The Mills & Boon Ultimate Christmas Collection. Kate HardyЧитать онлайн книгу.
like gold ingots and gave his lean, darkly beautiful features a hard, forbidding edge.
Horribly aware of the number of people openly staring, Holly turned back to the lift just as the doors opened. She dived in as fast as she could but not fast enough to prevent Vito from joining her.
‘You should’ve come back to my office.’
In silence, Holly contemplated his polished shoes because the tears were even closer now and stinging her eyes like angry wasps.
‘I have to look into this situation. I need your phone number and your address,’ Vito breathed in a raw undertone.
‘I wasn’t expecting you to be so offensive—funny, how you get the wrong idea about people. I really didn’t want to get pregnant, Vito, but I love my son and he is never ever going to hear me admit that because now that he’s here he’s the best thing that ever happened to me,’ she bit out shakily, hurriedly stepping out of the lift.
‘Phone number. Address,’ Vito said again, closing a hand to a slight shoulder to prevent her from walking away through the crowded concourse.
With a heavy sigh, Holly dug into her bag and produced a notebook. He handed her a gold pen. She squinted down at the pen, dimly wondering if it was real gold, and then scolded herself for that stupid thought. She printed out the requested details and ripped out the sheet to hand it back to him. ‘Look,’ she muttered uncomfortably. ‘There’s no pressure on you here. If I’m honest I don’t really want you in our lives. You’re not the sort of man I want around my son.’
And having deprived Vito of breath and speech with that damning final indictment of his character, Holly disappeared into the crowds.
WELL, YOU MADE a real screw-up of that, Vito reflected for the first time in his life. But Holly hadn’t given him the smallest preparation for what was to come, so it was scarcely surprising that everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. He didn’t react well to surprises and the delivery of the Santa hat and the holly had seemed suggestively sexual. Was it any wonder he had got the wrong idea? His hard mouth compressed while he wondered about that note she had mentioned. Had she left a note? He had looked in all the obvious places. There had been nothing on the table or the door, and what did it matter now anyway?
What really mattered was that without the smallest warning he was apparently a father...
That was a mind-blowing concept but Vito was primarily ruled by his very shrewd brain and his first call was to his lawyer, who within the hour put him into contact with a London-based specialist in family law. Once all his questions had been answered, Vito was frowning at the realisation that he didn’t really have any rights over his own son. Only marriage granted such legal rights. He didn’t consult Apollo because he knew that his friend would start talking about demanding DNA tests but he and Apollo lived very different lives and Vito was confident that if Holly had given birth to a baby eight months after that night, it could only be his baby.
He didn’t know how he felt about becoming a father, and after he had organised travel to Holly’s home town for the following day and informed her by text of his planned visit, he phoned his mother to break the news.
Concetta Zaffari’s delight at learning that she was a grandmother tumbled through her every word and then there were questions about Holly that Vito found hard to answer, and some he skipped altogether.
‘Obviously you’ll be getting married,’ Concetta trilled cheerfully, and Vito laughed that his mother should even feel the need to say that. Of course they would be getting married. No Zaffari in history had had an illegitimate child and Vito had every intention of being a better parent than his own father had proved to be, although how to go about achieving that ambition he had no very clear idea.
* * *
Holly did not respond to Vito’s text because it annoyed her. Why did he assume that she was free to drop everything to make herself and Angelo available at a time that suited him? She was working an early morning shift the next day because it was a Saturday and Pixie was taking care of Angelo for her.
As a result, when Vito arrived in his limousine, having been picked up from the helicopter ride that had brought him from London, he was taken aback to be met by Pixie and informed that his son was having a nap.
‘Where’s Holly?’ he demanded, frowning down at the diminutive blonde, whose facial expression telegraphed her antagonism towards him.
‘At work.’
‘Where?’
‘The supermarket fifty yards down the road,’ Pixie advanced reluctantly. ‘You can wait in your car. Her shift ends in an hour.’
Infuriated that Holly hadn’t thought to warn him so that he could adjust his arrival time accordingly, Vito strode down the road. He was full of righteous indignation until he walked through the busy shop and caught a glimpse of Holly wheeling a trolley bigger than she was through the aisles and pausing to restock shelves. Tough is working as a shelf-stacker and never getting enough sleep. Abruptly, he spun on his heel and strode back out of the busy shop again, shamed by the reality that the mother of his child was being forced to work so hard to survive.
Vito would have argued that he had not been spoilt rotten, but he had been born rich and with a near-genius-level IQ, and phenomenal success in almost every field was a reward he took for granted. He had never had to struggle, never had to make the best of two bad choices, never had to do anything he didn’t want to do and the sheer undeniable luxury of those realities about his life was finally sinking in on him. With uncharacteristic patience he directed his driver to take him away from the street of tiny terraced houses where Holly lived to a hotel, where he had lunch while imagining Holly going without food, which didn’t improve his appetite.
‘Vito came, then?’ Holly exclaimed as she wriggled out of her overall.
Pixie nodded confirmation. ‘Cheese toastie for lunch?’
‘Lovely. I should’ve texted him to say that time didn’t suit me. I don’t know what it is about Vito but he makes me act completely out of character!’ Holly declared guiltily.
‘Take it from me, anything other than awe and flattery is probably good for Vito’s character. At least he’s interested in meeting his son,’ Pixie said cheerfully. ‘That’s good news.’
Holly scoffed down the cheese toastie and touched up her make-up. She couldn’t sit down, and she couldn’t concentrate either. She wanted to stand at the window waiting for Vito like a kid watching out for Santa Claus arriving. Embarrassment gripped her then and she sat down, only to fly up again when Angelo cried as he wakened from his nap. Changing her son, she gave him a hug and he drank down some water to quench his thirst. It was cold in the small sitting room and she lit the fire to warm it up.
‘I’m off out now,’ Pixie told her while Holly was strapping a wriggling Angelo into his infant seat.
‘But—’
‘This is about you and him and Angelo and it’s private. Give me a text when he’s gone,’ Pixie suggested.
Only minutes later the bell went and Holly’s heartbeat leapt into her throat, convulsing it. She raced to the front door and then paused to compose herself for several seconds before opening it.
‘Holly...’ Vito pronounced softly, staring broodingly down at her from his great height. Sheathed in jeans and a sweater teamed with a buttery soft brown leather jacket, he totally took her breath away.
‘Come in...’ Her wary glance was ensnared by black-fringed dark golden eyes that sent her heart racing. ‘Don’t stare,’ she scolded breathlessly.
‘I find you very attractive. Naturally, I’m going to stare, bellezza mia.’
He hadn’t found her attractive enough to use her phone number, Holly