Did he really think that she was so desperate for sex that she would travel all the way to London for it? How dared he assume that she was that keen, that easy? Well, she certainly hadn’t taught him that she was a big challenge the night they first met, Holly conceded grudgingly. But, my goodness, that one night must have been as good on his terms as he had said it was if he was willing to do it again. Or maybe he was simply a sex addict? Anything was possible. When Holly had snapped back at him about his money and his fancy office and his debauched partying, she had also picked up on his surprise. He had assumed she was a quiet, easy-going little mouse but Holly wasn’t quiet when her temper was roused. And right now her temper was rising like lava in a volcano. The past fourteen months had been very challenging, and working all day after a sleepless night had become her new norm. Having no way of contacting her son’s father, who had handicapped her by giving her a false name, had only added to her stress.
Vito tensed. ‘I didn’t say anything about that. No expectations...’ he murmured silkily, lean brown hands sketching an eloquent arc in the air as if to nullify her suspicions.
‘Of course you have expectations...but, in this case, I’m afraid it’s not going to happen. You had your chance and you blew it!’ Holly snapped back, striving to hang on to her temper.
His brows drew together. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Holly rolled her eyes, her lush mouth compressed. ‘A timely little reminder that if you had really wanted to see me again I did leave you my phone number.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ Vito insisted.
Holly tensed even more, angry that she had let that reminder fall from her mouth. ‘I left a note thanking you for your hospitality and I printed my phone number at the bottom of it.’
Vito groaned. ‘I didn’t find a note when you left. Where did you leave it?’
‘On the shelf in the fireplace.’ Holly shrugged dismissively, keen to drop the subject.
‘If there was a note, I didn’t see it,’ Vito assured her.
But then he would say that, wouldn’t he? Holly thought, unimpressed. Of course he had found the silly note she had left behind and he had done nothing with it. And in doing nothing he had taught her all she needed to know about how he saw her. She had gone over the events of that morning in her mind many, many times. She was convinced that Vito had gone out for a walk to get a break from her. For him the fun of togetherness had already worn thin. He had ignored her note most probably because he’d been relieved to find her already gone. He had seen that night as a casual one-night stand that he had no desire to repeat.
‘Whatever. It’s pointless to discuss it after the amount of time that has passed. But let me spell out one fact,’ Holly urged thinly. ‘I didn’t come to see you today for anything...er...physical. I came to see you about something much more important.’
At her emphasis, Vito raised a level dark brow in cool query mode, his wide sensual mouth tightening with impatience. And she could feel the whole atmosphere turning steadily colder and less welcoming. Naturally. She had taken sex off the lunch table, as it were, and he was no longer interested in anything she might have to say to him. And why would he be interested? She was poor and he was rich. He was educated and she was more of a self-educated person, which meant that she had alarming gaps in her knowledge. He was hugely successful and a high achiever while she worked in dead-end jobs without a career ladder for advancement. It was incredible, she finally conceded, that they had ever got involved in the first place.
‘More important?’ Vito prompted, his irritation barely hidden.
Defiance and umbrage combined inside Holly. She had held on to her temper but it was a close-run battle. His assumption that she was approaching him for another sexual encounter had shocked her, possibly because she had persuaded herself that they had shared something more than sex. Now she saw her illusions for the pitiful lies that they were, lies she had told herself to bolster her sagging self-esteem while she was waddling round with a massive tummy.
‘Yes, much more important,’ she confirmed, lifting her chin and simply spilling out her announcement. ‘I got pregnant that night we were together.’
Vito froze as if she had threatened to fling a grenade at him. He turned noticeably pale, his strong bone structure suddenly clearly etched below his skin by raw tension. ‘You said you were on the pill—’
Holly wasn’t in the mood to go into the intricacies of missed pills and antibiotic treatment. ‘You must know that every form of contraception has a failure rate and I’m afraid there was a failure. I got pregnant but I had no way of contacting you, particularly not when you had given me a fake name.’
Vito was in shock. Indeed Vito could never recall being plunged into such a state of shock before. Everything he had assumed had been turned upside down and inside out with those simple words... I got pregnant.
‘And do you usually reintroduce yourself with a very evocative Santa hat and a sprig of holly when this happens?’ he heard himself snap without even mentally forming the words. ‘Is this some sort of a scam?’
Holly’s small shoulders pushed up, along with her chin. ‘No, Angelo is not a scam, Vito. He was born eight months after that night.’
‘You come here without a word of warning and throw this announcement at me like a challenge,’ Vito ground out in condemnation, no fan of major surprises in his life, as yet not even capable of thinking of what she was telling him. The prospect of having a child had long struck him as a possibility as remote as the moon. He had known fatherhood was on the cards somewhere down the line if he married Marzia but he had also known that neither of them were in any hurry to start a family.
‘No, I did not. If I challenged you it would be an awful lot tougher!’ Holly shot back at him furiously. ‘Tough was waitressing until I was eight months pregnant and being in labour for two days before I got a C-section. Tough is working as a childminder and a shelf-stacker and never getting enough sleep. You wouldn’t know tough if it leapt on you and bit you...because in your whole blasted spoilt-rotten life you have had everything handed to you on a plate!’
A dark line of colour had delineated Vito’s high cheekbones as he viewed her in growing disbelief. ‘That is enough.’
‘No, it’s not enough, and you do not tell me when enough is enough!’ Holly fired back at him, while pointing at him with an angry finger.
‘Ranting at me is not getting us anywhere.’
‘I’m entitled to rant if I want to rant!’ Holly launched back at him an octave higher, shaking with rage and the distress she was fighting off while wondering if Vito ever lost his temper, because he was still so very controlled. ‘And I don’t want to get anywhere with you. I’m done here. I’ve told you that you’re a father and that’s why I came to see you. I saw your photo in a newspaper, incidentally...a lovely way to identify the father of your child! But if you want to think Angelo’s a scam, you’re welcome.’
‘Holly...’
Holly yanked open the door and marched down the corridor very fast because she could not wait to get out of the building. She could feel the tears building up and she didn’t want them to fall in front of an audience. She ignored Vito’s voice when he repeated her name and stabbed the lift button with frantic force.
‘Holly...come back here!’ Vito shouted without warning.
So taken aback was she by that sudden rise in volume from him that she spun round and looked at him. He was only halfway down the corridor, evidently having expected her to return at his urging, and if looks could kill she would have been lying dead at his feet. He did have a temper, though, she registered belatedly, and it made his dark eyes glitter like gold ingots and gave his lean, darkly beautiful features a hard, forbidding edge.
Horribly aware of the number of people openly staring, Holly turned back to the lift just as the doors opened. She dived in as fast as she could but not fast enough to prevent Vito from joining her.
‘You should’ve come back to my office.’
In silence, Holly contemplated his polished shoes because the tears were even closer now and stinging her eyes like angry wasps.
‘I have to look into this situation. I need your phone number and your address,’ Vito breathed in a raw undertone.
‘I wasn’t expecting you to be so offensive—funny, how you get the wrong idea about people. I really didn’t want to get pregnant, Vito, but I love my son and he is never ever going to hear me admit that because now that he’s here he’s the best thing that ever happened to me,’ she bit out shakily, hurriedly stepping out of the lift.
‘Phone number. Address,’ Vito said again, closing a hand to a slight shoulder to prevent her from walking away through the crowded concourse.
With a heavy sigh, Holly dug into her bag and produced a notebook. He handed her a gold pen. She squinted down at the pen, dimly wondering if it was real gold, and then scolded herself for that stupid thought. She printed out the requested details and ripped out the sheet to hand it back to him. ‘Look,’ she muttered uncomfortably. ‘There’s no pressure on you here. If I’m honest I don’t really want you in our lives. You’re not the sort of man I want around my son.’