'How dare you talk to me like that?' Margo gasped, rising to her feet in sheer shock.
'You resent my wife's ownership of an estate which has been within her family for over four hundred years. You're furious that she has married a rich man who will help her to retain that home. You hoped she would be forced to sell up because you planned to demand a share of the proceeds,' Luca condemned with sizzling distaste. 'That is why I dare to talk to you as I have.'
'I'm not staying here to be insulted,' Margo snapped, stalking towards the door.
'I think that's very wise.'
Luca listened to the thud of the massive front door with complete calm.
#p#分页标题#e#
Stunned at what had just transpired, Darcy breathed. 'I need to check on Zia...'
'Venezia,' Luca murmured softly, catching her taut fingers in his as she started up the stairs. 'Obviously you chose that name because it held a special significance for you. You were happy with me that night in Venice?'
'Y-yes,' Darcy stammered.
'But we met in what was clearly a troubled and transitional phase of your life.' His lean, strong features were taut, as if he was selecting his words with great care. 'I understand now why you so freely forgave Carlton for jilting you. Evidently he wasn't the only guilty party. You went to bed with someone other than him before that wedding.'
'No, I didn't!' Angry chagrined colour warmed Darcy's face as she stopped dead in the corridor.
'Accidenti! What's the point of denying it?' Luca demanded in exasperation. 'You may well not have been aware of the fact that night, but you were pregnant when you first met me!'
'No...I wasn't,' Darcy told him staunchly, pressing open the door of Zia's bedroom. 'You're still barking up the wrong tree!'
'You must've been pregnant,' Luca contradicted steadily, as if he was dealing with a child fearfully reluctant to own up to misbehaviour. 'Your daughter was born seven months later.'
'Zia was premature. She spent weeks in hospital before I could bring her home...' Darcy held her breath in the silence which followed, and then steeled herself to turn and face him.
Luca had a dazed, disconcerted look in his dark, deep-set eyes. He stared at her. 'She was premature?' he breathed, so low he had to clear his throat to be audible.
'So you see, now that you've been through the butcher, the baker and the candlestick-maker, as they say in the nursery rhyme, we're running out of possible culprits,' Darcy pointed out unsteadily, her throat tight, her mouth dry, her heart thumping like mad behind her breastbone. 'And to be honest, there only ever was one possibility, Luca.'
In the dim light, his eyes suddenly flashed pure gold. 'Are you trying to tell me that...that Zia is mine?' he whispered raggedly.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Darcys voice let her down when she most needed it. As Luca asked that loaded question she gave a fierce, jerky nod, and she didn't take her strained gaze from him for a second.
Black spiky lashes screened his sensational eyes. He blinked. He was stunned.
Darcy swallowed and relocated her voice. 'And there's not any doubt about it because Richard and I never slept together. We had decided to wait until we were married.' 'Never?' Luca stressed with hoarse incredulity. Darcy grimaced. 'And, since we didn't get married, we never actually made it to bed.'
"That means...but that means that I would've been your first...impossible—' Luca broke off and compressed his lips, studying her with shaken dark eyes.
Darcy reddened. 'I didn't want you to guess that night. You said virgins were deeply unexciting,' she reminded him accusingly.
'We both said and did several foolish things that night...but fortunately making Zia was not one of them.' With a roughened laugh that betrayed the emotions he was struggling to contain, Luca closed his hands on hers to draw her closer while he gazed endlessly down at Zia, and then back at Darcy, as if he was being torn in two different directions. 'Per amor di Dio... the truth has been staring me in the face from the start,' he groaned.
'The fact that nobody knew who the father of your child was. You wouldn't say because you couldn't say...you didn't even know my name!' Her anxious eyes were vulnerably wide.
Slowly Luca shook his glossy dark head. 'I saw that photo of Carlton, and he's dark as well. I assumed he was her father and that you still loved him enough to protect him. Then, when you said he wasn't, it still didn't occur to me that she could be my child!'
'You didn't know Zia was born prematurely. She arrived more than six weeks early.'
'I want to wake her up to look at her properly,' Luca confided a little breathlessly as he suddenly released Darcy to look down at his daughter. 'But that's the first lesson she taught me. Don't disturb her when she's asleep!'