Page 39 of The Tycoon's Shock Heir

It was perfect. She still had her Banca Casa di Rossini ID badge and she still had the dress she’d thought she’d never wear again.

With the hugest reluctance she’d dragged it out from the bag at the bottom of her wardrobe and had it cleaned and altered. A few centimetres at the waist was all she’d needed to allow the zip to close. She’d bought her first ever strapless bra, put on her make-up, and then, with no luggage other than her passport and her handbag, her stomach heaving with hormones and nerves, she’d climbed aboard a budget airline flight to Nice.

With cameras everywhere, there would be no better place to do it. He couldn’t say or do anything bad to her with the world watching. She’d jumped in a taxi, pulled up to the château gates, flashed the badge and made her way through the crowds, over the lawns, and up the marble steps to where the rich and the talented had been kissing their hellos.

Her heart had lurched at the sight of him. The same tall, broad frame, the wide, sure stance. His hair had flopped over his brow and his head had been down like a panther about to pounce. He wore a dark suit and pale blue shirt, open at the neck. And, damn him, he’d looked even more handsome than she remembered.

She’d walked along the path, never taking her eyes off him, fully intending to blurt it out, right there on the steps, but as he’d turned and seen her, and shock had filled his eyes, something had held her back. Something in that look had held her in place, told her not to say the words yet. Some desperate warning that, miraculously, she had decided to heed.

But it was all about a deal.

As soon as he’d learned he was going to be a father he’d upped and left, gone back to his party. The deal was clearly more important than learning he was going to be a father. But what else had she really expected? And now she’d lost her chance to shame him in front of the world.

She walked to the window and stared down at the party.

The elderly couple were pulling away in their car. She saw Matteo raise a hand to wave them off and then he watched them go, standing still as the marble pillars on either side of him that held the roof aloft.

‘That’s your father,’ she whispered to the baby growing silently within her. ‘Your father that I barely know. I’m sorry...so sorry, my angel. I never meant this to happen. But whatever is best for you I will do it. I will fight for you—and I will make sure he does not abandon you.’

As she stared down at the top of his head he suddenly turned and looked up at the window, as if he’d heard her words. She met his eyes, and again that arc of something deep and strong sprang between them. He turned around fully now, as one, two, three more seconds ticked by, his steady gaze so powerful that it made her want to reach for something to hold on to.

Then he bowed his head and was gone.

Her heart began to thunder and her legs began to move. She wasn’t going to stay hidden away up here a moment longer. She was going to go down to the party and find him—before he got tangled up in some other business conversation, or some woman threw herself all over him and she slid even further down his list of priorities.

She would not disappear because it didn’t suit him to have a child. Never.

She moved across the room, put her hand out to push the door—but it landed instead on the wide, warm chest of Matteo.

Without missing a beat, he put his hand over hers and spun her around with him.

‘Now we can get out of here.’

Her feet barely touched the ground as he sped them along the hallway, now flooded with late-evening sun and the faint glow of just-lit lamps.

‘David, I need a launch out to the boat. Set it up. Clothes, food... But above all else—privacy.’

He slipped his phone away and at the top of the stairs he turned. ‘We’ll use the servants’ entrance.’

‘For what? What’s going on?’

His jaw was grim, his mouth pinched, but he looked at her with surprise in his eyes.

‘You wanted to talk. So we talk—without anyone listening. Offshore. I don’t want any distractions.’

His dark berry eyes gave nothing away, but she could feel the energy pulsing off him in waves. He was bullish. He was going to take this head-on—she could see that. He wasn’t running away.

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