Free The Infamous Italian's Secret Baby by Carole Mortimer Page A

flashed darkly purple at his underlying threat. ‘Secondly,’ she pointedly resumed her earlier conversation, ‘despite the fact that I resent your methods, I am nevertheless perfectly aware of your father’s claim as Toby’s grandfather—’
    ‘But not my own as his father!’ Gabriel was so furiously angry now that there was a white line about the firmness of his mouth and his body was rigid with suppressed emotion.
    Bella looked at him sadly, knowing this conversation was achieving nothing except to drive a distance between the two of them that was even wider than the gaping chasm that already existed.
    She had known when she met Gabriel again yesterday that he wasn’t the same man she had been so attracted to five years ago that she had forgotten, or simply put aside, every vestige of caution in order to spend the night in his arms.
    This Gabriel was scarred on the inside as well as the outside and the coldness of his anger concerning her having kept Toby’s existence a secret from him was worse than any emotional accusations might have been.
    She sighed. ‘Ten o’clock, I believe you said?’
    Gabriel’s eyes narrowed on her, searching for any sign of deception in her eyes or expression. He could see none. Only a weary acceptance of a situation she could do nothing to change.
    The tension in his shoulders relaxed slightly. ‘We will sit down together with Toby first and explain my own and my father’s relationship to him.’
    ‘Isn’t that a little premature?’ Bella protested.
    ‘In my opinion it is almost four and a half years too late!’ Gabriel snapped.
    ‘It will only confuse Toby when you have no active role in his life—’
    His scornful laugh cut off her protest. ‘Do you seriously believe that is going to continue?’
    Bella looked at him, knowing by the implacability in Gabriel’s expression as he looked down the length of his arrogant nose at her—the same implacability in his tone whenever he now referred to her as Isabella —that it wasn’t. That it was Gabriel’s intention to take an extremely active role in Toby’s life in future.
    Precisely where that left her, Bella had no idea…

CHAPTER FIVE
    ‘D OES Grandad live in one of these big houses?’
    ‘He certainly does, Toby,’ Gabriel answered him indulgently.
    Bella would never cease to be amazed by the resilience of children and by her own child’s in particular.
    Having lain awake long into the night dreading, planning, how best to break the news to Toby that Gabriel Danti was his father and Cristo Danti was his grandfather, she had been totally surprised by Toby taking the whole thing in his four-year-old stride.
    Even his initial shyness at suddenly being presented with a father had quickly given way to excitement as he was strapped into the back of Gabriel’s open-topped sports car to make the drive over to the house where his grandfather was anxiously waiting to meet him after being discharged from the hospital earlier this morning.
    Bella’s own emotions were far less simplistic as she stared out of the car window, seeing none of the beauty of the Pacific Ocean in the distance, her thoughts all inwards.
    Her life, and consequently Toby’s, was back inEngland. In the small village where she had bought a cottage for the two of them to live in, once she had been financially able to do so, after living with her parents for the first two years of Toby’s life. She liked living in a village, as did Toby, and he was due to start attending the local school in September.
    This situation with Gabriel, his veiled threats of the night before, made Bella wonder exactly when she could expect to return to that life.
    Not that she was able to read any of Gabriel’s thoughts or feelings this morning. He was wearing sunglasses now, and his mood when he had arrived at the hotel earlier had been necessarily upbeat for Toby’s benefit, his attitude towards Bella one of strained politeness. Only the coldness in Gabriel’s eyes