Riccardo's Secret Child by Cathy Williams Read Free Book Online

have another look at his daughter, drink in her sleeping face before he left, but no, there would be time enough tomorrow.
    â€˜Does your mother live here with you both?’ he asked, as they walked towards the front door, Julia virtually sprinting to keep pace with his long strides.
    â€˜She has her own place. She was here to babysit.’
    â€˜And you? Where did you live?’ He paused by the door, frowning at her as he tried to complete the pieces to this jigsaw that had now become a part of his well-ordered life.
    â€˜I rented a flat,’ Julia told him vaguely.
    â€˜This arrangement must have dented your freedom,’ he said without the slightest indication of sympathy in his voice, and when she returned his look with a puzzled one of her own he shrugged. ‘Men. A five-year-old chaperon can’t have been welcome.’
    â€˜It hasn’t been a problem,’ Julia told him stiffly. She yanked open the front door to find that the rain had softened to a steady, bone-chilling drizzle.
    â€˜Because there’s no man.’ Riccardo watched as her face reddened and the defiant shake of her head couldn’t quite hide the fact that his offhand assumption had struck home. ‘Is that why your mama sounded so pleased when she thought you had brought home a date?’ He felt a curl of satisfaction as he watched her flounder. He had spent thepast few hours floundering. Now it felt good to have the shoe on the other foot, even though the situations could not be compared.
    â€˜You’re here because of your daughter,’ Julia informed him coldly. ‘My personal life has nothing to do with you.’ The jeering mockery in his eyes sent her reeling back to that secret place where all her insecurities lay hidden, but never in a million years would she let him see that.
    â€˜Which suits me,’ he countered smoothly, the hard lines of his face accentuated by the play of shadows from the dim front porch light overhead. ‘Till tomorrow. And I am warning you, from now, I will not be open to debate on when I see my daughter. You may hold the upper hand at the moment, Miss Nash, but time has a nasty habit of changing things…’

CHAPTER THREE
    â€˜H E SEEMS like a nice man, considering.’
    â€˜Considering?’ Julia finished plaiting Nicola’s hair and tugged both ends so that the child swung around to look at her. Her eyes were almond-shaped and probably not quite as onyx-black as her father’s, but the thick lashes were the same. Nice man?
    â€˜Who seems like a nice man?’
    Julia and her mother exchanged a look. ‘Just someone who’s going to be coming around in a little while, honey.’
    â€˜Oh. Can I watch cartoons on TV before tea?’
    â€˜Not at the moment. In a while, maybe.’
    â€˜Considering…’ her mother hissed, doing something comical with her eyebrows that would have made Julia burst out laughing if the subject matter at hand had not been quite so grim.
    â€˜What’s for tea, Aunty Jules?’
    â€˜Chicken.’
    â€˜I hate chicken. Do I have to eat it?’ Nicola stuck her hands in the pockets of her dungarees and made a face.
    â€˜Chicken nuggets.’
    â€˜I do wish…’ her mother began and Julia flashed her a warning glare. ‘Well…and he’s very handsome.’
    Julia, who had spent the day in a state of muted dread, almost found herself wishing that the doorbell would ring. She had been down this conversational route with her mother countless times before, daily, it seemed to her, since Caroline and Martin were no longer around to provide a buffer, and she wasn’t about to go down it again.
    â€˜Not interested,’ Julia hissed, edging her mother away from curious infantile ears. Amazing, she had discovered, what they managed to pick up when you could swear that their concentration was focused firmly on something else. ‘I’m fine, Mum. I have my