And having deprived Vito of breath and speech with that damning final indictment of his character, Holly disappeared into the crowds.
CHAPTER SIX
WELL, YOU MADE a real screw-up of that, Vito reflected for the first time in his life. But Holly hadn’t given him the smallest preparation for what was to come, so it was scarcely surprising that everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. He didn’t react well to surprises and the delivery of the Santa hat and the holly had seemed suggestively sexual. Was it any wonder he had got the wrong idea? His hard mouth compressed while he wondered about that note she had mentioned. Had she left a note? He had looked in all the obvious places. There had been nothing on the table or the door, and what did it matter now anyway?
What really mattered was that without the smallest warning he was apparently a father...
That was a mind-blowing concept but Vito was primarily ruled by his very shrewd brain and his first call was to his lawyer, who within the hour put him into contact with a London-based specialist in family law. Once all his questions had been answered, Vito was frowning at the realisation that he didn’t really have any rights over his own son. Only marriage granted such legal rights. He didn’t consult Apollo because he knew that his friend would start talking about demanding DNA tests but he and Apollo lived very different lives and Vito was confident that if Holly had given birth to a baby eight months after that night, it could only be his baby.
He didn’t know how he felt about becoming a father, and after he had organised travel to Holly’s home town for the following day and informed her by text of his planned visit, he phoned his mother to break the news.
Concetta Zaffari’s delight at learning that she was a grandmother tumbled through her every word and then there were questions about Holly that Vito found hard to answer, and some he skipped altogether.
‘Obviously you’ll be getting married,’ Concetta trilled cheerfully, and Vito laughed that his mother should even feel the need to say that. Of course they would be getting married. No Zaffari in history had had an illegitimate child and Vito had every intention of being a better parent than his own father had proved to be, although how to go about achieving that ambition he had no very clear idea.
* * *
Holly did not respond to Vito’s text because it annoyed her. Why did he assume that she was free to drop everything to make herself and Angelo available at a time that suited him? She was working an early morning shift the next day because it was a Saturday and Pixie was taking care of Angelo for her.
As a result, when Vito arrived in his limousine, having been picked up from the helicopter ride that had brought him from London, he was taken aback to be met by Pixie and informed that his son was having a nap.
‘Where’s Holly?’ he demanded, frowning down at the diminutive blonde, whose facial expression telegraphed her antagonism towards him.
‘At work.’
‘Where?’
‘The supermarket fifty yards down the road,’ Pixie advanced reluctantly. ‘You can wait in your car. Her shift ends in an hour.’
Infuriated that Holly hadn’t thought to warn him so that he could adjust his arrival time accordingly, Vito strode down the road. He was full of righteous indignation until he walked through the busy shop and caught a glimpse of Holly wheeling a trolley bigger than she was through the aisles and pausing to restock shelves. Tough is working as a shelf-stacker and never getting enough sleep. Abruptly, he spun on his heel and strode back out of the busy shop again, shamed by the reality that the mother of his child was being forced to work so hard to survive.
Vito would have argued that he had not been spoilt rotten, but he had been born rich and with a near-genius-level IQ, and phenomenal success in almost every field was a reward he took for granted. He had never had to struggle, never had to make the best of two bad choices, never had to do anything he didn’t want to do and the sheer undeniable luxury of those realities about his life was finally sinking in on him. With uncharacteristic patience he directed his driver to take him away from the street of tiny terraced houses where Holly lived to a hotel, where he had lunch while imagining Holly going without food, which didn’t improve his appetite.
‘Vito came, then?’ Holly exclaimed as she wriggled out of her overall.
Pixie nodded confirmation. ‘Cheese toastie for lunch?’
‘Lovely. I should’ve texted him to say that time didn’t suit me. I don’t know what it is about Vito but he makes me act completely out of character!’ Holly declared guiltily.
‘Take it from me, anything other than awe and flattery is probably good for Vito’s character. At least he’s interested in meeting his son,’ Pixie said cheerfully. ‘That’s good news.’
Holly scoffed down the cheese toastie and touched up her make-up. She couldn’t sit down, and she couldn’t concentrate either. She wanted to stand at the window waiting for Vito like a kid watching out for Santa Claus arriving. Embarrassment gripped her then and she sat down, only to fly up again when Angelo cried as he wakened from his nap. Changing her son, she gave him a hug and he drank down some water to quench his thirst. It was cold in the small sitting room and she lit the fire to warm it up.
‘I’m off out now,’ Pixie told her while Holly was strapping a wriggling Angelo into his infant seat.
‘But—’
‘This is about you and him and Angelo and it’s private. Give me a text when he’s gone,’ Pixie suggested.
Only minutes later the bell went and Holly’s heartbeat leapt into her throat, convulsing it. She raced to the front door and then paused to compose herself for several seconds before opening it.
‘Holly...’ Vito pronounced softly, staring broodingly down at her from his great height. Sheathed in jeans and a sweater teamed with a buttery soft brown leather jacket, he totally took her breath away.
‘Come in...’ Her wary glance was ensnared by black-fringed dark golden eyes that sent her heart racing. ‘Don’t stare,’ she scolded breathlessly.
‘I find you very attractive. Naturally, I’m going to stare, bellezza mia.’
He hadn’t found her attractive enough to use her phone number, Holly reminded herself ruefully. ‘No, don’t say insincere stuff like that. All we really have to do here is be polite to each other,’ Holly told him in the small, confined hall as he came to a halt beside her.
‘I can manage much more than polite,’ Vito declared, his long brown fingers settling down onto her slight shoulders and feeling the rigid tension that now gripped her small frame. She had the most luscious mouth he had ever seen on a woman, pink and soft and succulent. His jeans tightened at his groin, his physical reaction instantaneous.
At his touch, Holly turned rigid with discomfiture. ‘I meant friendly rather than—’
‘Maledizione! You want me to be friendly when I can hardly keep my hands off you?’ Vito shot at her with raw incredulity. ‘I don’t think I can manage that.’
‘But you have to. I wouldn’t be comfortable with anything else,’ Holly told him earnestly, convinced that only disaster would follow if she allowed any further intimacy to complicate an already tense relationship.
‘Have to?’ Vito queried, a flash of glittering challenge entering his searching gaze as he stared down at her. ‘Have you got someone else in your life...another man?’
Holly dealt him a startled glance. ‘No... Why are you asking that?’
Without warning, Vito moved forward, pinning her up against the wall behind her. ‘Because if there was I’d probably want to kill him!’ he muttered in a raw undertone.
In wonderment, Holly looked up into his lean, darkly beautiful face and then her view blurred as he hauled her up to his level and opened her mouth with the crushing demand of his own. He tasted so good, all minty and fresh, and the strength in the arms holding her felt even better. Every hard, angular line of his long, lean physique was pressed against her as he braced her hips against the wall. The passion of that hungry kiss threatened to consume her and the anomaly between the cool face he showed the world and the uncontrolled hotness hidden beneath electrified her. The piercing ache she had almost forgotten tugged cruelly in her pelvis as his tongue tangled with hers. His mouth was sublime, the feel of his unyielding muscles, hard against her softer curves, incredible. Insane chemistry...insane behaviour, she translated, pulling back from him with shell-shocked abruptness because she knew with shamed horror that all she really wanted to do with him at that moment was drag him upstairs to her bed to rediscover the amazing pleasure he could give her.
‘No, this is not what you’re here for...’ she muttered in curt reminder, her spine stiff as she turned her back on him to walk into the small sitting room. ‘You’re here to meet Angelo and that’s all.’
‘You make it sound so simple when it’s anything but simple,’ Vito countered with a roughened edge to his voice because she had pushed him away and he had had to resist a powerful urge to turn caveman and yank her back to him.
‘If we both make the effort, we can keep this simple and polite,’ Holly stated with rigorous resolve.
‘I have something I need to explain to you first...’ But by that point, Vito could see over the top of Holly’s head and his attention zeroed in so quickly on the child in the infant seat that his voice literally trailed away.