Visconti's Forgotten Heir(60)
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘MY SON AND I have a lot of catching up to do.’
That was what Andreas had said when they had been driving back from that beauty spot the day he had found out about Theo, and true to his word he had immediately seen to it that they made a start.
Rearranging his work schedule, he had taken a week’s emergency leave from his office so that he could be with Theo, and he had certainly gone out of his way over the past week to spend as much time with the little boy as he could.
Theo had been thrilled when Magenta had broken it to him gently that Andreas Visconti was his father—although Andreas had insisted on being there too. As was his right, Magenta had accepted, and she had even been relieved that he had—just as she was pleased that he was so determined to be a hands-on father whenever he could.
What she still couldn’t get used to, or help feeling uneasy about, however, was the way he was suddenly wanting a say in all her decisions about Theo—particularly as the little boy was treating him with such adulation, looking up to this new and exciting Daddy as though the man had always been in her life.
‘I know you want to be self-sufficient and not dependent upon me in any way, Magenta,’ he’d said, the day he had turned up at her flat with the Mini, ‘and I’m sorry, but that isn’t the way I function. I have a responsibility to you now—if only for my son’s sake—so you’re going to have to accept this with the good grace with which it’s being given.’
There was nothing she could say to that, so she didn’t—although she did stand by her guns over the issue of not working for him. It was torture enough having to see him regularly now because of Theo, without subjecting herself to the aching need for him on a daily and more formal basis, when it was all too clear to her that he was never likely to return her love.
She had all but poured her heart out to him that afternoon when she had told him the truth about Theo, and yet he hadn’t pursued the subject of her feelings for him any further.
He obviously didn’t want to do anything to make his son think that his parents were an item, she realised wretchedly, which could only mean that he had decided they never would be. After all, securing her capitulation when he had only himself to consider was one thing. Finding out that the child of the woman he’d been hell-bent on humiliating was actually his, and not some other man’s, must have put a totally different complexion on things altogether.
Consequently on those days when he called round to take her and Theo out she was careful not to give him any indication of the way she felt. She avoided his eyes whenever she felt him looking at her, did her best to hide how the smallest degree of physical contact with him affected her and managed to maintain a cool, emotional distance, although it was agony.
‘Relax,’ he advised one day, when she was handing over her debit card to pay for something for Theo. He had misunderstood the reason for the way she’d gasped when his strong fingers over hers had stopped her from doing so. ‘I know it’s an experience you didn’t want, having your child’s father in the boy’s life, but you’re going to have to get used to it,’ he said quietly, for her alone to hear, and he handed his own card to the cashier.
Taking further control, that week he had secured the riding lessons for Theo that Magenta had been worried she would have to cancel, ignored her protests and renewed the lease on her flat and, to top it all, charmed her indomitable aunt into giving him one of her home-made blueberry pies.
‘How does it feel to suddenly be everybody’s favourite person?’ Magenta snapped at the end of the week, when they were driving back to her flat after that gesture from her aunt, with Theo asleep in the back of the car.
Andreas laughed deeply under his breath. ‘Do I detect some resentment there, Magenta?’
‘Of course not,’ she answered, adding as casually as she could, ‘It’s nice that you’ve been an instant hit with my family.’
* * *
But not with her, Andreas thought, conscious of the fact that she didn’t really want him in her life. Although that was hardly surprising when she knew as well as he did that his sole intention in employing her had, from the start, been to humiliate her and teach her the lesson he’d felt she deserved. During that week of their working together, however, something else had taken over. Something that ever since had had him waking up feeling that he would go crazy if he couldn’t kiss her lovely mouth again and feel her warm, responsive body beneath his.
Noticing the way she was looking over her shoulder at the little boy, with her lips curved in a gentle smile, as he pulled up outside her flat he had to fight the urge to drag her across the car—even with his son in the back—and plunder that luscious mouth until she smiled at him like that. Nevertheless, the way she had referred to Theo and Josie a moment ago as her family grated, and he had to restrain himself from making any comment and fuelling an already-difficult situation as he carried his sleeping son into the flat.