was he?
Julie was aghast at the speed with which her mind had summoned up such an inappropriate question. Why on earth should she want Rocco to desire her? She didn’t. Not at all—not even one tiny little bit. The very thought of being in his arms and his bed made her feel. Julie could feel her face starting to burn as she fought to reject exactly what it did make her feel.
She couldn’t imagine Judy feeling humiliated because a stunningly handsome and obviously sensual and sexually experienced man had seen her naked. Far from it. Her late sister would have been the first to take advantage of that kind of situation—she’d have been posing and preening and generally making sure that Rocco was so turned on by her body that he couldn’t resist her. Judy had been wholly confident about her own sexuality. Her attitude had been that men found her irresistible. They always had and they always would.
Sometimes Julie wished she could have a little of her sister’s self-confidence, although she shrank from the thought of sleeping around in the way that Judy had done. It would have been good, though, to be able to put Rocco in his place by knowing that she had the power to ensure that if she wanted to do so she could make him want her.
Not that she would have wanted that, of course. The mere thought of being in bed with a man like him, who could probably do things to a woman’s senses with just the touch of his hands on her naked flesh that she couldn’t even imagine, was enough to have her heart thudding in wary warning.
To her shock, Julie realised how far her thoughts had strayed from thinking how much she hoped that Josh was James’s son.
One thing she was determined on, though, no matter who had fathered Josh. She was his legal guardian and she was not going to give him up—to anyone.
‘What will I have to do, if I am anaemic?’ she asked the doctor, seeing that he had finished putting everything back in his bag.
‘That will depend on how severe your anaemia is. You will certainly need iron tablets, and I think perhaps some of our good warm Sicilian sunshine might do you some good—although you will have to wait a week or so longer for that. Shall I tell Rocco that I am ready to test the little one now, with your agreement?’
Julie nodded her head, watching him as he walked over to the door and then opened it, disappearing through it only to return within a matter of minutes, accompanied by Maria, who was carrying Josh, and Rocco.
Josh was wide awake, his face breaking into a wide smile the minute he saw her.
Julie’s heart melted with love.
‘He is still a bit underweight,’ she told the doctor defensively as she thanked Maria and took Josh from her.
She’d already told him about Josh’s post-birth health problems.
The doctor nodded his head, but he was concentrating on checking Josh over.
‘He is a little small for his age,’ he agreed, before asking Julie to hold Josh whilst he did the DNA test.
A few seconds later, watching as he swabbed the inside of the baby’s mouth, Julie’s heart gave an uncomfortable little thud.
That was how you took a sample for a DNA test? Had the reason he had swabbed the inside of her mouth been because he intended to test her DNA? That he might do so had never occurred to her. What did it matter if he did? she asked herself. She and Josh were related, after all.
Related, yes, but she was not Josh’s mother. How accurate would the DNA test be? She didn’t dare ask. But Rocco, it seemed, did.
‘How accurate an indication of the child’s paternity will this test be, and when will we have the results of it?’ he asked the doctor.
‘It will be accurate enough to make it clear whether or not Antonio is the little one’s father,’ Dr Vittorio answered him, smiling at Julie and thanking her for holding Josh steady for him. ‘And I should have the results through within a week.’
Julie couldn’t, of course, ask if he was testing her, and if it was possible to establish her relationship to Josh from the swabs he had taken. They would be suspicious if she did. And besides it didn’t matter anyway, did it? She was Josh’s legal guardian. But Rocco thought that she was Josh’s mother, and she wasn’t.
So what? It wasn’t her fault that Rocco had got things wrong, was it?
She could have and perhaps should have told him the truth in London.
The Leopardi family were obviously used to getting their own way and making their own rules. If Josh was Antonio Leopardi’s son then it might suit the Leopardis merely to have Josh’s legal guardian to deal with and not his birth mother. Instinctively Julie knew that if Josh was Antonio’s son then the Leopardis would do everything in their power to bring him up as one of their own, despite Rocco’s assurance to her that he and his brothers considered the mother and baby bond sacrosanct. After all, she was not Josh’s mother.
The doctor, Rocco and Maria had all gone, and Julie was free to put Josh down on the beautiful baby mat she had found, along with all the other expensive baby equipment, in the room off her own bedroom which had been fitted out as a nursery.
Josh loved lying on his back, and having the freedom to kick and wave his arms in a room warm enough to allow him to do so in comfort. Julie kissed his bare tummy, and laughed when he tightened his fingers in her hair, gently releasing them. He was smiling up at her so happily. Emotional tears filled her eyes. He was James’s child. She was sure of it.
‘You're so precious—do you know that?’ she told him, adding softly, ‘And your daddy would have loved you so very much.’
‘Whoever his daddy actually was.’
Julie’s heart lurched and rolled into her chest wall with a crash that seized her breath.
She hadn’t realised that Rocco had come back, and that he was now standing in the doorway between the nursery and her bedroom. His voice was as hard as diamonds on glass, and able to penetrate her defences just as easily.
‘You may think that I want your half-brother to be Josh’s father because your family is rich, but the truth is that I hope he isn’t,’ she retaliated fiercely, as soon as she could speak.
‘Liar. If that was the truth then you wouldn’t have made contact with Antonio to tell him that you were pregnant, and you certainly wouldn’t have accepted £25,000 from him to buy you off. There’s no point in denying it. The cheque went through Antonio’s bank account.’
Judy had taken money from Antonio Leopardi? She had never said anything about that to Julie. But then that was typical of Judy, and she would have known how much Julie would have disapproved. All Judy had told her was that Antonio Leopardi didn’t want to know that she was pregnant, and that she intended to tell James that the baby was his, having broken off their engagement just before she had gone to Cannes, but knowing that James adored her and would take her back. Which of course he had.
‘Strange and extremely clever, the way you’ve reinvented yourself as such an adoring mother—ready to go without herself in order to benefit her precious child.’
‘There’s more to being a good mother than buying expensive baby clothes,’ Julie defended herself.
‘Yes, and the first of those things is knowing who your baby’s father is. Unless, of course, you do know but you are keeping quiet about it in the hope of getting more money. If that’s the case let me warn you that you’re wasting your time. I’ve already told you what the terms of any deal will be for any child proved not to be Antonio’s.’
‘How typical of a man like you that you think of everything in terms of money. What I want for Josh can’t be bought.’
‘A man like me?’
He had left the doorway now and was striding towards her like some dark avenging Lucifer, intent on her destruction. Julie scrambled to her feet to stand protectively in front of Josh.
‘You,