The Sicilian's Unexpected Duty(9)

                He looked back at her, realising for the first time that she was shaking. It took all his control to keep his own body still.

                Dragging air into his lungs, he considered the situation as dispassionately as he could, which was hard. Very hard. His brain felt as if someone had thrown antifreeze into it. ‘Congratulations. You’re going to be a mother. Now tell me, what makes you so certain I’m the father?’

                She opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. ‘What kind of stupid question is that? Of course you’re the father. You’re the only man I’ve been stupid enough to have sex with.’

                ‘And I’m supposed to take your word on that, am I?’

                ‘You know damn well I was a virgin.’

                ‘I am not disputing that you were a virgin. What I am questioning is my paternity. I have no way of knowing what you got up to after I left. How do I know that after discovering all you’d been missing, you didn’t go trawling for sex—?’

                Her hand flew out from nowhere. Crack. Right across his cheek, the force enough to jerk his face to the side.

                ‘Don’t you dare pull me down to your own pathetically low standards,’ she hissed, her face contorted with anger.

                His cheek stung, smarted right where her hand and fingers had made contact. She might be small but she packed a proper punch. He could feel her imprint burrowing under his skin. He raised a hand to it. Her finger marks lay on the long scar that had been inflicted on him when he’d been eighteen. There were still times when he could feel the blade of the knife burn into his skin.

                ‘I will let you do that this one time,’ he said, speaking carefully, controlling his tone. ‘But if you ever raise a hand to me again you will never see me or my money again.’

                Her breaths were shallow. ‘You deserved it.’

                ‘Why? Because I pointed out that you are expecting me to take you at your word? Trust me, I take no one at their word, especially a woman purporting to be carrying my child.’

                ‘I am carrying your child.’

                ‘No—you are carrying a child. Until the child is born and we can get a paternity test done, I do not want to hear any reference to it being mine.’ After what Luisa had done to him, he would never take anything to do with paternity at face value again. Never.

                Only fools rushed in twice.

                * * *

                Cara itched to slap the arrogance off his face again, so much so that she dug her nails into the palms of her hands to find some relief.

                If she could, she would leave. But she couldn’t. She hadn’t been exaggerating about the state of her bank balance. Paying for the return flight to Sicily had left her with the grand total of forty-eight euros to last her until payday, which was still a fortnight away. It was one thing living on baked beans on toast when she had only herself to support, but it was quite another when she would soon have a tiny mouth to feed and clothe. And she needed to find a new home, one that allowed children.

                When she’d first discovered she was pregnant, her fear had been primitive, a cold, terrifying realisation that within her grew a life, a baby.

                Jeez. A baby. She couldn’t remember ever even holding a baby.

                That real terror had morphed when the freeze in her brain had abated and the reality of everything that having a child meant had hit her.