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A muscle in his lean cheek clenched more obviously with each successive insult she flung at him. Scarlet knew she was being wildly unfair, but hitting back at him was a knee-jerk reaction she had no control over.
His face went blank, his eyes flat and cold as they scanned her face.
‘This isn’t a situation of my making, but I’m going to do the right thing whether you like it or not. You’re going to have to work with me on this, Scarlet.’
He was obviously very comfortable with issuing ultimatums, but Scarlet was not at all comfortable about meekly acquiescing!
When he got bossy her automatic response was to do the opposite of what he said and, if at all possible, in a manner that would dent his air of ineffable superiority.
‘And if I don’t?’ People must have been doing what he said all his life to make him so damned sure of himself.
His shoulders lifted expressively as his eyes moved briefly across her faintly flushed face. ‘We both want what is best for Sam, so you will.’
Scarlet felt a shiver trace its icy path up her spine. The silky words held an unmistakable threat and, even though he never deliberately used his undoubted physical presence to intimidate, it was hard not to be daunted by his tenacity.
‘If you wanted what was best for Sam you’d go out that door and forget we exist,’ she charged in a furious hiss.
‘It’s not going to happen.’ His tone was not without sympathy, but there was no room for negotiation in his manner. The expression on his lean face was totally implacable. ‘I have a son, Sam has a father and a family who will all want to know him. Are you going to deprive him of that?’
She blinked, an expression of confusion spreading across her face. How often had she wished that she could offer Sam a large, loving family? ‘Do your family know about Sam?’
‘My mother doesn’t need the results of a DNA test; she was totally confident from that first moment she saw him that Sam is my son. She’s completely over the moon about having a grandchild. I would imagine the champagne is even now on ice.’
‘And will she have told your father?’ Despite herself, Scarlet found herself interested by his colourful background.
Roman shook his head.
She got the impression he didn’t want to discuss his father. It was only a feeling, his cloaked expression was un-revealing, but it was enough to make her speculate.
‘But he’s not going to be happy about having a grandchild?’
‘My father is an inflexible and obstinate man. You understand him better if you accept one thing: he is blind to shades of grey. For Dad things are either right or wrong. You can safely assume that having a child outside marriage will fall into the wrong category.’
‘He would reject Sam?’ The thought that anyone could wish to punish a child for what they, in their narrow-minded way, perceived as the sins of the parents brought a ferocious, protective scowl to her face.
‘No, of course not.’ Impatiently he brushed aside her anxiety.
His response seemed spontaneous enough, but Scarlet remained unconvinced. Sam’s grandfather sounded pretty scary and not at all nice.
She shook her head slowly from side to side. ‘You mean not on the surface, that he’ll be acting one way and feeling another…?’ She shook her head with even more vigour as she thought about it. ‘There is no way I’m having Sam exposed to that sort of atmosphere.’
‘Dad isn’t intolerant.’
‘Isn’t that slightly contradictory? You’re the one who called him “inflexible” and “obstinate”.’
‘He’d probably say the same thing about me.’
His candour took her aback. ‘Well, he doesn’t sound like an ideal role model for a little boy to me.’
Roman adopted a mock bewildered expression. ‘How can you say that when you can see how well I’ve turned out?’
Scarlet frowned. She hated it when he made fun of himself that way; it made him almost likeable. She knew it was very important not to like him.
‘You don’t get on with your father?’
Would it do Sam any favours to be accepted into the bosom of this dysfunctional family? Or am I just grasping at straws? Looking for a reason, any reason, not to cooperate when deep down I know full well I have no right to deny Sam a father and an extended family.
‘That hardly makes me unique, but, yes, we disagree on most things. My father holds some firm views on everything including modern morals—mine mostly.’ He rotated his head as if to relieve the tension in his shoulders.
‘That’s silly; surely he knows most of the stuff in the papers is exaggerated to sell newspapers.’ Dear God, if you took every article about him seriously he could be in Paris and New York at the same time!
‘Scarlet Smith…are you defending me?’ He studied her for several seconds before adding, without the mockery that had laced his previous comment, ‘I’m touched.’
Their eyes collided and Scarlet blushed to the roots of her hair. ‘Everyone knows that you should take the celebrity stories with a pinch of salt,’ she retorted crossly.
Her face got even hotter and her scowl even fiercer as he continued to look at her, one dark brow raised.
‘My father believes there’s no smoke without fire,’ he commented after a painfully long pause—painful for Scarlet anyway.
‘People do and I suppose his generation—’
‘Sure, there is the generation gap, but it’s more than that,’ Roman interrupted. ‘Before he met my mother, Dad had planned to enter a seminary.’
Scarlet’s eyes widened. ‘Seminary? Isn’t that where you train to be a priest?’
‘It is,’ Roman confirmed.
‘Gracious!’ she exclaimed unthinkingly. ‘No wonder he doesn’t approve of you!’
‘You and he will get on famously,’ Roman predicted drily. ‘There’s also…’ Betraying an uncharacteristic indecisiveness, he stopped and raked a hand through his dark hair. ‘Well, you might as well hear the story from me as you’ll undoubtedly hear a version of it from my father when you meet him.’
Scarlet was so curious she let the assumption that she would one day meet O’Hagan senior pass without comment.
‘I was engaged to a girl—Sally.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You were engaged?’
‘Yes, about five years ago. Why so surprised, Scarlet? Most men of my age have had at least one serious long-term relationship.’
‘But I thought you were…’
‘A shallow, womanising pig?’ he suggested. He observed the surge of guilty colour in her cheeks with a cynical smile. ‘Relax, there’s no need to totally retrench, the two are not necessarily mutually incompatible.’
‘Did your father not approve of her?’
‘Far from it, he adored her. He still does. I’d known Sally since we were children—her parents are tenant farmers on the estate. We were always in and out of each other’s houses.’
‘The girl next door?’
He nodded. ‘There was nothing then, but we met up at college and were involved briefly, but it was nothing heavy. Then a few years later we met up at a party. A month later we were engaged. My family, especially my father, was over the moon,’ he recalled.
‘But you couldn’t go through with it.’
Roman’s dark, saturnine features clenched. His lip curled into a self-derisive smile as their eyes met.
‘No, actually she couldn’t go through with it. She ran off on the eve of the wedding with my best man.’
‘Gracious! That’s…that’s…’ She gave a helpless shrug. Very little he could have told her could have shocked her more. Any response seemed hopelessly inadequate. ‘I’m sorry. That must have been awful for you.’
‘I’ve had better days, but it happened a very long time ago.’
Despite his apparent indifference Scarlet couldn’t help but wonder if behind that casual attitude he was hiding his true feelings. Did he still love this woman who had dumped him so ignominiously? Had he gained his playboy reputation as a result of trying to forget his lost love?
‘I don’t understand. If she dumped you how come your father blames you?’
‘There was a note. She asked me not to tell her parents until she had a chance to talk to them. I’m assuming she never did. Nobody but Mother and I know she ran off with Jake.’
‘But—’
‘It didn’t last…she left for France and came back three weeks later alone. As far as my father is concerned I had the perfect woman and I drove her away. Maybe,’ he mused, ‘he was right. There’s a possibility that you’ll meet her in Ireland—she’s a teacher at the local primary school these days.’
‘When you meet up…’ she began, then the implication of his words hit home. ‘I won’t be going to Ireland.’
‘I’m sure Sam will be a lot more comfortable if you do.’
‘That’s moral blackmail!’ she accused angrily.
‘It’s also common sense,’ he pointed out. ‘Don’t worry, my parents will love Sam,’ he promised in a warmer voice. ‘There’s no sinister reason I haven’t spoken to my dad yet, I simply wanted to sort out things with you before I spoke to him.’
‘“Sort out?”’ she repeated, her mouth forming a twisted smile as she angrily studied his lean face. As if I can be filed away like a completed contract. ‘Are we sorted now?’ she asked bitingly.
‘I simply meant…’ Their eyes made contact, his lashes came down, but not before she had seen the seething frustration in those dark depths. ‘You are one prickly female, do you know that?’
‘I don’t like the idea of being sorted.’
‘It’s a figure of speech.’
‘Then maybe you should choose your words with more care.’
‘Dear God, I’m already walking on eggshells around you,’ he claimed. ‘The next logical step would be for us to communicate through a third party. Think about it,’ he suggested heavily. ‘All I knew for sure when I came here was Sam was my child, and you weren’t the mother. I needed some answers.’
‘What did you think I’d done, kidnapped him…?’ she suggested sarcastically.
‘I hadn’t ruled out anything. As I’ve already said, all I knew for sure was you weren’t the mother.’
‘How convenient I’m not beautiful and blonde,’ she jeered. ‘Or you might not have realised it was impossible for me to be Sam’s mum.’
A dark line of anger appeared along the crest of his cheekbones as their eyes made contact. His were darkly furious as they narrowed to angry glittering slits.
‘I’m beginning to think there’s an element of jealousy in your hostility.’
‘“Jealousy?”’ she parroted shrilly. ‘You think I’m jealous that you slept with my sister? You must be mad.’ Her scornful laugh had a hollow sound to it.
‘I was thinking more along the lines of you being jealous because there is someone else with a claim to Sam and you’re possessive, you want to keep him all to yourself. But if the other works?’ One dark brow quirked suggestively.
A scorching flush travelled over her entire body as she gasped into the static silence that followed his words.
‘I wouldn’t sleep with a man like you if my life depended on it!’
‘Not very original,’ he mused, his hooded eyes trained on her heaving bosom. ‘But you get full marks for conviction,’ he commended.
His tone of amused condescension made her want to throw something large and heavy at his smug face. She hadn’t expected the news she didn’t want to sleep with him to send him into a deep depression, but there was no need for him to treat it like a joke.
‘And,’ she continued contemptuously, ‘if I was choosing a father for my baby, you wouldn’t even make the list!’ She stopped, an expression of horror stealing across her face as she drew back from the very brink of revealing her sister’s shameful secret.
As much as Scarlet didn’t like the man, she didn’t dislike him enough to rub his nose in the humiliating fact that, far from getting accidentally pregnant, her sister had planned the entire thing. If he did go on to become part of Sam’s life—and, while she wasn’t ready to admit that out loud just yet, deep down she knew it was going to happen—what would she do then? How was she to know that revealing the truth would not colour any relationship father and son might come to have?
Would Roman feel differently about his son if he knew he had been tricked and used…? It wasn’t inconceivable a man could resent a child born of such circumstances. No, she decided, nothing could be achieved from coming clean.
For several moments Roman remained silent. When he finally responded he no longer appeared in the mood to be diverted by her comments.
‘Having Sam provides you with the perfect excuse for you not getting out there, doesn’t it?’
She responded with a grimace of genuine confusion to his observation. ‘“Getting out there?”’
‘Have you always been scared of relationships?’
‘You think I use Sam as an excuse? That I’m commitment-phobic?’ She released an incredulous laugh. ‘What you know about relationships could be printed on a matchbox. And if by “getting out there” you mean joining the singles scene and hanging out in bars waiting to be picked up, I’m really not that desperate.’
‘I’m happy for you. I wish I could say the same myself, but this conversation is enough to make anyone desperate—’ He broke off and heaved a deep sigh. ‘Do you think we could concentrate on the main objective of this conversation?’
She watched as he linked his hands behind his head and dropped his head back, the action exposed the long, powerful length of his brown throat. Her tummy muscles quivered.
‘What is the main objective of this conversation?’ she asked huskily.
Roman unlinked his hands and let them fall to his side. ‘I’d like to get to know my son, and before you say anything hear me out.’ Their glances locked and slowly, grudgingly, Scarlet nodded. ‘I don’t expect this thing to happen overnight. Obviously it will be better for Sam if I become part of his life slowly…gradually.’
‘If you become part of Sam’s life, you’re going to become part of mine.’
‘Exactly,’ he agreed, not reacting to the horror etched on her face. ‘Which is why I thought you might have some ideas on the subject.’
Scarlet stared at him incredulously. ‘Are you kidding? After what you’ve just thrown at me I can’t even think straight!’
‘Well, we’ll just have to put our heads together, won’t we?’ he gritted.
‘I wouldn’t be seen dead with any part of my body within thirty feet of the corresponding part of yours!’
His features tautened. ‘Listen, my tolerance levels on this are pretty high because I know you think I’m a bastard. That I can accept,’ he said heavily. ‘But we need…You’ve got to think of Sam,’ he reproached sternly.
