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‘You don’t strike me as an inadequate woman,’ he mused, allowing his eyes to move in a slow sweep up her slim body before settling on her vivid heart-shaped face inside the frame of wild silky waves. The delicate features qualified as high on the catch-your-breath index but there was a determination to the round chin and a fierceness in her direct gaze that he seriously admired.
Taken aback by his response, Maya took an involuntary step away from him.
What do I strike you as, then?She pushed away the question as irrelevant and reclaimed the space she had given up. She tightened the sash on her robe another breath-restricting inch while somewhere in the back of her mind a voice reiterated,It’s past midday and you’re still in your night clothes.
‘I wasn’t talking about me.’ Would he have been saying that if he’d seen the person she had been? Her defensive wall wavered and then held against the wave of self-disgust, and she met his dark stare with a semblance of calm.
He arched a dark brow. ‘No?’ His broad shoulders lifted in a shrug as his gaze moved beyond her to the closed bedroom door. ‘If you say so...’ He sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair. ‘I am here to see Mattio. Is he in here?’ He tipped his head towards the right of the two doors they stood outside.
‘That’s my bedroom.’God, Maya, how old are you?she thought as she felt the heat rise up her neck. Deciding the best way to deal with the juvenile blush was to pretend it wasn’t there, she glared up at him.
‘You’re not here toseehim, you’re here to take him away and I won’t let you,’ she asserted, sounding more confident than she felt at her ability to follow through with this claim.
‘I haven’t made any secret of what I’m here to do and if you’re about to threaten me with the law again...’ The prospect didn’t alarm Samuele overly. ‘I’d think that one through if I were you. Bring in the authorities on this one, and, red tape being what it is, I probably won’t walk out of here with Mattio, but hewillleave in the arms of some child protection social worker. And then when my court order granting me temporary guardianship comes through—which it will—I’ll be able to take Mattio home.’
‘You have a court order...?’
‘I will have, soon.’ It was notstrictlya lie, but it would not have bothered Samuele if it had been.
‘But,’ she quavered out defiantly, ‘Violetta is his mother! Don’t courtsalwaysgive a child to the mother?’
He gave a hard laugh and slung her a pitying look. ‘That’s often true—but it does kind of depend on the mother, don’t you think?’
‘Violetta’s not here to defend herself,’ Maya argued, knowing that words could be weaponised and a disparaging word here, a scathing comment there, could over time alter people’s perception of someone, as she knew to her cost.
‘Isn’t that the point?’ he suggested drily, looking bored with the discussion. ‘She dumped a baby on a virtual stranger in a foreign country. That might raise a few legal brows.’
‘Foreign...?’
‘Mattio is Italian, he is anAgosti!’
‘So is Violetta.’
‘Not if Charlie has any say in the matter,’ he shot back.
‘Charlie?’
‘Her next meal ticket,’ he outlined with a thin smile.
‘I’m not listening to you,’ she bit back through clenched teeth.
‘Because the truth hurts?’
‘You twist everything I say.’
‘Twist,’ he echoed, raising his hands in a gesture that reinforced the scornful incredulity written on his face.
‘For a woman to leave her baby...’ Shaking her head, she scanned his face for any sign that he was capable of understanding what a massive thing that was. ‘Have youanyidea of what a terrible place she must have been in?’
‘You really are determined to see her as some sort of victim, aren’t you? I promise you that is the very last thing Violetta is. Look, Mattio is not your responsibility—’
‘It’s not about responsibility,’ she retorted. ‘It’s about—’ Struggling to put her feelings into words, she clenched her hands and tried to focus.
‘It’s about what?’
‘It’s about...’ She made herself meet his eyes even though she knew the experience would not be comfortable. ‘A child needs to be loved, to be wanted, and you don’t really want him.’
‘Now you’re telling me what I want?’
