‘And perhaps we could find you a street paved with gold while we’re at it? That way you could bypass me completely and simply help yourself to whatever it was you wanted?’
It took a moment or two for her to realise he was being sarcastic but the darkly sardonic look on his face left her in no doubt. ‘You were joking,’ she said woodenly.
‘Yes, I was joking,’ he bit back. ‘Unless you think I’m gullible enough to write you an open cheque so you can go away and bring up my son in whatever chaotic state you choose? Is that your dream scenario? Setting yourself up for life with a rich but absent babyfather?’
‘As if,’ she returned, her fingers digging into the thin hospital sheet. ‘If I had gone looking for a wealthy sperm donor, I’d have chosen someone with a little more heart than you!’
Her words were forceful but as Renzo absorbed her defiant response he noticed that her face had gone as white as the sheet she was clutching. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, Darcy,’ he said, self-reproach suddenly rippling through him.
‘Being able to hurt me would imply I cared.’ Her mouth barely moved as she spoke. ‘And I don’t. At least, not about you—only about our baby.’
Her fingers fluttered over the swell of her belly and Renzo’s heart gave a sudden leap as he allowed his gaze to rest on it. ‘I am prepared to support you both.’ His voice thickened and deepened. ‘But on one condition.’
‘Let me guess. Sole custody for you, I suppose? With the occasional access visit for me, probably accompanied by some ghastly nanny of your choice?’
‘I’m hoping it won’t come to that,’ he said evenly. ‘But I will not have a Sabatini heir growing up illegitimately.’ He walked over to the window and stared out at the heavy winter clouds before turning back again. ‘This child stands to inherit my empire, but only if he or she bears my name. So yes, I will support you, Darcy—but it will be on my terms. And the first, non-negotiable one is that you marry me.’
She stared at him. ‘You have to be out of your mind,’ she whispered.
‘I was about to say that you have no choice but it seems to me you do. But be warned that if you refuse me and continue to live like this—patently unable to cope and putting our child at risk—I will be on my lawyers so fast you won’t believe it. And I will instruct them to do everything in their power to prove you are an unfit mother.’
Darcy shivered as she heard the dark determination in his voice. Because wouldn’t that bit be easy? If that situation arose he would start digging around in her past—and what a bonanza of further unsavoury facts he would discover. The drug addict bit was bad enough, but would the courts look favourably on the child of a prostitute without a single qualification to her name, one who was struggling to make ends meet and who had been admitted to hospital with severe exhaustion? Of course they wouldn’t. Not when she was up against a world-famous architect with more money than he knew what to do with.
She licked her lips, naked appeal in her eyes. ‘And if the marriage is unbearable, what then? If I do want a divorce sometime in the future, does that mean you won’t give me one?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m not going to keep you a prisoner, Darcy—you have my word on that. Perhaps we could surprise ourselves by negotiating a relationship that works. But that isn’t something we need to think about today. My priority is to get you out of here and into a more favourable environment, if you agree to my terms.’ His gaze swept over her, settling at last on her face so that she was captured by the dark intensity of that look. ‘So...do I have your consent? Will you be my wife?’
A hundred reasons to refuse flooded into her mind but at that precise moment Darcy felt her son kicking. The unmistakable shape of a tiny heel skimmed beneath the surface of her belly and a powerful wave of emotion flooded over her. All she wanted was the best for her child, so how could she possibly subject him to a life like the one she had known? A life of uncertainty, with the gnawing sense of hunger. A life spent living on the margins of society with all the dangers that entailed. Secondhand clothes and having to make do. Free meals at school and charity trips to the seaside. Did she want all that for her little boy?
Of course she didn’t.
She stared into Renzo’s face—at all the unshakable confidence she saw written on his shuttered features. It would be easier if she felt nothing for him but she wasn’t self-deluding enough to believe that. She thought how infuriating it was that, despite his arrogance and determination to get his own way, she should still want him. But she did. Her mind might not be willing but her flesh was very weak. Even though he’d wounded her with his words and was blackmailing her into marriage—she couldn’t deny the quiver of heat low in her belly whenever he looked at her.
But sex was dangerous. Already she was vulnerable and if she fell into Renzo’s arms and let him seduce her, wouldn’t that make her weaker still? Once their relationship had been about passion but now it was all about possession and ownership. And power, of course—cold, economic power.
But a heady resolve flooded through her as she reminded herself that she’d coped with situations far worse than this. She’d cowered in cupboards and listened to sounds no child should ever have had to hear. She’d stood in courtrooms where people had talked about her future as if she weren’t there, and she’d come through the other side. What was so different this time?
She nodded. ‘Yes, Renzo,’ she said, with a bland and meaningless smile. ‘I will marry you.’
DARCY ALMOST LAUGHED at the pale-faced stranger in the mirror. What would the child she’d once been have thought about the woman whose reflection stared back at her? A woman dressed in clothes which still made her shudder when she thought about the price tag.
Her floaty, cream wedding gown had been purchased from one of Nicoletta’s boutiques in Rome and the dress cleverly modified to conceal her baby bump but nonetheless, Darcy still felt like a ship in full sail. Her curls had been tied and tamed by the hairdresser who’d arrived at the Tuscan villa they were renting now that Vallombrosa had been sold, and from which they had been married that very morning. Darcy had wanted to wear normal clothes for her marriage to Renzo, as if to reinforce that it was merely a formality she was being forced to endure, but her prospective husband had put his foot down and insisted that she at least looked like a real bride...
‘What difference does it make whether I wear a white dress or not?’ she’d questioned sulkily.
‘The difference is that it will feel more real if you wear white and carry flowers. You are a very beautiful woman, cara—and you will make a very beautiful bride.’
But Darcy had not felt at all real as she’d walked downstairs—though she couldn’t deny that the dark blaze in Renzo’s eyes had made her feel briefly beautiful. He had insisted they marry in Italy, presumably on the advice of his lawyers, who seemed to be running the whole show. But that part Darcy didn’t mind. A wedding in Italy was bound to be more low-key than a wedding in England, where the press were much more curious and there was the possibility of someone from her past getting wind of it. With all the necessary paperwork in place, they had appeared before the civil registrar in the beautiful medieval town of Barga, with just Gisella and Pasquale as their witnesses. And just four days later they had been legally allowed to wed.
It had been the smallest and most formal of ceremonies in an ancient room with a high, beamed ceiling and although Gisella had voiced a slight wistfulness that they weren’t having a religious service, Darcy, for one, was glad. It was bad enough having to go through something you knew was doomed, without having to do so before the eyes of the church.
But there had been a point when her heart had turned over and she’d started wishing it were real and that had been when Renzo had smiled at her once they’d been legally declared man and wife—his black eyes crinkling with a smile which had