A Christmas Marriage Ultimatum. HELEN BIANCHIN

hand, intent on causing emotional havoc before the game was over.

      Who would win? a silent imp taunted.

      Dimitri replaced his cutlery, then he picked up his wineglass and leaned back in his chair. ‘Do you want to begin, or shall I?’

      Chantelle lifted a hand in a negligent gesture. ‘Oh, please. Be my guest.’

      For a few seemingly long seconds he didn’t speak, and she could tell nothing from his expression.

      ‘Samuel’s birth certificate records June one as the day he was born.’

      How could he know that?

      Dimitri’s mouth moved to form a wry smile. ‘I called in a favour.’ All he’d had to do was make a few phone calls, and he had the information he needed within hours.

      ‘Nine and a half months after we began our relationship,’ he pursued, watching her expressive features through a narrowed gaze. Anger had been just one of the emotions he’d experienced at the confirmation. Resentment had followed with the knowledge she’d chosen not to reveal her pregnancy. There was also a mixture of pride and joy at the thought he had a child…a son.

      As to the child’s mother…he’d deal with her. But not easily.

      ‘So,’ he continued silkily. ‘Shall we move on?’

      ‘Samuel is mine,’ Chantelle reiterated fiercely. ‘I could have had an abortion.’ She’d never considered it as an option. Hadn’t, even from the onset, thought of a child…Dimitri’s child, but indisputably hers…as an encumbrance.

      ‘Yet you didn’t.’

      She remembered the birth, when she’d cursed Dimitri a hundred times…and she thought of the moment the nurse had placed Samuel in her arms. The indescribable joy that transcended all else, and the fierce protectiveness for the tiny life.

      ‘No.’

      He wanted to reach across the table and shake her. For denying him the opportunity to be there, to care for her, and to claim the child as his own.

      ‘Tell me,’ he pursued silkily. ‘Did you ever intend for me to know I had a child?’

      ‘Not if I could help it.’

      ‘Your body, your responsibility?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Allowing some other man to take my place? Raise my son as his own? Give him his name?’

      Chantelle could sense the anger beneath his control, feel it emanate from his body as a tangible entity.

      ‘Samuel is registered as Samuel Leone.’

      ‘Something that can easily be changed.’

      ‘To what purpose?’ she demanded. Anger rose to the fore, darkening her eyes. ‘I live in France, you reside in New York.’

      ‘Samuel is a Cristopoulis. He has a heritage,’ Dimitri endorsed with quiet savagery. ‘I intend to ensure he claims it.’

      ‘With you?’ She was like a runaway train, unable to stop. ‘What are you going to do, Dimitri? Engage a nanny during Samuel’s visits? Maybe look in on him as he sleeps when you leave your apartment in the morning, and again when you return long after his bedtime?’ She picked up her napkin and thrust it on the table. ‘Is that your idea of parental visitation rights?’ She rose to her feet and gathered her purse. ‘Hell will freeze over before I’ll allow it.’

      He watched her with interest, admiring the fire, the sheer will beneath her fury. A mother defending and protecting her own, he mused.

      The waiter chose that moment to deliver the main course, only to stand poised as he sensed the onset of a scene.

      Chantelle turned away from the table, only to have her escape forestalled as Dimitri’s hand closed over her wrist.

      She tried to wrench her hand free, and failed miserably. Fury pitched her voice low. ‘Let me go.’