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Downstairs, she found him once again pacing her living room in tight, tension-filled circles.
She wanted him out, as quickly as possible. But after what she’d witnessed upstairs, she wasn’t so sure she could accuse him of playing games any longer. It was the same instinct that warned her not to break the silence. So she stood, one hand braced against the banister.
Eventually he stopped in front of the box on the floor, his eyes zeroing in on its contents. Bending his large frame, he plucked up a picture of Gianni, taken moments after his birth. He stared at it for endless moments. Then he brushed the surface with his thumb, much the same way he’d done with the picture in his pocket.
When his gaze snagged hers, it held a mixture of stark bleakness and eviscerating anger that had her clutching the banister tighter. ‘Gianni’s my son. You kept him from me. Why?’
The raw pain cracking his voice rendered Mia speechless as the depth of his anguish rocked her soul.
She opened her mouth but no words emerged.
He held out one hand to her in entreaty, further confounding her. ‘Per favore, tell me why,’ he muttered in a ragged whisper.
Mia dragged in a desperate, bewildered breath. ‘I didn’t keep him from you, Rocco. You know I didn’t. I—’
His hand slashed through the air. ‘You keep insisting that I did. But I didn’t know, Mia. I didn’t know!’ he roared.
‘How on earth can you say that? How can you insist on calling me a liar at every turn but then tell me you didn’t know you had a child? What’s really going on, Rocco? You claim you weren’t aware of Gianni’s existence, so how come you have his picture and my address?’
She reeled as another bolt of pain slashed across his face.
‘Nonna saw his picture on a billboard on the way to mass yesterday morning. According to her companion, she took one look at the picture and became so agitated she almost collapsed. My staff thought she’d lost her mind when she insisted the boy in the picture was my child. The doctor was called. She was so distressed she had to be sedated. But eventually, when she’d calmed enough, she called me, told me I had a son and I had to find him.’
Mia gasped. ‘But how...how was she so sure?’
‘There’s a picture of me, almost identical to this one. Nonna wears it in the locket around her neck. It was the only proof she had that she hadn’t lost her mind. Hell, even I didn’t believe it at first. But she was adamant, almost to the point of hysteria, that I dropped everything and flew back from Abu Dhabi to see her.’
A memory resurfaced. ‘I know that picture. She showed it to me once, but when she said it was of her bambino, I assumed it was your father. That was you?’
He gave a stiff nod.
‘And so she called you, based on seeing Gianni’s picture on a billboard?’
‘Sì.’ His hand clenched over the picture and swallowed hard before he looked up. ‘And to think I almost dismissed her pleas. For as long as I live, I will owe her a priceless debt for insisting I come here. If she hadn’t, I would still be in the dark about my son’s existence.’ He speared her with a look so unnerving, Mia’s stomach twisted into thick knots. He tucked the picture away. ‘Later, we will address the subject of why my son is posing in a children’s catalogue. For now, I’m still waiting for an explanation.’
Mia’s head throbbed from absorbing the information pelting her like icy rocks in a hailstorm. She wanted to let go of the banister, but she wasn’t sure her legs would support her if she did. Rocco gave no quarter. He stood, hands on hips, tall and solid in front of her, waiting for answers.
But they were answers she knew he already had. There was no way he could not have known about Gianni. Hell, she still had the last letter from his lawyers cautioning her against asking for child support.
Confusion mingled with all the other emotions welling up inside her and she massaged her nape in the vain hope of easing her tense muscles and helping her think clearly. ‘Help me out here, because I’m really confused. Did you have an accident recently? Or bump your head and develop amnesia? Because—’
His face darkened even further and with a frustrated growl he dropped the picture back in the box.
‘Sorry, I had to ask. Because that would be the only reason why you would be asking me these questions.’
‘Santa cielo!’ He closed his eyes, took a calming breath, then spiked his fingers through his dark hair, ruffling the normally neat strands into further disarray. ‘Fine. Let’s just pretend I’ve been in an accident recently; that I have no memory of the last three years. What would’ve happened that I’d need to know?’
She licked dry lips and swallowed. ‘Besides showing up here after making my life a living hell for three years, and then pretending you don’t know anything about it? Well, for starters, you should know to be ashamed of yourself, but then you have no shame, do you? You only see things in black and white, with no tolerance for grey. You decided I was guilty of stealing and condemned me to pay for the rest of my life. My God, even if by some stretch of the imagination I would’ve been willing to forgive you for that, what you’ve done to my son I find very difficult to forgive and I will never forgive you for that, Rocco. Never—’
She was too busy venting long-suppressed emotions and shaking so hard with the pain that came with it that she didn’t see him approach, didn’t sense the danger signs until it was too late. Too late to stop him from grabbing her; from hauling her hard against his solid frame. To avert her head to avoid the emotional devastation of his lips as they seized hers, ground into hers, forced her shocked lips open to delve into her unguarded mouth. Her stunned senses grappled to find reason, to latch onto her fast-dwindling sanity, but the battle was lost under the attack of a deep, dark resurging hunger.
The hands she braced against his chest to push him away swiftly lost their fight as his tongue took control of hers. That first, singeing assault made her knees buckle. She would’ve landed in an ungainly heap had it not been for the strong arm around her waist. Within seconds, her hands were curling into his hair, renewing their acquaintance with the sleek short strands. She caressed his nape, his rough, stubbled jaw, the strong curve of his cheek as he continued to wreak havoc on her senses. Pleasure, potent and exquisite, flooded her veins, searing a demanding path straight to that secret, forgotten place between her legs.
In a split second, the direction of his intention changed. Instead of overpowering, he caressed, in place of forceful demand, his hand gentled as he moulded her to his rigid length. And that only sucked her deeper into the maelstrom of feeling this man always evoked within her.
His hand moved lower, brought her even closer to his body. Her gasp as she felt the force of his arousal was swallowed into the heat of their kiss. She groaned deep in her throat, wanting the feeling never to end. When he broke the kiss and moved to her neck, she closed her eyes and threw back her head to give him easy access.
His hard chuckle as his hot mouth teased her pulse made her melt inside. She gave up and shuddered against him as lust-filled gooseflesh raced over her skin. His chuckle turned into deep-throated laughter.
