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The command spurred her to do something other than languish in painful memories. ‘No. Go to hell. I will not indulge in this stupid game with you.’
‘According to Mrs Hart, he’s asleep. His afternoon nap, am I right? Perhaps you’d like me to wait for him to wake? See for myself what you’re hiding from me?’
The blood drained from her face. Rocco hadn’t changed. If anything, the laser-sharp intellect that had seen him rise from a renowned architect to iconic innovator had been honed even sharper. With a few words, he’d whittled away her resistance.
‘No, I think not,’ he emphasised with calm incisiveness. ‘Instead, you’ll answer my question.’
‘Why should I?’ she croaked through lips tingling with a thousand firing nerves.
‘Because I dropped everything to come here to find out and I will not be toyed with.’
Her fists slammed against his chest as anger fired up within her. ‘Yet you’re happy to do the same with other people? Does it give you a sick thrill to hold the power of life and death in your hands, Rocco?’
His lips twisted. ‘You’ve developed quite a taste for melodrama since we last met, cara. But it’s a taste I don’t have the time or inclination to indulge in.’
She shivered at his chilling tone. ‘Why now, Rocco? Do you have some sadistic urge to see how I live? See what you’ve reduced me to?’
He started to frown but she waved him away.
‘Don’t bother pretending. Thing is, I never took you for a sadist. More fool me, right? Because when it comes down to it, what had I really known about the man I was once engaged to marry?’ Nothing because, in the end, the man she’d loved, the man who’d purportedly respected her intellect and creativity by day and whispered heated, magical promises to her as he’d worshipped her body with his own by night, had morphed into a snarling, heartless, vitriol-spewing monster.
A monster who was now asking her a question to which he already knew the answer!
He dropped his arms and paced the living room once more, his expression bewildered. The action focused her gaze on his stunning, harsh beauty. Unforgiving blue eyes glowered at her, giving her no quarter from their lethal demand. Cheekbones seemingly fashioned from polished marble stood out in haughty relief; his dark stubbled jaw made her fingers tingle wildly.
‘You’re talking in riddles and my patience is running thin, Mia.’
She could verify that from the frantic pulse throbbing in his temple. ‘Then you can leave the same way you came. The door is still open.’
Use it. Please, please leave.
‘Christo! Answer me!’ he barked.
‘Why?’
He growled and uttered a single curse. It was a curse she’d heard him utter only once before, when it had seemed her begging and grovelling for a chance to explain had got too much for him to stomach three years ago. Then, he’d thrust her away from him and marched out, telling her in no uncertain terms that she had twenty minutes to pack her bags and clear out of his Palermo villa before his security detail gave her a firm hand.
Now those hands were braced on his hips, his eyes narrowed on her face. She forced herself not to cower as she witnessed his failing pa
tience in the hectic colour slashing his contoured cheekbones.
Lifting her head, she glared right back. ‘You know exactly who he is, Rocco. What I don’t know is why you’re pretending otherwise. You know Gianni’s my son. Just as you know he’s yours!’
Silence, thick and monumental, circled them, rising, whipping up her bewilderment until it threatened to choke her.
Rocco’s hands dropped to his sides in shock. Then he trembled. She had to hand it to him. His acting skills were impeccable. Oscar-worthy.
‘You lie.’ His voice was a strangled rasp, barely audible over her thundering heart. ‘You lie,’ he insisted, his voice growing deadlier with each word.
His skin was stretched taut over frozen features and his eyes—although they bored into hers—held the stunned glaze of disbelief and made her think he wasn’t really seeing her.
‘For goodness’ sake. Why would I lie about something like this?’ Something he already knew.
Her answer seemed to rouse him from some dark, unknown place. He focused on her, and the look in the stormy depths stilled her breath.
‘This child is mine?’
Again the warning shrieked in her head. Rocco Vitelli was playing a very dangerous game with her; a game she had no way of winning unless she focused. To do that she needed to get away from him, put some space between herself and his heady, mind-altering proximity.
