The Consequences of That Night

trembled at what she might have unthinkingly done by accepting a job with Alain. He was convinced that his sister’s death had been something more than a tragic accidental overdose. But Cesare was innocent. He’d never been charged with any crime. And Emma, of all people, knew how he’d loved his wife. She took a deep breath and changed the subject.
    “Sam and I will be fine,” she said brightly. “Cesare doesn’t want a family to tie him down. He’ll soon return to London and forget all about us.”
    But as dark clouds crossed the bright sun, Emma thought of the tender expression on Cesare’s face when he’d first caressed his baby son’s cheek. And she was afraid.
    * * *
    “To the airport, sir?”
    Cesare leaned back heavily in the backseat of the Rolls-Royce. For a moment he didn’t answer the driver. He pressed his hands against his forehead, still trembling with shock and fury from what he’d learned.
    He had a child.
    A son.
    A baby born in secret, to the woman who’d left him last November without a word. And gone to work for his enemy.
    Closing his eyes, he pressed his fingertips against the lids. He didn’t believe Emma had gotten pregnant on purpose. No. She’d been right to laugh at his knee-jerk reaction earlier. She was clearly no gold digger. But leaving him in London, without a word, taking his child away, taking his decision away...
    He took a deep breath. She’d done it all as if Cesare didn’t even matter. As if he didn’t even exist.
    “Sir?”
    “Yes,” he bit out. “The airport.”
    The limousine pulled smoothly back into the Paris traffic. Cesare’s throat was tight. He struggled to be fair, to be calm, when what he wanted to do was punch the seat in front of him and scream.
    His baby was being raised in the house of Alain Bouchard, a man who unfairly blamed him for his sister’s death. Bouchard didn’t know the truth, and knowing how the man had loved his sister, Cesare had kept it that way.
    But now, he pictured Bouchard’s angry face, the way he’d stepped protectively in front of Emma.
    Was it possible that over the past year, while Cesare had been celibate as a monk hungering for her, Emma had become Bouchard’s lover?
    No, his heart said. Impossible. But his brain disagreed. After all, the two of them were living in the same house. Perhaps she’d been lonely and heartsick. Perhaps he’d found her crying in the kitchen, as Cesare once had, and she’d fallen into the other man’s bed, as she’d once fallen into his.
    He hopelessly put his hands over his ears, as if that could keep his own imagination away. Anger built inside Cesare, rising like bile in his soul.
    As the car turned west, heading toward the private airport outside the city, he looked out the window. He could see the top of the Eiffel Tower above the charming buildings, over two young lovers kissing at a sidewalk café.
    He ground his teeth. He’d be glad to leave this damn city. He hated Paris and everything it stood for. The romance. The love.
    Whether Emma was Bouchard’s mistress or not, she had no love for Cesare anymore. She’d made her low opinion of him, as a potential father or even as a human being, very clear. She didn’t want a thing from him. Not even his money. The thought made him feel low.
    It would be simple to take the easy out she offered. Leave Paris. Go back to London. Forget the child they’d unintentionally created.
    His child.
    He could still see the baby’s face. His soft black hair. Those dark eyes, exactly like his own.
    He had a son.
    A child.
    He closed his eyes. Over the memory of the baby’s sweet babble, he heard Emma’s voice: We don’t need you. We don’t want you.
    Cesare’s fist hit the window with a bang.
    “Sir?” His driver quivered, looking at him in the rearview mirror.
    Cesare’s eyes slowly opened. Perhaps he wasn’t ready to be a father. But that no longer mattered.
    Because he was one.
    “Go back.”
    “Back?”
    “To my hotel.” Cesare rubbed at the base of his skull. “I’m not leaving Paris. Take me back now.”
    Pulling his phone from his pocket, he dialed a number in New York City. Mortimer Ainsley had been his uncle’s attorney, twenty years ago, and presided over his will when he’d died and Cesare gained possession of his aging, heavily mortgaged hotel. Later, Mortimer Ainsley had looked over the prenuptial agreement given to Cesare by Angélique Bouchard, the wealthy older French heiress who had proposed after just