‘When I find the right moment. Not tonight because in the mood he’s probably going to be in he’s likely to just scoop up Nicky and walk straight out of here with him,’ Jemima admitted with a grimace.

‘Whether Luciano Vitale knows it or not, he owes you,’ Ellie said loyally. ‘Julie couldn’t cope with Nicky and you’ve been caring for him since he was only a week old. Your parents will miss him terribly, though, when he goes.’

When he goes, Jemima repeated inwardly, her heart sinking as she was finally forced to face that certainty. Nicky was about to be taken away from her and there was not one blasted thing she could do about it. She was not Nicky’s closest relative, Luciano was.

Jemima was very tense while she waited for her visitor. Nicky looked adorable in a little blue playsuit but he was teething and in a touchy temperamental mood in which he could travel from smiles to tears in the space of seconds.

Jemima heard the cars arrive and rushed to the window. The equivalent of a cavalcade had drawn up outside on the street, a collection of vehicles composed of a black limousine and several Mercedes cars, all with tinted windows. As she watched several men emerged from the accompanying cars and fanned out across the street while clearly taking direction from ear devices. All the men wore formal suits and sunglasses and emanated an aggressive take-charge vibe. Finally the rear door of the limo was opened and Luciano slid out, instantly casting everyone around him in the shade. He wore well-washed jeans and a long-sleeved black sweater...and still, he took her breath away.

The well-cut denim outlined long, powerful thighs and lean hips, while the dark sweater somehow enhanced his blue-black hair and olive skin. Her mouth ran dry while she stared and smoothed damp palms down over her own, more ordinary jeans, wishing she had the same sleek, fashionable edge he exuded with infuriating ease. As she began to back away from the window a movement behind him attracted her attention and she stared as a slim blonde woman climbed out of the car. Instantly, Luciano turned to speak to the woman and a moment later she got back into the car, evidently having thought better of accompanying him. Who was she? His girlfriend?

It’s none of your business who she is, a voice reproved in Jemima’s mind and she moved through to the doorway and breathed in deep, struggling to bolster herself for what was to come. She opened the door briskly. ‘Mr Vitale...’

‘Jemima,’ he said drily, stepping inside, his sculpted lips unsmiling, an aloof coolness stamped across his lean bronzed face like a wall.

‘Nicky’s in here...’ Jemima pressed the living-room door wider to show off Nicky where he sat on the floor surrounded by his favourite toys.

‘His name is Niccolò,’ Luciano corrected without hesitation. ‘I don’t like diminutives. I would also like to meet my son alone...’

Jemima glanced up at him in surprise and dismay but he wasn’t looking at her. His attention was all for Nicky, no, Niccolò, and Luciano’s lustrous tiger eyes were gleaming as he literally savoured his first view of his son with an intensity she could feel. Jemima stared, couldn’t help doing it, noting with relief that the forbidding lines of Luciano’s lean dark face were softening, the hard compression of his beautifully sculpted hard mouth easing.

‘Thank you, Miss Barber,’ Luciano Vitale murmured, deftly planting himself inside the room and leaving her outside as he firmly closed the door in her face.

With a sigh, Jemima sat down on the phone bench just inside the front door. Of course he didn’t want an audience, she reasoned, striving to be fair and reasonable. Who was the woman waiting outside for Luciano? If she was his girlfriend, did he live with her? Was it possible that the girlfriend was unable to have children and that she and Luciano had entered the surrogacy agreement as a couple? And what did any of those facts matter to her? Well, they mattered, she conceded ruefully, because she cared a great deal about Nicky’s future but ultimately she had no say whatsoever in what came next.

As a whimper sounded from the living room Jemima tensed. Nicky was going through a stranger-danger phase. She could hear the quiet murmur of Luciano’s voice as he endeavoured to soothe the little boy. Sadly, a sudden outburst of inconsolable crying was his reward. Jemima made no move but her hands were clenched into fists and her knuckles showed white beneath her pale skin as she resisted the urge to intervene. The sound of Nicky becoming increasingly upset distressed her but she knew she had to learn to step back and accept that Luciano Vitale was Nicky’s father and his closest relative.

When Nicky’s sobs erupted into screams, the living-room door opened abruptly. ‘You’d better come in... He’s frightened,’ Luciano bit out in a harsh undertone.

Jemima required no second invitation. She scrambled up and surged past him. Nicky’s anxious eyes locked straight on to her and he held up his arms to be lifted. Jemima crouched down to scoop him up and he clung like a monkey, shaking and sobbing, burying his little head in her neck.

Luciano watched that revealing display in angry disbelief. Niccolò had two little hands fisted in his mother’s shirt, his fearful desperation patently obvious as he hid his face from the stranger who had tried to make friends with him. As Jemima quieted the trembling child Luciano registered two unwelcome facts. His son was much more attached to his mother than his father had expected and Jemima was very definitely the centre of his son’s sense of security. It was a complication he neither wanted nor needed. His attention dropped to the generous curve of Jemima’s derriere in jeans and he tensed, averting his gaze to the back of his son’s curly head as he felt himself harden. So, he liked women to look more like women than slender boys and she had splendid curves, but he abhorred that hormonal response that was so very inappropriate in Jemima Barber’s radius.

‘He’s teething, which always makes him a bit clingy,’ Jemima proffered in Nicky’s defence. ‘And this is the wrong end of the day for him because he’s tired and fractious—’

‘He’s terrified. Isn’t he used to meeting people?’ Luciano pressed critically.

‘He’s more used to women.’

‘But your parents must’ve been looking after him for you while you were in London,’ he pointed out, momentarily depriving her of breath as he reminded her of the lie she was living for his benefit. After all, nobody could be in two places at once and while Jemima had been teaching and covering Nicky’s childcare costs at a local nursery facility, Julie had been in London.

‘Dad’s retired but he’s still out and about a lot, so Nicky would’ve seen less of him,’ Jemima muttered in a brittle voice, crossing her fingers at a lie that made her feel guiltier than ever because Nicky adored his grandfather.

Nicky stuck his thumb in his mouth and sagged against Jemima with a final hoarse whimper. ‘Sorry about this...’ she added uncomfortably. ‘But in time he’ll get used to you.’

Luciano compressed his lips. He didn’t have time to waste.

‘Is that your girlfriend outside waiting in the car?’ Jemima asked abruptly, keen to know and to change the subject about Nicky’s lifestyle in recent months.

Luciano frowned, winged ebony brows pleating above hard dark eyes fringed by lashes as dense and noticeable as black lace. ‘No, the nanny I’m hiring.’

Jemima stopped breathing. ‘A nanny?’ she gasped in dismay.

‘I will need some support in caring for my son,’ Luciano countered drily, wondering what he was going to do about the problem his son’s mother had become.

Well, he certainly wouldn’t be marrying her as Charles Bennett had ludicrously suggested after the results of the DNA test had been revealed.

‘A paper marriage,’ Charles had outlined. ‘In one move you would legitimise your son’s birth, tidy up any future inheritance issues and gain a legal right to have custody of your son. As an ex-wife you could also give her a settlement without breaking the law. It would be perfect.’