Visconti's Forgotten Heir(56)

As she stooped to kiss him, however, he scampered back along the passage towards Andreas, saying, ‘I want to come too. I want to ride in Mr ’Conti’s big car.’

‘Not now, darling. You have to stay here and eat all the lovely lunch that Aunt Josie’s cooked you,’ Magenta explained gently, trying to pacify him.

But the little boy, usually so well-behaved, was having none of it.

‘Why can’t I come? I want another ride in Mr ’Conti’s car.’ He was practically in tears now.

‘Hey! What’s all this?’ Andreas asked softly, dropping to his haunches so that his eyes were on the same level as the little boy’s.

‘I want to come with you,’ Theo sobbed, and then, to everyone’s amazement, he wound his arms tightly around Andreas’s neck.

Magenta darted an anxious glance towards her aunt—who didn’t notice, or was choosing not to.

‘I’m flattered, Theo.’ There was no mistaking the surprised emotion in the deep, masculine voice. ‘But if just this time you’ll stay here and look after your aunt, I’ll be back for you later, I promise.’

Alarm bells started clanging ominously inside Magenta’s head even as Andreas’s statement went some way to pacifying the little boy.

‘You shouldn’t have said that,’ she rebuked as soon as he had stepped into the car beside her. ‘You should never make promises you can’t keep.’

‘Don’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t say, Magenta,’ he warned, fastening his seat belt across his body with swift, economical movements. ‘And, believe me, I never break promises. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say anything at all to me for a while,’ he said as he pulled away, ‘Because the way I feel towards you right at this moment, my dearest, I’m angry enough to bloody well crash this car!’

* * *

Andreas was sitting grim-mouthed as he steered the Mercedes through the heavy midday traffic, bringing it up onto the ring road and out of the hubbub of the crowded city.

When he had come back from Paris two weeks ago to find Magenta gone from the house he’d automatically assumed that she would turn up at the office the following day—until he had found the note she had left on his desk in the study.

He shouldn’t have been surprised that she had walked out on him, but he had—and shockingly so. Especially as she hadn’t said anything about leaving after their conversation in the woods or before he’d driven off for that meeting the previous day.

He had told himself it was for the best. That there was no way he would ever lay himself open to her fickle charms again. That he had suffered enough the first time. But there was something about this woman that he had never been able to prevent getting under his skin.

Even while he’d been telling himself that it was safer for his sanity’s sake that she had gone from his life and—even more importantly—from his bed, some masochistic part of him had needed to see her again. A need to redress the wrong in the hardship he must have caused her had been a convenient excuse to delude himself over his main reason for wanting to see her. Because he darn well couldn’t help himself! he realised, with tension gripping the hard sweep of his jaw. And all the time she had been able to simply walk away from him without even telling him he had a son!

As he followed the signs and took the slip road to a local beauty spot he realised that, despite all the possibilities that might have had him questioning her claim to paternity, there was no doubt in his mind at all that little Theo James was his. The boy had his colouring, his eyes and he looked just like he did in a photograph he had of himself playing cricket with his father at the same age. But why had Magenta denied him the right even to see his own son? Taken it on herself to keep his identity hidden?

Well, she had some explaining to do, he promised himself as he brought the car off the slip road to the roundabout. And she was going to have to make it good!

* * *

Magenta looked at him guardedly as he stopped the car in a deserted lay-by. They were high on a hill, among acres of grassland and managed forestry, and way down, through a bank of trees, she could see the glinting blue water of a reservoir or some sort of man-made lake.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he rasped. He was looking intently ahead, out of the windscreen, as though seeing something other than the white line along the quiet road. ‘Why did you let me think he was Rushford’s son?’

‘I didn’t. That was something you decided for yourself from the beginning.’

‘But you didn’t put me straight, Magenta. Why?’

She looked away, catching a glimpse through the trees of a white sail down there on the wind-ruffled lake. ‘I don’t know. I was afraid.’