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‘So I discovered.’ She put her half-drunk tea on the table. ‘I searched the Internet using your name combined with New York and then Rome, since that’s where you said you were originally from.’ But that had been a lie; Luca was Sicilian. ‘It took ages, but eventually I came across a photo of you at a gala fundraiser in Rome.’
Annah’s heart had leapt at the two-dimensional image of him, gorgeous and suave in a tuxedo, then plunged when she’d seen the glamorous woman on his arm. The photo had been two years old at the time, but her stomach had still twisted with silly jealousy. ‘The caption mentioned your family’s company. I discovered there was an office in London and called to see if someone could give me a phone number or email address for you.
‘I got the runaround, though. The receptionist said you’d left and they didn’t have forwarding details. I couldn’t believe that no one in your own family’s company was able to contact you. I kept calling back, but I just got transferred to a different person with the same story.’
It had been so frustrating—and humiliating. ‘In the end I lost my cool and did something stupid,’ she confessed. ‘I blurted out that I was pregnant with your child and suggested somebody might like to pass on the information.’ She huffed out a humourless laugh. ‘It got a reaction at least. A woman called me within an hour and invited me to go in for a meeting two days later.’
Annah looked down at her hands. ‘Until I got there, I’d thought maybe I was going to meet you,’ she said, stopping short of confessing that a part of her had fizzed with anticipation at the prospect despite the awkward circumstances. ‘But it was your father.’
She glanced at Luca. A deep groove had settled between his eyebrows, and a muscle flickered in his jaw.
‘He wasn’t very kind,’ she said, vastly understating Franco Cavallari’s demeanour. ‘He treated me like a gold digger. Wrote a cheque for ten thousand pounds and told me to go have an abortion.’ Her voice wobbled at the memory. ‘I tried to leave without taking it, but he pushed it into my bag and then had me escorted out of the building. I ripped the cheque up as soon as I got home,’ she added.
‘What else did he say?’
‘Not much.’
‘Annah.’
She sighed again. ‘He said you would have handled it yourself if you were still in the country. Then he said you wished me well and hoped this would put an end to the matter.’
Those words had cut deeper than any others. After a burly man had shown her the door, she’d hurried away on shaky legs, found a toilet in a shopping mall and promptly thrown up.
‘Did he threaten you?’
‘Not exactly—not in words. But he was...intimidating.’ And convincing. Annah had gone home believing the worst—that Luca had spurned her and his unborn child and not had the courage or decency to do it in person.
Emotion clogged her throat, and she rose suddenly and rushed to the back door. With trembling hands she tried to open it, but the deadbolt jammed and she cursed under her breath—why hadn’t the landlord replaced it like he’d promised?—and then her fingers blurred alarmingly before her eyes.
She blinked furiously. She was not going to cry. She just needed some air.
If only this blasted lock—
It gave way and she yanked the door open, stumbled out to the terrace, and gulped in a breath of the crisp March air. Seconds later the back of her neck tingled, alerting her to Luca’s presence before his deep voice rumbled behind her.
‘I didn’t know you were pregnant, Annah. If I had, all this would have turned out very differently. It’s important you understand that as we move forward.’
Move forward?
Annah wasn’t sure she wanted to know what that entailed.
Curling her hands over the railing, she looked out at the treetops and the hilly fields and farmland beyond. It was quiet in Hollyfield—too quiet sometimes—but the countryside was pretty, the area safe, the villagers friendly and kind.
She and Ethan were settled here. Content. She didn’t want his life disrupted like hers had been too often as a child.
But Luca was here and he wasn’t going away. Annah had to deal with this. Deal with him. Straightening her back, she turned and faced him. ‘What now?’
‘Take me to my son,’ he said.
CHAPTER THREE
LUCA RETURNED TO the SUV, got in the back, and instructed Mario to follow Annah’s hatchback. Apparently, his son’s daycare facility was in a neighbouring village, about a fifteen-minute drive away, according to Annah.
She hadn’t looked thrilled about taking him to meet his son, but her grudging acquiescence was a win nonetheless. Still, Luca didn’t count on plain sailing ahead. Annah Sinclair was no pushover; she was a tougher version of the woman he’d met five years ago, and a damn sight less trusting.
He fisted his hand on his thigh. If his father wasn’t already dead he’d wring the bastard’s neck.
Listening to Annah’s account of what had happened, Luca had felt winded and then furious at what Franco had done.
