Page 8 of A Baby Scandal in Italy

‘Why didn’t you?’ Ivy couldn’t hide her curiosity. This was the first conversation she’d had with Rafa without tension bristling between them. His deep voice with the hint of an Italian accent wassosexy.

He shrugged. ‘I always knew that I was destined to succeed my father as the head of Vieri Azioni. After ten years of playing sport at a professional level, I was ready for a new challenge.’ His tone hardened and Ivy wondered if there was more to his decision to return to Italy than he’d let on. She had read that he’d been through an acrimonious divorce while he’d lived in America.

‘The company was established by my great-grandfather,’ Rafa continued. ‘I was my father’s only son and there was pressure on me to take his place and continue the family’s association with Vieri Azioni.’

‘Now you have a son to carry on that association.’ Ivy spoke unthinkingly. She wished she could take her words back when Rafa’s brows lowered.

‘Did you find out from your research that Vieri Azioni’s revenue for the last fiscal year was one hundred billion euros? Perhaps you discovered that, aside from my family’s wealth, I was one of the highest-paid players in the American professional basketball league.’

‘That’s not why I brought Bertie to you,’ she said quickly, stung by Rafa’s scornful tone.

‘Paternity fraud is an occupational hazard for rich men,’ he carried on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘There have been numerous cases where a woman has accused a man, usually a well-known figure or celebrity, of being the father of her child. It can have a devastating impact on an innocent man’s life and relationships, especially if he has a wife or long-term partner. Fortunately, I don’t, but I will stop at nothing to clear my name. The reason for a false paternity claim is always money.’

Ivy felt incinerated by the scorching contempt in Rafa’s eyes. She looked at Bertie sleeping peacefully in the car seat and her heart ached with love for him. He was so perfect and innocently unaware of the furore resulting from his birth.

‘I hoped you would want to do the right thing for Bertie,’ she muttered. ‘Although, I don’t know why I thought you might be a good father to him. I’m not even sure that good fathers exist. Mine cleared off when I was ten, and neither of my stepfathers were any more reliable. My dad left because he had been having an affair with another woman. Mum continued to chase a romantic dream and she married and divorced twice more.’ She glared at Rafa. ‘Bertie will be better off without a father than with a reluctant father who takes no interest in him.’

Rafa’s expression was unreadable, and Ivy decided that he had been carved from granite. He slung her backpack over his shoulder, picked up the car seat by the handle and carried Bertie over to the door. ‘Let’s get this over with,’ he said tersely.

The driver had parked the car outside the front of the hotel. When Ivy followed Rafa through the door, she tensed as reporters and photographers surrounded them. Flashlights popped and the clamour of voices asking questions about their relationship grew more insistent. Rafa clamped his arm around Ivy’s waist and pushed a path through the crowd to where the driver was holding the car door open for them. She climbed into the back and scrambled across the seat to make room for Rafa. He handed the baby seat to the driver, who fitted it to the anchor point in the car. With Bertie safely stowed, Rafa slammed the door shut. The driver slid behind the steering wheel and, as the car sped away from the hotel, a few die-hard photographers ran behind, still snapping pictures.

‘They’re like a pack of wolves,’ Ivy said shakily. ‘Is Bertie all right?’ Rafa was sitting between the baby seat and her.

‘He’s still asleep.’

‘I can’t imagine how. I was worried he would be scared by the cameras and the shouting.’

‘It’s a pity you did not consider how he would be affected before you opened your mouth and told the press a pack of lies.’

Ivy did not reply. Nothing she said would make Rafa believe that she hadn’t gone public with her allegation that Bertie was his child. The paternity test would show the truth, and if she’d been a vindictive person she’d have enjoyed hearing him apologise. But the sad fact was that there would be no winners. Rafa did not want his son and Bertie was destined to grow up without ever knowing his father.

She leaned her head against the back rest and her eyelashes drifted down. Her disturbed night with Bertie caught up with her as the car crawled along in a traffic jam.

‘Ivy, wake up.’

The gravelly voice next to her ear jolted Ivy awake. She opened her eyes and found Rafa’s handsome face so close to hers that she could count his thick eyelashes. Her awareness of him was instant as her senses responded to the sensual musk of his aftershave.

She was embarrassed by the unsettling effect he had on her and prayed he could not tell that she was fiercely aware of him.Get a grip, she told herself. Bertie was her priority, and she hoped that when Rafa had proof he was the baby’s father his attitude would change. She flushed when she realised that she must have fallen asleep with her head resting on Rafa’s shoulder.

‘Sorry,’ she muttered as she hastily moved across to the other side of the car. ‘I was up with Bertie several times last night.’

‘Is he often restless during the night?’

She took it as a good sign that Rafa was showing an interest in Bertie. ‘He usually wakes around midnight and nothing I do seems to comfort him.’ Ivy turned her head towards the window so that Rafa would not see the tears in her eyes. ‘Maybe he misses Gem.’ Her voice thickened. ‘I do my best, but I’m not his mum.’

She gave a start when Rafa put his hand over hers where it was lying on her knee and gently squeezed her fingers. ‘What happened to your sister? Was she ill?’

‘There was a road traffic accident. Gemma was knocked down as she crossed the road.’ Ivy swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. ‘She had only popped out to buy nappies. I’d said I would go, but she’d wanted to get out of the flat for a while. We lived on a busy main road and the pedestrian crossing was a few metres away. We had got into the habit of nipping across the road instead of walking to the crossing where it was safe.’

Ivy looked down at Rafa’s strong, tanned fingers covering her paler ones. It was a long time since anyone had offered her a physical gesture of comfort. Her dad had given her an awkward hug at Gemma’s funeral, but he’d rushed back to Scotland, where he lived with his current girlfriend and their two children. Ivy had never been invited to meet her half-siblings.

Kindness from Rafa was unexpected and tugged on her fragile emotions. ‘When I saw the emergency services outside the flat, I didn’t realise at first that Gemma had been involved in an accident. But she was ages at the shop, and she didn’t answer her phone. The police arrived and said that a van had driven around the corner fast and hit Gem, and she’d been taken to hospital.’

Ivy recalled the PC’s sympathetic expression. He must have known that her sister’s injuries were life threatening. ‘A neighbour looked after Bertie and I rushed to the hospital. Gemma was conscious and I was allowed to see her briefly. She told me the name of Bertie’s father and made me promise to find you before she was taken to the operating theatre. But her life couldn’t be saved.’

‘Is it possible that your sister was confused? She was about to undergo surgery and no doubt she had been given medication before a general anaesthetic.’ Rafa frowned. ‘Perhaps I’d been mentioned in a newspaper article that Gemma had read. Vieri Azioni is a multinational conglomerate, and its dealings are reported in financial publications around the word. Your sister might have muddled my name with the man she’d met on the cruise ship.’

‘Gemma didn’t read financial newspapers.’ But her sister had been fascinated by the glamorous lives of celebrities and had followed many of them on social media. When Ivy had researched Rafa Vieri online, she had found plenty of pictures and gossip about him.

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