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Abby stayed silent as Lorna visibly relaxed and started to ask all the questions that had clearly been bothering her for some time.
Finally she seemed happier and Nico rose to his feet in a fluid movement and flashed her a smile.
‘I hope you feel a little better now.’
Lorna nodded and gave him a weak smile. ‘I do feel better, thank you, although I can’t pretend I’m not worried.’
‘Of course you will be worried.’ Nico slipped his pen back into his pocket. ‘You are a mother and it is a mother’s role to worry. If there are any other questions that you wish to ask me then just ask one of the nurses to contact me and I will be happy to speak to you at any time. I will come and find you after the operation tomorrow so that I can tell you how it went.’
At the reminder of what lay ahead, Lorna swallowed and he reached out a hand and squeezed her shoulder.
‘It will go well. Trust me.’
With that he strode out of the room, leaving Abby to follow in his wake, stunned by what she’d witnessed.
It wasn’t at all what she’d expected.
She’d never seen a doctor take so much time with a family before and she was impressed by how skilfully he’d translated the technical aspects of the operation into language that the family could understand. She was also impressed by the way he’d picked up the signals that Lorna hadn’t understood the previous explanations that she’d been given.
Maybe she’d misjudged him.
‘Thank you for giving them so much time. I’ve never heard a doctor give such a clear explanation. You were amazing with them,’ she admitted quietly, as she walked back along the corridor beside him.
He stopped dead and turned to face her, a frown touching his forehead, almost as though he’d forgotten she was there until she’d spoken.
His eyes locked with hers and suddenly she remembered the way he’d looked at her in the side room.
Accusingly.
Which was utterly ridiculous, she told herself firmly. What could he possibly be accusing her of?
Or maybe he’d recognised her but couldn’t place her.
Maybe she should tell him that she used to go to school with Lucia?
His gaze was cool and assessing and something in those fabulous dark eyes chilled her to the bone.
‘Are you staying for my teaching round?’
‘I can’t.’ She was off duty at four and nothing was going to stop her seeing Rosa. She’d nipped down to the crèche in her lunch-break to check that the baby was all right, but she’d be happier when they were both at home.
‘And will you be at home this evening?’ His voice was silky smooth and she nodded, taken aback by the question.
Why would Nico Santini be remotely interested in her plans for the evening?
His eyes scanned her face with disconcerting thoroughness and then he turned on his heel and walked back onto the main ward, leaving her staring after him, thoroughly confused.
Nico completed his teaching round and glanced at his watch.
‘Are you busy this evening?’ Jack Gibbs was clearly about to extend a social invitation and Nico was quick to make his excuses.
There was only one place he intended to be that evening, and that was confronting Abby Harrington. Incredibly skilled at interpreting body language, he’d instantly recognised her nervousness when they’d been introduced.
His mouth twisted into a bitter smile. After all these years he didn’t think that he made mistakes about women, but he’d certainly been way off the mark in her case.
He’d thought her extremely shy, but she’d also seemed to him to be sensible and intelligent and he’d hoped that she might be a favourable influence on his dizzy sister. She certainly wasn’t the sort of person he would have credited with telling lies or choosing to become a single mother.
It was no wonder she’d looked nervous when he’d walked onto the ward.
She was afraid that he’d discovered her secret and at this very moment she was probably pacing the floor of the tiny flat that she was being forced to vacate, dreading his next move.
And she was right to dread it.
Perfect father material.
Wasn’t that what Lucia had said when she’d persuaded him to be the donor? That they’d decided that he had all the qualities that a man should have. Looks and intellect. Unfortunately for them, they’d failed to realise that being perfect father material also included a sense of responsibility towards fatherhood and it was that same sense of duty that had driven him to check on the child that he’d fathered.
He wondered how Abby Harrington would react when he announced that he intended to claim his child.
For some reason she’d wanted a child of her own and had clearly been prepared to use any means to achieve her objective. Including persuading his sister to lie about her circumstances, he reminded himself grimly.
She’d played a dangerous game and lost.
And now she was going to pay the price.
CHAPTER TWO
ABBY tucked Rosa into her cot and stared down at her with a worried frown. Her cheeks were pink and she’d been unusually fretful again during the evening.
Abby kept trying to convince herself that it was probably just teething, but all her instincts were telling her that the child was coming down with something.
She gave a sigh and stroked the little girl’s hair as she slept.
She loved her so much…
The sound of the doorbell disturbed her and she glanced at the clock, her heart accelerating like a roller-coaster.
Was it the landlord?
He’d given her two more weeks to find somewhere else to live but so far she hadn’t found the time to start hunting.
Remembering what had happened during their last encounter, her breathing grew more rapid and she glanced at the phone.
Should she call the police?
Surely it was illegal to double the rent just because the tenant had refused sex with the landlord!
The bell went again, more insistent this time, and she walked purposefully towards the door, sparks in her blue eyes.
She didn’t need the police. This time she’d handle him herself. She didn’t even care about the flat any more. It wasn’t anything special and in the winter it was freezing. But she needed time to find somewhere else that she could afford and that was impossible in London. She already had to take two buses to get to work and if she moved further out then it would make the journey even worse and that wasn’t fair on Rosa.
But if he tried what he’d tried last time…
Determined to ask for a bit more time, Abby jerked open the front door and gasped in surprise as she saw who was standing there.
It was Nico Santini.
What did he want?
And how had he known where to find her?
For a moment she didn’t speak, too taken aback to think of anything sensible to say, then finally she found her voice.
‘Well—this is a surprise…’
Instead of answering, he stepped past her and strode into her flat, ducking his dark head slightly to avoid banging his head on the doorway.
Abby’s jaw dropped. The arrogance of the man!
Closing the front door behind her, she followed him into the shabby sitting room and paused in the doorway. He was standing with his back to her, his powerful shoulders tense as he examined a photograph.
A photograph of Rosa.
Abby bristled, outrage overwhelming her usual shyness. ‘Did you want something?’
He didn’t even look up, his dark eyes intent on the photograph.
Abby tensed. ‘That’s my daughter.’
He looked up then, his gaze lifting slowly from the photograph to meet her eyes. ‘I know exactly who she is, Abby. I know everything about her.’
Everything?
What exactly did he mean, he knew everything?
She hid her dismay. What was he saying? That Lucia had told him about her treatment at Carlo’s clinic?
She watched, struggling to think logically as he returned the photograph to the shelf with the others, his lean brown hand totally steady.
Why was Nico even interested? she wondered frantically. Why would her daughter be of interest to him? He’d never even passed the time of day with her before.
He took a final look at the photograph and then turned, supremely confident, every inch the arrogant, dominant male as he faced her across the sitting room.
Abby fought the instinct to take a step backwards. This was her sitting room, for goodness’ sake.
But his self-assured masculinity stifled her powers of speech and she dug her fingers into her palms and took a deep breath. There was something about this man that punctured her confidence levels.
‘Secrets have a way of coming out, Abby.’ He spoke slowly, his voice loaded with meaning, and she started to shake.
He definitely knew.
‘Let’s not play games. It isn’t my style. I assume you’re referring to Rosa’s conception,’ she said flatly, deciding that pretence was clearly a waste of time. ‘That should have been confidential but I suppose between siblings anything goes. What I don’t understand is why you could possibly be interested.’
‘No?’ His black eyes glinted slightly and he tossed a file onto the small writing desk by the French doors that led into the tiny garden.
Abby glanced at it, startled, realising that she hadn’t even noticed until now that he’d been carrying a file.
She stared at it now with trepidation, instinct telling her that the contents would be unpleasant.
‘Wh-what is that?’
‘Take a look,’ he suggested, his tone lethally smooth, and she looked at him with a total lack of comprehension.
What was this all about?
Staring at the file as though it were a deadly animal which might strike at any moment, she forced herself to cross the room. It had a plain brown cover which revealed nothing of its contents.
Pausing momentarily, she lifted a hand and flipped it open and then jerked her hand away as if it had been scalded.
The file was about her!
Her and Rosa.
Her whole body trembling, she flicked through the pages, nausea rising in her throat as she read intimate details about herself and her daughter. Intimate and exhaustive details.
Details that no one should know.
An intensely private person, she felt painfully exposed, flayed by the knowledge that this man was in possession of such detailed facts about her.
Appalled, she lifted her eyes to his. ‘H-how did you get this information?’
Nico lifted a broad shoulder dismissively. ‘That isn’t important.’
It was important to her. She’d always hidden the truth about Rosa’s conception from those around her. And here it was staring up at her, taunting her from the page of a file delivered by a virtual stranger.
The fact that he knew about Rosa’s history was bad enough, but to know every detail of her life…
She stared at him, seeking some clue as to the game he was playing, but he was everything that his reputation suggested. Iceberg. If he was feeling anything at all, it certainly didn’t show. There was no doubt as to who had the upper hand, and it wasn’t her.
‘Why? Why are you interested in us?’ Her words were barely a whisper, almost a plea, but there wasn’t a glimmer of sympathy in those hard black eyes.
‘Dio, you really ask me that? Are you still pretending that you don’t know why I am here?’ He walked purposefully towards her and when he finally came to a halt he was standing so close to her that she could feel the warmth from his powerful body. ‘Did you really think I wouldn’t find out the truth, Abby?’
‘The truth about what?’ She swallowed, her breathing shallow as she struggled to understand what was happening. She was obviously missing something. And whatever it was that she was missing, it was clearly something very serious.
‘Are you really pretending that you don’t know who I am?’
Her chin jerked up and she met his gaze. ‘I know who you are.’ Clearly she should have confessed straight away, but it just hadn’t seemed that important and she’d thought it unlikely that he even would have remembered her. ‘You’re Lucia’s brother. I met you a few times when we were at school.’
