Sins of the Past (9 page)

He was still sleeping when she came back into the sitting room, having substituted her dressing gown for pale blue jeans and a white T-shirt, and very gently she lifted him up, deciding he would be much more comfortable in his bed.

She was just coming in from hanging the freshly laundered bedspread on the clothesline in her postage stamp of a garden, when the doorbell rang.

‘Damiano!’ He was the last person she had expected—or wanted—to see standing outside her door.

‘The studio telephoned. Said something about you being unwell.’

And he had driven over here straight away to check! she figured, aghast.

‘Well?’ he prompted, when all she could do was stand there holding the door open in shocked dismay. ‘Are you going to invite me in?’

Of course. She had to, she realised, her mind racing, characteristically running a hand through her still damp hair.

Miraculously, there wasn’t a toy or anything else lying around to betray her as she showed him into her small sitting room. Thank heaven she had spent a few minutes tidying up!

Reluctantly, though, she noted the impact Damiano’s presence made upon her little ground-floor flat. He seemed to dominate it with his height, his sheer masculinity and his dangerous persona. His shoulders were wide beneath the sleek cut of his dark suit jacket, and the spruce of his cologne was making her want to inhale until she hyperventilated.

After a swift survey of the room, those all-seeing eyes returned to Riva, resting on her fresh, unblemished complexion.

She swallowed, feeling exposed by his stripping regard, wishing she’d at least had time to put on some mascara.

‘I must say you look rather pale. But then you always do,’ he remarked, with that firm mouth twisting speculatively. ‘And I think those dark circles under your eyes could testify to far too many late nights. However, Olivia Redwood assured me you weren’t well.’

‘So you came over to check for yourself!’

His attention was caught by the soft tinkling of the wind chimes above the kitchen door she had left ajar. It was creaking further open, giving her a glimpse of her whirly washing line and Ben’s yellow tiger bedspread hanging from it. Fervently, she prayed Damiano wouldn’t notice.

‘What seems to be the problem exactly, Riva?’

So he hadn’t believed her.

‘Woman’s trouble,’ she stated bluntly, hoping to embarrass
him for asking, edging sideways a little to distract his attention away from the kitchen and the washing line. Anyway, it was true in a way, wasn’t it? she thought glibly, in an attempt to make herself feel better over misleading him.

He was as unfazed by her declaration as if she had just admitted to having a headache—which wasn’t far short of being a reality, strung up as she was from his turning up there unannounced.

‘Or man trouble?’

He had obviously got it into his head that she was in some sort of tempestuous relationship with someone, and foolishly she had let him think so, she reflected, regretting it now, because he wasn’t prepared to let the subject drop.

‘Is this the source of your problems, Riva? The real reason that’s kept you away from your work today?’

‘I told you why I couldn’t come …’ Unconsciously she darted a glance towards Ben’s bedroom door. ‘It isn’t my fault if you don’t believe me!’

Dear heaven, make him go, she prayed, before her child woke up!

Nothing, though, could make Damiano D’Amico do anything he didn’t want to do, she realised with a sinking heart, as clarity lit his eyes and his mouth firmed in grim comprehension when he noted the direction in which her anxious glances were straying. ‘Ah, I see.’

‘No, you don’t!’ she snapped, realising what he had to be thinking.

‘What’s he doing, Riva? Catching up on lost sleep?’

‘As a matter of fact he is!’ Good heavens! What was she saying? ‘I don’t know what you think gives you the right to just barge in here—interfering with my private life! I’ll be back as soon as I’m feeling better. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you’d just leave.’

He didn’t, though. He just stood his ground, his highly polished designer shoes planted firmly on her cheap carpet,
his stance intimidating, long legs slightly apart, arms folded across his broad chest, his face an impervious mask.

Any minute now, she thought, Ben was going to wake up. And then where would she be if Damiano realised the truth?

‘Why?’ Those tanned features hardened inexorably. ‘Don’t you want him to know I’m here?’ He looked as he had that day he had told her he could make life difficult for her—and not only that but enjoy doing it. ‘May I remind you,’ he imparted with chilling softness, ‘that it is probably my money that is keeping you and everyone else in that company you work for employed, in view of the amount of business I put its way. You will do well to remember that. I was beginning to think you were different, but you really are a dishonest little cheat, with a gold-digger for a mother and a convicted fraudster for a father, who thrives on taking any fool for all she can get—only this time,
cara,
this fool knows you far too well!’

‘Don’t you dare say that!’ No matter what he thought of her, she couldn’t bear his cruel remarks about the woman who had brought her up. Horrified, she watched him storm towards her son’s closed door. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I think it’s time your lay-about boyfriend was acquainted with a few facts!’

‘No!’ She was chasing after him.

‘Why? Afraid he’ll dump you if he finds out that we were lovers?’

‘Damiano, please …’ Impetuously she darted in front of him, blocking the door with her body.

‘He means that much to you?’ His eyes were glittering like black ice.

She couldn’t answer. How could she, she thought, without compounding all the misconceptions he had about her?

‘And yet you respond to me with a passion even you can’t deny.’

His gaze, falling from hers, burned through her T-shirt with shocking thoroughness. In response she felt the tips of
her aching breasts swell into tight, tense buds, betraying her through the soft cotton, letting him know that he was right.

‘You want to, but you can’t. Isn’t that right,
cara?’
One long finger traced the deep vee of her top with insolent awareness, coming to rest beside the small cleft of her breasts just above the place where her heart was beating like the wings of a trapped moth. ‘How far would you allow me to go,
carissima,
with the man whose bed you’ve no doubt not long climbed out of lying there behind that door?’

She pressed her eyes closed to blot out the sight of those arrogant Latin features, to try and banish the sound of that sexily accented voice taunting her, turning her on like no other man had ever been able to turn her on—or ever would. His tangible warmth and that enervating scent of him was making her head spin, robbing her of her ability to reason.

She wanted him! Wanted him to take her in his arms and give her no choice but to allow him mastery over her shamefully willing body. But how could she let him affect her like this after all he had done? When she despised him so much? How could she unless she was depraved—or totally out of her mind?

Hanging on to what shred of her sanity remained, with her eyelids still pressed tight, she got out raggedly, ‘I asked you to leave.’

Surprisingly, his hand fell away from her, but there was a triumphant look in his eyes when she dared to meet them again.

‘Maybe it would be a pity to destroy his illusions about you, if he’s as big a fool as I think he is,’ he said grimly, still insulting her. ‘No doubt you will resume work at my grandmother’s house as soon as you see fit.’

She wanted to retaliate—say something in her own defence—but only the truth could exonerate her, she thought, and she wasn’t prepared to tell him that. Besides, unbelievably, he was actually leaving!

As he swung away from her, though, the tiny voice that called to her from behind the door was like a cold hand around her heart. And, what was worse, Damiano had heard it too.

His face as he turned was marked with speculation, puzzlement, disbelief.

The eyes boring into hers held myriad questions, but Riva didn’t stay to answer them.

So now you know, you arrogant swine! she thought bitterly, and as the small voice came again she pushed open the door, hurrying to her child’s side.

‘What is it, darling?’

‘I want to get up,’ the little boy murmured tiredly.

Not yet, Riva wanted to say, conscious of Damiano standing there in the doorway, judging her, thinking goodness knew what.

It wasn’t her son’s fault, though, that she was feeling so helplessly in denial.

Gently she said, ‘Are you feeling better, sweetheart?’ The child nodded, yawning widely. ‘Come on, then.’

As he scrambled upright, she plucked the soft blanket off his bed and wrapped it around him, then, with the little boy balanced on her hip, she walked straight past Damiano without a word.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you had a son?’

Every nerve on alert now, she swung to face him. ‘And give you yet another weapon to hurt me with?’

Would he guess? she wondered, her heart racing.

His dark scrutiny rested on the little boy, who was twisting around to stare up at him with wide and fascinated hazel eyes. Would he notice a resemblance? Put two and two together? Why would he? she reasoned with herself. Ben’s hair colour was a cross between hers and Damiano’s, and he had inherited her pale complexion rather than his father’s.

Dry-mouthed, trying to act normally, she declared, ‘I need
this job, Damiano. I didn’t know how you’d view taking on a single mum to work for you.’

A muscle pulled in his jaw as he glanced from her to Ben and then back to Riva again. ‘In a far more favourable way, had you told me the truth.’

Because she had as good as made a fool of him by letting him assume she had a lover, she realised, surprised when she saw the touching smile he gave the little boy.

‘What is your name,
piccolo?’

With unblinking eyes riveted on Damiano, the boy bit his lip, totally overawed.

‘It’s Ben.’ Riva’s voice trembled with so much emotion she was sure Damiano would notice it.
Benito.
She slammed the lid down on her desire to say it. ‘Ben …’ Lovingly she ran a hand over his soft silky hair. ‘Say hello to Mr D’Amico.’
Your father,
she knew she should tag on, but couldn’t force the words past her lips.

Ben sent up a sheepish grin and said shyly, ‘Hello.’

Indulgence laced the deep velvety tones. ‘Hello, Ben.’

This first and unexpected interaction between father and son tugged painfully at Riva’s heart.

Tell him,
she urged herself, remembering her mother’s advice, but she couldn’t. Even now, when the two of them were face to face, she couldn’t.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she managed to get out, ‘I couldn’t leave him this morning. He wasn’t very well.’

‘Dio mio!’
Concern lined the strong masculine face. ‘Nothing serious, I hope?’

Beneath the attention of this stranger, who had obviously made him forget that he had been up half the night, Ben giggled—until self-consciousness overcame him and he turned his little face into Riva’s shoulder.

‘Piccolo
… you are not shy?’

He was—sometimes, Riva thought. And then nothing could coax him back to speaking again.

Amazingly, though, a little encouragement from those
caressingly deep tones restored the little boy’s confidence almost at once.

Looking back at Damiano, he asked innocently, ‘Are you Mummy’s new friend?’

If he’d wanted to give Damiano the wrong idea about her, he had succeeded! Riva realised, despairing, as her green eyes clashed with censuring ebony. The man was also probably thinking the same as she was, she thought, with a surprising emptiness inside. Whatever their relationship had been—or whatever it was now—she could never call Damiano D’Amico her friend.

‘Mr D’Amico is the man whose house I’m making look nice,’ she corrected her son gently, acutely aware of that keen, masculine appraisal of her tense profile.

‘Mummy stayed home today,’ Ben was telling him importantly.

‘Sì.’

Those dark, intelligent eyes hadn’t left her face. Exposed, feeling as though her nerve-endings were being stripped raw, apprehensively Riva wondered what he was thinking.

‘How old are you, Ben?’

It was the question Riva had dreaded.

‘Three,’ she said quickly, answering for him, hoping the little boy wouldn’t contradict her. Bundled up in his blanket, he did look smaller than he really was.

Ben’s attention, though, had been caught by the rattle of the wind chimes as the back door blew fully open, revealing his yellow bedspread billowing in the wind. The puffed-out tiger head with its open jaws seemed to Riva to be leering at her, a chasm waiting to swallow her up if she stepped too far off the mark.

‘Where is his father?’

This further question, even though expected, produced a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

‘Ben … why don’t you go and switch on your new DVD in the bedroom? It’s still in the machine,’ she advised, setting
him on his feet with his blanket around his shoulders, and was grateful when mercifully he complied.

Without looking at Damiano, she said, ‘It didn’t work out.’

‘That’s unfortunate.’

‘Not really.’ She went over and pulled her son’s door to as some helium-filled voices started up their familiar song. ‘Ben and I are happy as we are.’

‘And was his father just another casual acquaintance passing through your life? Or did this one actually mean something to you?’ His tone was scathing, criticising, hard.

Imperceptibly Riva flinched from the reminder of just how ‘casual’ he thought she had been with him. Hurting, she couldn’t help flinging it right back in his face. ‘You mean like the one you actually came here to confront today?’

She stormed past him into the kitchen, closing the door to the garden with a rapid jangling of chimes that reflected her mood.

‘OK.’ He was there, with his hands resting on either side of the archway, as she turned round, impressionably fit and formidably beautiful. ‘So in that I was wrong about you.’