Page 5 of A Baby Scandal in Italy

Her apology died on her lips, and her heart missed a beat as her eyes collided with Rafa Vieri’s hard-as-steel gaze. The previous day he had looked suave, wearing a designer suit. This morning he was drop-dead sexy in faded denim that clung to his muscular thighs and a black polo shirt that looked casual but expensive. He had pushed his sunglasses onto his head and his midnight-dark hair brushed his collar.

Rafa Vieri exuded an air of arrogance and power that was exclusive to the super-rich. An expression of haughty disdain crossed his face when he looked past Ivy into her functional but uninspiring hotel room.

He snapped his gaze back to her and frowned. Ivy had spent the morning giving Bertie a bath and she hadn’t had time to get herself dressed. She felt self-conscious that her skimpy shorts and vest top left little to the imagination. During the night, when it had been so hot in her room, she had been glad that her pyjamas were made of thin cotton but now she wished she was wearing something that covered her from head to toe, preferably made of thick winceyette.

She was mortified when she glanced down and discovered that her nipples were standing to attention beneath her top. But, while she was intensely aware of Rafa’s potent masculinity, he evidently did not feel an answering spark of attraction for her.

‘I warned you of the consequences if you repeated your lies about me.’ He delivered each word with the deadly force of a bullet fired from a gun.

‘I haven’t lied.’ She kept her voice quiet, desperate not to wake Bertie. Rafa thrust a newspaper towards her and she saw a picture of him on the front page beneath the headlineIl bambino segreto del magnate!

Although Ivy did not understand the other words, the meaning ofbambinowas obvious.

‘The tycoon’s secret baby.’ Rafa translated the headline between gritted teeth. ‘Dio, it sounds like the ridiculous title of a novel, and the story is a complete fantasy.’ He braced his hands on the door frame and Ivy had the impression that it was to stop himself from putting them around her neck. ‘By the time my lawyers have finished, you will wish that you had never heard of me, let alone accused me of being the father ofyourbaby.’

Before Ivy could query his surprising statement, the door of the room next to hers opened and a young couple emerged. They looked curiously at Rafa. When they had walked past, he said tersely, ‘We can’t have a conversation while I’m standing in the corridor.’ Without waiting for her to invite him in, he pushed himself off the door frame and stepped past her into the room.

‘We can’t talk in here,’ Ivy told him in a fierce whisper. ‘Bertie has gone to sleep at long last and I won’t promise not to kill anyone who wakes him up.’

Rafa glanced over at the cot wedged between the bed and the wall and his scowl deepened. ‘The room is the size of a rabbit hutch.’ At Ivy’s glare, he lowered his voice. ‘What is in here?’ He opened the door to the miniscule bathroom. ‘This will have to do. I’m not planning on staying long. I want to know why you did it—although, I can guess. How much did you get paid?’ he asked in a cynical voice.

‘You’re not making any sense.’ Ivy’s thought process was severely hampered by a lack of sleep. Somehow Rafa had manoeuvred her into the bathroom. He was right behind her and he closed the door, standing with his back against it, and folded his arms across his chest.

He dominated the small space. It was not just his height and athletic build, it washim. He was truly the most gorgeous man she’d ever met. She was mesmerised by his sculpted features, the sharp cheekbones, strong nose and uncompromising brows above his heavy-lidded eyes. The dark stubble on his jaw was thicker than it had been yesterday, and she had the impression that he had come straight from his bed to find her.

An image leapt into her mind of him naked in a bed with her beside him and the sheets tangled after a night of passion. She wondered if the rest of his body was as tanned as his muscular arms beneath his short-sleeve shirt. He had a tattoo of a fearsome-looking black horse on his right forearm. Ivy remembered from her research about him that a horse was the logo of the California Colts basketball team.

Her eyes were drawn back to Rafa’s face. His mouth was full-lipped and promised untold delights. Something urgent and unfamiliar coiled deep in her pelvis. She had been a teenager when she’d first started to explore her sensuality, but she had never gone further than a few kisses with her boyfriend at the time. Her cancer diagnosis when she’d been seventeen had been terrifying and the treatment—a brutal regime of chemotherapy over two years—had pushed her body to its limits. She had lost her hair and sometimes her hope. Her boyfriend Luke had ditched her, and for a long time her sole focus had been to get well and regain her strength.

Nine months ago she had celebrated being cancer-free for five years but, although she’d dated guys occasionally, she hadn’t wanted a serious relationship. Partly her wariness stemmed from witnessing her mum’s chaotic love life and the opinion she’d formed as a pre-teen that men were unreliable. That had proved to be true when her heart had been broken by Luke. The end of her first romance had been doubly painful because she’d been ill and vulnerable. Since then, she had been reluctant to risk being hurt again.

But as time had gone on, and she hadn’t been wildly attracted to any man, Ivy had wondered if cancer had robbed her not only of her fertility, but all aspects of her femininity. The sweet ache between her thighs and her overwhelming awareness of Rafa were signs that her sexuality was alive and kicking. Why did it have to be he who had revived her desire that had been dormant until now? Rafa was off-limits, Ivy told herself firmly. She could not respect him after he had rejected his baby son.

Her dad had been an unreliable parent, but at least he’d mostly stuck around for the first ten years of her life. After her parents had split up, her mum had married twice more, but neither of those relationships had lasted. Ivy had felt unimportant when her mum had poured her energy and emotions into her new romances. Now she had Bertie to consider, and she was determined that he would never feel second-best, as she had when she’d been growing up.

Ivy saw Rafa’s gaze flick to the shower screen where she’d hung Bertie’s sleep suits to dry after she’d washed them in the sink. For the trip to Italy, she had only brought what she could fit into a backpack, because the airline charged extra for luggage to go in the hold. Draped next to the sleep suits was a pair of her knickers that she’d rinsed out. Of course, they had to be the black lace panties with the sloganHands Off!printed on the front, which Gemma had given her as a joke last Christmas.

Flushing hotly, Ivy reached up to retrieve her underwear and couldn’t restrain a yelp of agony as her shoulder muscles spasmed. The pain was so intense that she felt sick and swayed on her feet. Above the buzzing noise in her ears, she heard Rafa swear. He clamped his strong hands on either side of her waist and sat her down on the edge of the bath.

‘Lower your head towards your knees to allow the blood to flow to your brain,’ he ordered. She complied, and after a few seconds the light-headed feeling eased, but the knot of tension in her stomach tightened when he remained close beside her and she breathed in the spicy scent of his cologne.

‘What happened?’ His tone was still curt but held a faint huskiness that sent another coil of heat down to Ivy’s pelvis.

‘Just an old shoulder injury that plays up sometimes,’ she mumbled, cringing when she sounded breathless and gauche. ‘It’s fine now.’ Her shoulder was throbbing, but she needed Rafa to move from where he was crouched next to her. He was so close that he was bound to notice the frantic thud of her pulse at the base of her throat and hear her uneven breaths.

He straightened up but could not put much space between them in the cramped bathroom. His laugh was harsh and humourless. ‘A lightning recovery or another lie? Did you pretend to be in pain to win my sympathy? The same reason that you made up a tragic story about your sister dying?’ Rafa ignored Ivy’s gasp. ‘You said you’re not an actress, but you have a talent for make-believe.’

‘I told you the truth. Gemma is dead.’ Shock at Rafa’s callous attitude brought tears to Ivy’s eyes. She stood up and was conscious of how much taller than her he was, but she refused to be intimidated by him. ‘Why would I make up something so awful?’

‘You tell me!’ he snapped. ‘If Bertie is your sister’s baby, why is there no mention of her anywhere? Does Gemma even exist? The story is all over social media, as well as the newspapers, stating thatyouare the baby’s mother. It is reported that, when you told me I was the father of your child, I sent you away and warned you never to contact me again.’

Rafa’s eyes were icy cold as he raked them over Ivy, starting at her bright pink hair and slowly moving down her body to her bare feet and the chipped varnish on her toenails. ‘You are not my type,’ he drawled. ‘I did not make a child with you.’

Shameful images flashed into her head of just what that would entail, followed by humiliation at his scornful rejection. Obviously she wasn’t his type. There had been no need for him to remind her that she was nothing like the glamorous and statuesque women he was often photographed with.

Rafa’s comment that he had not made a child with her had delivered another wounding blow to Ivy’s bruised heart. It was a painful reminder that she would never hold her own baby in her arms. She would have liked a family of her own and, although she was deeply grateful to have recovered from cancer, there had been a lingering sadness in her heart that she almost certainly couldn’t have a baby. Becoming responsible for Bertie had given her a chance to be a mother, but at the terrible cost of her sister’s life.

Doubt slid into Ivy’s mind. Rafa was adamant that he had never met Gemma. She could not believe her sister had lied, but Gemma had been in Accident and Emergency and being prepared for surgery when Ivy had rushed to the hospital after she’d heard about the accident. Their conversation had been hurried and emotional, but Gemma had clearly said that Rafael Vieri was Bertie’s father. It had been the last time that Ivy had seen her sister alive, and she could not hold back her tears at the memory of watching Gemma being wheeled away to Theatre.

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