The Italian's Passionate Return Read Online Free PDF Page B

in from the pasture soon, eager to get fed and she didn’t have time to deal with him now. Not with all the crazy emotions he generated within her. “Like I said, I’m not trying to convince you of anything. You can believe me or not. You can get a sample of Dylan’s hair off of his brush…” she paused, looking up for a moment, “or maybe not. He hasn’t been brushing his hair well recently. But it’s short enough that he doesn’t really have to.” She picked up another bucket, putting it into one of the stall feed bins. “Or his toothbrush, if you really need proof.”
    “How do I know that this isn’t someone else’s child that you’re trying to pass off on me?”
    That made her angry and she swung around. “Because you’re the only man I’ve ever slept with!” she shot back to him. Then realized what she’d just admitted and blushed again. Spinning back to her work, she dug into the oats once again. “Just go away Damien. I don’t have anything to prove to you. We were just two people that passed in the night. Dylan is mine. I love him more than life. He’s a wonderful boy and if you don’t want to claim him then that’s just better for me. My life isn’t very complicated. We get up each morning, feed the animals, go to school, Dylan comes home, we feed the animals, I train them and we go to sleep.” She grabbed one of the horse blankets that had fallen off of the shelf and restacked it. “There isn’t much variation in our days and adding you into that picture would complicate our lives a lot. So just go on about your merry way. You have a new puppy to take care of,” she said, catching one of the other little guys as he tried to wiggle his chubby body under the stall doorway. Thankfully, he didn’t mind being caught. It just meant more opportunity to lick and get some affection before he was put back into the stall.
    “When?” he demanded.
    Jemma stopped briefly. “When what?” she asked, then went back to loading the feed buckets.
    “When did you get pregnant?”
    Jemma laughed softly. “There was only one night in my life that I’ve had sex, Damien. If you’ve forgotten that night,” she said with her heart breaking all over again, “then move on.”
    “When is your son’s birthday?” he asked, shifting the focus of his question slightly, trying to remember the day he’d met Jemma. He remembered everything about that night, as well as the following morning because he’d tried finding her so frantically. But he couldn’t remember the date.
    “January fifteenth,” she said and dumped a bunch of oats into a black bucket.
    Damien stood there, his whole body numb while his mind worked through the math. If the boy had been born in the middle of January, that would mean he had been conceived in…September. He’d met her towards the end of summer and he’d had that meeting immediately afterwards…he’d bought out the car company that month which was why he’d been pulled away and couldn’t continue searching for her. But even his security detail hadn’t been able to find anything about Jemma. It hadn’t helped that he hadn’t gotten her last name. Only a first name plus some fuzzy security camera photos.
    “He’s my son?” Damien breathed, still not sure he believed her.
    Jemma poured food out for the puppies, then dog chow for Momma Dog and reclosed the stall. “No. Dylan is my son. I’ve been here with him, I’ve raised him and I’m the one who gave birth to him in the hospital with only my mother there to hold my hand.” She turned to face him and something twisted inside of her as she took in the strong man with suddenly pale features who was coming to terms with something he hadn’t expected. “I’m sorry to have told you in this way. I just…I wanted very badly to let you go, to never see you again. But I had to be honest.”
    “Thank you,” he replied, sitting down on one of the low shelves that held food. “A son,” he said, almost reverently.