Riccardo's Secret Child by Cathy Williams

and then, with tea and pudding and the necessary bustling around the kitchen, something approaching normality was achieved.
    Jeannette chatted happily to Riccardo, leaving Julia free to say as little as possible by way of direct address, although her eyes drifted back to him with unnerving regularity. She watched the way he sat in the chair, his long fingers curled around the cup of tea her mother had made for him, his lithe body inclined towards his daughter. The kitchen was warm and he had removed his jumper so that now he simply wore a green and white checked short-sleeved shirt that exposed powerful, swarthy forearms liberally sprinkled with dark hair. Everything about him redefined the word male . How gorgeous he and Caroline must have looked together, she thought. He was so tall and dark and forceful and she had been just the opposite, small andblonde and exquisitely pretty. Just the sort of woman a man like Riccardo Fabbrini would be attracted to, Julia thought. Not a timid brown sparrow like herself.
    She dragged her attention back to what was happening around her and only realised the time when her mother rose to leave.
    â€˜Will I see you again?’ Nicola asked shortly after Jeannette had left, pausing by the kitchen door with her small hand in Julia’s, ready for her routine of bath and bed. ‘Are you and Aunty Jules going out together?’
    The innocent question hung thickly in the air. Of course Nicola must have wondered what this strange man, whose resemblance to her she had either not noticed or else only subconsciously acknowledged, was doing in the house. And she had overheard her mother insinuating more than once how nice it would be if Julia could find herself a nice boyfriend and think about settling down before all the nice men were snapped up. Nicola had put two and two together and was now asking whether they came to four.
    Julia quickly tried to work out how she could disabuse her niece of this notion without her denial leading to other questions, such as why a perfect stranger who was not going out with her had arrived armed with presents for a child he had never seen.
    â€˜Yes, we are, as a matter of fact, little one,’ Riccardo said smoothly, before Julia could intervene. He countered her shocked look at him with a bland smile that challenged her to refute him. ‘We are most certainly going out.’ This time the smile sent a chill of apprehension racing down her spine. It was a smile loaded with intent.
    â€˜It’s time for your bath,’ Julia told Nicola in a breathless voice.
    â€˜And you’ll read me a story?’
    â€˜I will,’ Riccardo intervened, ‘if you would like.’
    â€˜I would rather Aunty Jules. She always reads to me now.’
    Only Julia caught the grimness of his expression as their eyes tangled, and she shivered. She would let none of her own apprehension show for Nicola to see, and she didn’t, but by the time she returned to the kitchen her seething temper at his casual exploitation of the situation was on the verge of reaching boiling point.
    She steamed into the kitchen to find him lounging on one of the kitchen chairs, flicking through Nicola’s drawing book, with a glass of wine in his hand. He looked up as soon as she stormed in, in no way apparently intimidated by the light of fire in her eyes.
    â€˜Would you care to tell me what the hell you were playing at? Telling Nicola that you and I were going out? How dare you?’
    â€˜Why don’t you go and pour yourself something to drink and calm your frayed nerves?’
    His dark eyes were unreadable. Gone was that glimpse of a man no longer in control of his situation. All that hesitation he had displayed in the company of his daughter had vanished. Every inch of him now breathed self-assurance.
    Julia wondered how she could have softened towards him, even momentarily. The only drink she wanted to pour was not down her throat but over his arrogant