glance, Anna obeyed. He held out his hand and helped her to her feet.
‘That dress you’re wearing hurts my eyes.’
Embarrassment made her want the floor to open up and swallow her.
‘I know it’s a bit dazzling, but I grabbed the first thing out of my wardrobe, to tell you the truth.’ She was fumbling for a foothold but couldn’t find one. Had his shoulders always been this wide…his chest this broad and strong? The male heat he emanated so—so drugging?
‘It’s dazzling not because of the riot of colour but because it’s on you. Dazzling like this glorious hair of yours.’ Capturing a handful of burnished copper silk between his fingers, Dante raised the fiery strands to his lips and kissed them.
Anna couldn’t move. It took every ounce of iron will she possessed not to give in to the overwhelming impulse to lay her head against his chest and wrap her arms round his waist. The intoxication of his presence almost made her forget why he was there…almost.
‘I am so glad you haven’t had it cut short since I saw you last.’
‘I—I wouldn’t do that. But, Dante—we—we need to talk,’ she murmured, her own voice sounding like a dazed stranger’s.
‘We can talk like we talked when we first met. Like this. Do you remember, Anna? ‘
The heat of his lips touched the side of her neck, searing the delicate skin there with an indelible brand. ‘I remember,’ she husked, her limbs turning to liquid silver. ‘But we should—We need to.’ A helpless little moan escaped her as Dante moved his lips up to her ear, his mouth planting a hot, devastatingly erotic kiss on her highly sensitive lobe. The molten heat that pooled in Anna’s centre threatened to make her lose her capacity to think at all.
‘What do we need to do?’
With a smile in his voice that was a seductive cocktail of fine malt whisky and luxurious honey, Dante settled his hands on her hips and firmly pulled her against him. The hard male contours encased in his fluidly elegant tailored suit and the suggestion of barely contained impressive masculine strength made Anna shiver. Mesmerised by the haze of longing in his burning gaze, she nervously swallowed. She yearned to succumb to the desire that was flowing with equal ardour through her veins, but an anguished moment of clarity returned, making her stiffen in his arms.
‘What did you mean when you said you weren’t going to fire me from my job? I don’t like the sound of that. It makes me feel like you potentially could fire me if you wanted to. I can’t say that fills me with confidence. not when I have a child to support, and depend on my job for a roof over our heads.’
There was a flash of impatience in his eyes.
‘The point is that you don’t need to depend on your job to sustain you, or for a roof over your heads! I meant it when I said we should marry. And when we’re married I’ll take care of you both.’
‘You make it sound so straightforward and easy. I’m not an investment you’re interested in, Dante. I’m a fully functioning independent human being with my own ideas and thoughts on lots of subjects—including marriage. It’s completely wrong of you to assume that I’d instantly give up everything I’ve worked so hard for to throw in my lot with a man I barely know. A man who only wants marriage because he’s discovered that the one-night stand that we had resulted in a child!’
He set Anna free with a muttered oath and stalked across the room, scraping his fingers through the dark blond strands of his previously groomed hair. His glare was blistering in its intensity. ‘What better reason to marry someone than because you made a child together? Tia deserves to have her father in her life. I want that for her and I want that for me—and as a “fully functioning independent human being” you have no right to deny us!’
‘I’m not saying I’d deny you. But marriage isn’t for me. I…’ She lowered her gaze to stare down at the floor, ‘I like my independence. I like the fact that my hard work has finally got me somewhere and now I have opportunities… I’m captain of my own ship and it’s a good feeling.’
‘So you like being captain of your own ship—but do you honestly like being alone? Raising a child on your own is far from easy, no matter how many opportunities for advancing your career come your way. When the baby is ill do you welcome being her sole carer, with no one but yourself to rely upon to make the best decisions for her welfare? And when she’s ill what do you do if you can’t take time off work for fear of losing your job and your income? ‘
Moving back across the room towards her, Dante had that faraway look Anna had seen before in his eyes.
‘Once when I was five I had the measles…had it quite severely. My mother had no choice but to go out to her job in the evening—it was literally a matter of whether we ate or starved. She asked a close neighbour if I could stay with her for the evening, but the woman refused because she had five children of her own and didn’t want to risk them getting infected. My mother left me in bed. The neighbour promised to regularly check up on me while she was gone. I had a raging fever, and by the time my mother came home I was convulsing. We didn’t have a telephone. She ran with me through the night to a man she knew who owned a restaurant, and he called a doctor. If it weren’t for that I probably wouldn’t have made it.’
His tone bitterly rueful, he shook his head. ‘My mother went to hell and back that night. If she had had someone to help her, someone who cared equally for my welfare, she wouldn’t have suffered the torment and guilt that she did. And I have no intention of ever letting my daughter be in the precarious position I was…no matter what your assurances.’
Barely knowing how to answer him, Anna wept inside for the agony Dante and his mother must have endured that terrible night. It was the kind of nightmare scenario every mother dreaded.
Before she realised it her impulse to touch him, to comfort him in some way, overtook her, and she laid her hand against the side of his face. His skin was velvety warm, pulsing with the vibrant strength she’d detected earlier. ‘I love that you care for Tia so deeply already. But I’m lucky, Dante. I may be a single mum, but I have friends—people who really care for Tia—people who would help us at the drop of a hat.’
‘That may be so, but I have no intention of leaving my child’s well-being to the precarious fair-weather attention of mere friends! No matter how much you might trust them, Anna. So…’ He winced a little when she withdrew her hand, almost as if she’d struck him. ‘There’s only one solution to our dilemma, and I’ve already told you what that is. Now it’s just a matter of arranging things. The sooner the better, I think.’
Stroking her hands up and down her arms, Anna sensed their tremble.
‘I’m not getting married…I told you.’
‘Then regrettably, you’re pushing me into taking action I’d much rather not take,’ Dante retorted. ‘But I will take it if it means I can be with my daughter. I’ll go to court to get full custody of Tia.’
Was it only to her own hypersensitive hearing that her heartbeat sounded so deafeningly loud? Anna thought. She’d been musing on a mother’s worst nightmare but surely this was one of the most horrendous threats a woman could face? That her child’s estranged parent might sue for custody and take her away—maybe to live in another country entirely? Searching for compassion in Dante’s flint-like stare, worryingly, she found none.
‘No!’ she protested loudly, tears stinging the backs of her lids.
He lifted an eyebrow, but looked no less resolved on his course. ‘If you don’t want me to take such an action, then I suggest you stop putting obstacles in the way and agree to our marriage.’
‘That’s so disrespectful. You’d resort to something as low as blackmail to get your own way?’
‘I told you.’ His broad-shouldered shrug was unapologetic. ‘I’ll do anything I can to be with my daughter… the daughter you have so callously