forgotten?

‘Don’t you know who I am?’ he demanded before he could stop himself. Something he’d never had to ask because people always knew who he was.

Her big green eyes widened and a small crease appeared between her brows. ‘Of course I do. You’re Signor Donati, head of Donati Bank.’

He waited for her to add something more, something along the lines of ‘yes, of course I remember the night we spent together, how could I forget that?’ But she didn’t.

Perhaps she didn’t recognise him as the man she’d spent the night with, though again, surely that was impossible. They’d spent hours in each other’s company, just talking. Then yet more hours not talking at all, only touching, kissing, tasting. Giving pleasure and receiving it. Did she not remember that?

Apart from anything else, he was head of the largest and oldest private bank in Europe, if not the entire world, and everything he did was the stuff of rumour and gossip. He couldn’t go anywhere without being photographed by the paparazzi. Entire governments asked for his financial advice.

He was recognised everywhere and more than one woman who’d spent the night with him had sold their story to different news organisations around the globe.

All those stories were, without exception, glowing.

It was impossible that this particular woman didn’t remember him. Unless, of course, she wasn’t the woman he’d spent the night with... But no, he was certain she was the one. She’d said her name was Lark and it wasn’t that common a name.

Yet, she was looking at him as if he was a total stranger.

Annoyance wound through him and it wasn’t wounded pride, absolutely not. Merely irritation. He’d been expecting Ravenswood, not her, and that she just happened to be a woman he’d slept with a long time ago wasn’t something he’d expected to have to deal with. It wasn’t of note, though. And if she didn’t remember him, he certainly wasn’t going to tell her.

He’d been very clear, after all, that they’d only have a night and that there would be no further contact and she’d been in agreement. And up until this moment she’d been as good as her word.

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