Nicky becoming increasingly upset distressed her but she knew she had to learn to step back and accept that Luciano Vitale was Nicky’s father and his closest relative.
When Nicky’s sobs erupted into screams, the living-room door opened abruptly. ‘You’d better come in... He’s frightened,’ Luciano bit out in a harsh undertone.
Jemima required no second invitation. She scrambled up and surged past him. Nicky’s anxious eyes locked straight on to her and he held up his arms to be lifted. Jemima crouched down to scoop him up and he clung like a monkey, shaking and sobbing, burying his little head in her neck.
Luciano watched that revealing display in angry disbelief. Niccolò had two little hands fisted in his mother’s shirt, his fearful desperation patently obvious as he hid his face from the stranger who had tried to make friends with him. As Jemima quieted the trembling child Luciano registered two unwelcome facts. His son was much more attached to his mother than his father had expected and Jemima was very definitely the centre of his son’s sense of security. It was a complication he neither wanted nor needed. His attention dropped to the generous curve of Jemima’s derriere in jeans and he tensed, averting his gaze to the back of his son’s curly head as he felt himself harden. So, he liked women to look more like women than slender boys and she had splendid curves, but he abhorred that hormonal response that was so very inappropriate in Jemima Barber’s radius.
‘He’s teething, which always makes him a bit clingy,’ Jemima proffered in Nicky’s defence. ‘And this is the wrong end of the day for him because he’s tired and fractious—’
‘He’s terrified. Isn’t he used to meeting people?’ Luciano pressed critically.
‘He’s more used to women.’
‘But your parents must’ve been looking after him for you while you were in London,’ he pointed out, momentarily depriving her of breath as he reminded her of the lie she was living for his benefit. After all, nobody could be in two places at once and while Jemima had been teaching and covering Nicky’s childcare costs at a local nursery facility, Julie had been in London.
‘Dad’s retired but he’s still out and about a lot, so Nicky would’ve seen less of him,’ Jemima muttered in a brittle voice, crossing her fingers at a lie that made her feel guiltier than ever because Nicky adored his grandfather.
Nicky stuck his thumb in his mouth and sagged against Jemima with a final hoarse whimper. ‘Sorry about this...’ she added uncomfortably. ‘But in time he’ll get used to you.’
Luciano compressed his lips. He didn’t have time to waste.
‘Is that your girlfriend outside waiting in the car?’ Jemima asked abruptly, keen to know and to change the subject about Nicky’s lifestyle in recent months.
Luciano frowned, winged ebony brows pleating above hard dark eyes fringed by lashes as dense and noticeable as black lace. ‘No, the nanny I’m hiring.’
Jemima stopped breathing. ‘A nanny?’ she gasped in dismay.
‘I will need some support in caring for my son,’ Luciano countered drily, wondering what he was going to do about the problem his son’s mother had become.
Well, he certainly wouldn’t be marrying her as Charles Bennett had ludicrously suggested after the results of the DNA test had been revealed.
‘A paper marriage,’ Charles had outlined. ‘In one move you would legitimise your son’s birth, tidy up any future inheritance issues and gain a legal right to have custody of your son. As an ex-wife you could also give her a settlement without breaking the law. It would be perfect.’
Perfect only in a nightmare, Luciano reflected grimly. No way was he linking his name to a woman who was no better than a thieving hooker, not in a paper marriage of any kind.
He was employing a nanny, Jemima thought wretchedly as panic snaked through her in a cold little shiver of foreboding. Clearly Luciano was planning to remove Nicky from her care as soon as he could.
Luciano surveyed his infant son, who was engaged in contentedly falling asleep against his mother’s shoulder. He could rip him away from Jemima as he himself had once been ripped away from his own mother. All right, he had been almost three years old but he had never forgotten the day he was torn from his mother’s loving arms. Of course there had been a lot of blood and violence involved and naturally he had been traumatised by the episode. He would not be doing anything of that nature. He despised Jemima Barber but he did not wish her dead for having crossed him. At the same time, however, he deeply resented her hold on his son.
‘Nicky’s very emotional,’ Jemima remarked cautiously. ‘He does get upset quite easily.’
‘I’m surprised he’s so fond of you. You’ve spent most of your time in London and left other people looking after him,’ Luciano condemned.
‘I’ve spent much more time with him than you appreciate,’ Jemima protested, tilting her chin. ‘Of course he’s fond of me...’
‘But you always planned to give him away,’ he reminded her coolly. ‘As long as the pay-off was sufficient. Shouldn’t you have prepared him better for the separation?’
An angry flush illuminated her pale porcelain skin. ‘I didn’t know if there was going to be a separation!’ she fired back awkwardly.
‘I would let nothing prevent me from claiming my son. Since you disappeared there has not been a single day that I haven’t thought of him,’ Luciano proclaimed, dark honey-rich eyes glittering with challenge. ‘He is mine—’
‘Yes...’ she conceded raggedly, her breath catching in her throat below the onslaught of his extraordinarily compelling gaze. ‘But handing him over isn’t going to be as simple...er...as I once thought it would be.’
Luciano shrugged a broad shoulder without interest. ‘You convinced a psychiatrist that you knew what you were signing up to do and could cope with it.’
Desperation slivered through Jemima’s taut frame. ‘Things change...’ she whispered.
‘I want my son,’ Luciano told her bluntly.
The germ of a wild idea burst into being inside Jemima and flew straight from brain to tongue without the benefit of any filter or forethought. ‘Couldn’t I be your nanny? Even for a little while?’
Luciano studied her in disbelief. ‘My nanny? You? Are you crazy?’
‘Only until he settles into his new life. You’d be getting a trained infant teacher to look after him. I’m well qualified with young children.’
‘But you’ve never worked with them?’
‘Of course I have work experience.’
‘Before you decided that you much preferred earning easy money as an escort?’
Jemima froze. ‘An...es-escort?’ Her voice stumbled over the mortifying word. ‘That’s a dreadful—’
Luciano sighed. ‘I know everything about you. You can’t lie to me. You were working as an escort in London and you were very popular with older men until you began to steal their wallets. I spoke to the agency that made your bookings for you before deciding to dispense with your services.’
Her lips parted and then closed again. She had turned white as snow, shock thudding through her, her heart thumping loudly in her eardrums. She didn’t want to believe him but she did because Julie’s love of money had been much stronger than her self-respect. An escort? An escort offering extras? Jemima squirmed, raw humiliation bowing her head. Working as an escort had given her twin the chance to steal. And sadly, the stolen credit cards had only been the tip of the iceberg, she acknowledged wretchedly. Seemingly Julie had been as willing to sell herself as she had been to sell her son.
‘It was an exclusive escort service,’ Luciano conceded, recognising her mortification and less gratified by it than he had expected to be.
‘So