But Justina was pushing at his chest with two balled-up fists and tearing her mouth from his. Her eyes were dark with anger as she took a few unsteady steps away from him, and her breathing was ragged as she struggled to control it.
‘You’ve got what you came for—now get out of here,’ she snapped, because never in her life had she felt so used. ‘Go back to New York and get the hell out of my life.’
For a moment they stared at one another as rage and desire simmered in the air around them, and then Dante picked up his jacket and slung it over his shoulder.
‘Goodbye, Justina,’ he said, and the smile which curved his lips was bitter. ‘Thanks for the memory.’
CHAPTER FOUR
THE NIGHTMARE COULDN’T possibly get any worse.
It just couldn’t.
As warm, fat raindrops teemed from the sky Justina hurried into a shop on the busy Singaporean street as fast as her bulky frame would allow—but it wasn’t easy. The huge swell of her baby made movement difficult, especially in the sultry heat which characterised this vibrant city. A minute was all it had taken for her to get soaked right through, and now she stood shivering as the icy blast of the shop’s air-
conditioning blasted over her damp skin.
Trying to conceal her shape behind a rack of designer clothes, she peered out through the blur of rain. People were hastily putting up their umbrellas. Others were standing huddled beneath bus shelters as they sought to avoid the daily spectacle of the tropical storm. Nobody seemed to be looking in her direction. Nobody at all.
Justina swallowed down the sudden dryness in her throat. Was she simply going crazy—imagining that someone was following her? That another photographer planned to leap out to take a picture? She couldn’t understand why the press were so interested in the fact that she was having a baby when loads of women had babies out of wedlock these days without stigma.
Yet she couldn’t deny the media interest—especially since the Lollipops Sweetest Hits had been re-released just before Roxy’s wedding and had stormed up the charts all over the world. She still had a public profile, which had become higher as a result of those renewed sales. On days where there wasn’t a lot of news around she could still sometimes find one of those rather depressing pieces about ‘unlucky in love’ Justina Perry hidden in the back pages of the newspapers—the ones which wondered why she was still single.
Only now she had given them an even bigger story—STILL SINGLE AND NOW EXPECTING! WHO’S THE MYSTERY FATHER, JUSTINA?
After she’d gone through the first stages of dismay and denial, she had tried to conceal her pregnancy for as long as possible—and when that had become out of the question she had stayed out of the limelight as much as she could. But the press were like hungry dogs. One sniff of a juicy story and they came looking. Lately there’d been a whole spate of articles speculating about the identity of her baby’s father—she was just praying that nobody had seen her disappearing from Roxy’s wedding with Dante D’Arezzo. That was the kind of snippet which would find its way into a gossip column, forever linking her name to the Italian billionaire.
‘Can I get you a chair, ma’am?’
Justina turned round to find a shop assistant regarding her with concern. Perhaps she was worried that the tired-looking Englishwoman was about to give birth in the middle of her shop and it wasn’t really Justina’s role to reassure her that she wasn’t due for another five weeks.
‘No, thanks. I’m fine. I’ll take a cab back to my hotel. The rain looks as if it’s stopping now.’
‘You’re sure, ma’am?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ From somewhere, she summoned up a smile. ‘Quite sure.’
But during her shivering journey back to Raffles Hotel, where she always stayed when she was in the city, Justina couldn’t seem to halt the thoughts which seemed determined to keep any peace of mind at bay. Round and round in her head went the indisputable truth. She was pregnant with Dante’s baby and terrified he would find out.
Distractedly, she rubbed at her temples. He was bad news. He was a player. He was everything that was dangerous in a man—especially where she was concerned. He had taken her to bed and soared with her to the stars before they crashed back down to earth again. And she couldn’t just blame Dante for what had happened, because she had been culpable, too. She’d practically ripped his clothes off and ravished him, despite all the terrible history between them.
She felt the sudden clench of her heart, but it was more with anger than with pain. She had been headstrong and stupid. She had given in to desire without thinking about the consequences and that’s why she found herself in this position. But there was no way she was going to go running to him. Not when he’d made it clear that what had happened had been a regrettable one-off.
She kept telling herself that interest would die down if she kept her counsel. She lived the kind of international life where it was perfectly acceptable to be vague about the identity of her baby’s father. The people she wrote songs for wouldn’t have cared if the devil himself had claimed paternity. The only person who was really interested was the London doctor whose care she was under—and he wasn’t making any moral judgements. That was the sum total of people it really affected. She certainly wasn’t relying on any help from her mother, whose reaction to the news had been entirely predictable—if a little sad.
‘I’m not ready to be a grandmother!’ Elaine Perry had snapped, not seeming to notice Justina’s white-faced response.
Justina had stared at the woman with whom she had such a complicated relationship. Her once-beautiful mother, who was unable to accept that her looks were now fading and who tried to compensate for that by slapping on far too much make-up. ‘But, Mum—’
‘Don’t “Mum” me! If you think I’m spending my time knitting bootees or acting as an unpaid babysitter, then you’re mistaken, Justina.’ A coy smile had followed as the older woman had fiddled with hair which was growing thinner by the year. ‘I do still have a busy social life of my own, you know.’
And Justina, feeling sick for all kinds of reasons, had not responded. What compassion could she expect from a woman whose life had been spent as mistress to a series of wealthy men she’d milked for every penny she could? Who was now reduced to living with some creepy and aging roué in the centre of Paris?
Justina still felt shaky as her cab drew up outside the hotel and she went inside to collect her key from the desk in the spacious lobby. The atmosphere of the iconic hotel usually had a soothing effect on her. The faded brocade chairs and tall potted palms always made her think of a more elegant time, and whenever she stayed there she felt part of it. Only today the magic of Raffles wasn’t working. She felt as if she was on a tiny raft, bobbing around in an unforgiving sea, with no real place to go and drop anchor.
Maybe she needed the restorative power of a deep bath and a strong cup of tea, and then she would—
‘Justina.’
Someone was saying her name in a way which only one person ever could. Disbelief made her skin turn to ice as she heard the voice which had haunted her waking thoughts and troubled dreams for the past seven and a half months. She shook her head in hopeful denial. She was imagining it. She had to be imagining it.
Slowly she turned to see the dark and forbidding figure of Dante D’Arezzo, and her heart began to flutter wildly in her chest. No. She wasn’t imagining it. Nobody else spoke like that. And nobody else looked like that either. Dante was here in the flesh—vibrant with life and looking immaculate in cool, pale linen, his face an intimidating study of dark fury as his gaze seared into her.