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Authors: Sharon Kendrick

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‘Sick?’ he demanded hoarsely. ‘You did not tell me you were sick!’

‘Of course I didn’t—it’s quite normal for a pregnant woman to be sick.’

‘And the baby?’

Eve softened, because for a moment his face looked so ravaged that she couldn’t help it. ‘The baby is just fine,’ she said gently. ‘Honestly. I’ve seen the doctor and she says that I am as strong as an ox and as fit as a flea and whatever else it is they say about pregnant women!’

And, to his horror, the overriding thought which dominated his mind was his gratitude that she had chosen a woman doctor! If he was not able to watch her naked, growing belly, then he did not want any other man—doctor or not—to be able to.

‘So they created this brand-new show, just for me,’ she continued.

‘So that the whole country is able to participate in
your pregnancy! No one is excluded—except, of course, the father!’

‘It’s regional, Luca—not national—not the
whole
country at all!’

‘You are deliberately missing the point,’ he said furiously.

Their meals were put down in front of them.

‘The point being, what?’

He sighed. To have to admit to feelings he would prefer not to have was something he had never had to do. But Eve was a strong woman, he recognised that. As well as fiercely proud and independent. And stubborn, too. It came as a bolt out of the blue to realise that she did not need him!

‘Who knows that I am the father?’ he asked suddenly.

Eve didn’t answer for a moment.

‘Eve?’

Their eyes met. ‘I have told only Lizzy,’ she admitted. ‘Not even Michael—though I expect Lizzy will have done by now.’

She remembered Lizzy’s reaction. Her friend had been shocked, but not surprised. ‘Can’t say I blame you,’ she murmured, and then looked at Eve expectantly. ‘And?’

Pointless to pretend that she didn’t know what that simple one-word question meant. ‘It’s over,’ she said quietly.

Lizzy wasn’t able to hide her disappointment. ‘And you’re happy with that?’

Happy? ‘Perfectly happy,’ she said brightly.

‘Oh, well, that’s nice. Very modern!’ Then Lizzy leaned forward slightly. ‘It’s probably all for the best, isn’t it? I mean, Michael says that he’s well known
in the Italian press. Quite a reputation. Though that’s hardly surprising, is it? Bad type of man to lose your heart to, Eve!’

‘Very bad,’ agreed Eve gravely. Please keep telling me these things, Lizzy, she remembered thinking to herself. For these are the things I need to hear.

Luca was staring at her. So she had not announced who the father was! He had expected it to be common knowledge, by now. ‘You mean you are ashamed of the child’s parentage?’ he growled.

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘Then what?’

She put her fork down with a clang. ‘Because I wasn’t sure if you were going to be around or not and I thought that if you weren’t then it would be better for everyone not to know, especially those who didn’t need to. I didn’t want everyone to be pointing the finger and making value judgements about me.’

He thought how a marriage would have easily solved all such problems, but she had steadfastly refused that.

‘You should tell them,’ he said. ‘Tell everyone or no one, but evade the issue no longer. The child will know, so best that everyone else does.’

‘It isn’t as easy as that,’ she said quietly and met the question in his eyes. ‘Because of the job I do, everything in my personal life is considered relevant. That’s why I’ve just said a terse “no comment” when people have asked who the father is.’

He swore quietly beneath his breath. ‘And you are happy with this?’

Eve shrugged. ‘It’s the way things are.’

But surely he had the power to change them? He saw the faint lines of strain around her eyes and de
cided that now was not the time. ‘Eat your lunch!’ he instructed gently, and then frowned. ‘Have you been eating well, Eve? Properly?’

‘Why?’

He frowned. ‘You do not look very…pregnant.’

‘No. Some women don’t—it’s the way I carry, apparently.’ She thought how seasoned she sounded, as if she had done this a million times before instead of for the first time. And she also thought how
comforting
it was to be able to discuss this kind of thing with someone who cared—and if Luca didn’t particularly care for her, he certainly seemed to be making up for it where the baby was concerned.

‘So you are eating?’ he persisted.

It was also, she discovered, rather nice to have someone who asked her this kind of thing. It was different from when the doctor asked her—that was professional, while this was personal.

She picked up her fork and speared fish and beans and chewed them like an obedient child. ‘I am eating like a horse—see! Fish, fruit, vegetables and brown rice—with the occasional portion of cherry ice cream thrown in for good measure!’ She gave him a small smile. ‘Does that satisfy you?’

He poured some water. Satisfy him? He couldn’t ever remember being quite so dissatisfied, both physically and emotionally.

Eve watched him as he lifted his eyes to her, and in them was an expression of respect, though made slightly acid by the wry smile which had curved the kissable lips. He looked so irresistible that she felt a sudden desire to be almost
biddable
…to tell him that it was all going to be all right.

But she didn’t know that, and neither could she do
it. She was having to fight down the urge to ask him if they couldn’t just forget all the events which had brought them to this confusing place and this confusing time and start all over again.

But she couldn’t do that either. Too much had happened, and there was a baby on the way. She needed to protect herself against hurt—not just for her sake, but for her baby’s sake. A heartbroken mother would not be able to do her job properly.

Yet she wanted to teach her child—their child—all the things which were important, and surely one of the most fundamental was honesty.

‘You haven’t told me what you feel about this baby, not really,’ she said quietly. ‘Apart from the anger, of course.’

He remembered how it had devoured him, like a great, burning flame. ‘The anger has gone. I should not have reacted so.’

‘I guess it was a natural response.’ Her eyes were very clear. ‘What has replaced it?’

This was difficult for him. He was not a man to put feelings into words, but then this seemed far too important not to, and surely he owed her that. ‘Pride,’ he said simply. ‘And excitement.’

Eve stared at him.

‘You look surprised,’ he observed.

‘That’s because I am.’ She felt a warm and little protective glow deep within her and she realised how much she valued his pride and his excitement. For the baby’s sake.

‘And what about you, Eve?’ he questioned suddenly. ‘What were
your
feelings?’ This felt like an uncharted domain. Asking a woman a question like that and actually
caring
what her answer would be.

‘I feel excited, too. Yes, very.’ And more than a little bit scared, too—if the truth were known. But she would not tell him that. She was a grown woman who had to take responsibility for herself. She was not going to start leaning on Luca.

He nodded, but there was something else he needed to know. ‘But not angry?’

She shook her head. ‘No. Not anger—I think it expresses itself differently for women. I felt stupid. Trapped.’

‘I don’t want you to feel trapped.’

‘Just what is it that you
do
want, Luca?’

She had asked him this question once before and he had surprised himself by not knowing the answer. This time he did. ‘I want to be part of your pregnancy,’ he said. ‘When you see the doctor, I would like to be there, too. When you have your scans, I want to see my baby’s little heart beating.’

Suddenly very emotional, she put her fork down, and stared at her meal, his words making her feel almost unbearably poignant. It took a minute for her to compose herself, and when she looked up again she hoped that he didn’t notice that her eyes were bright. He didn’t mean it how it sounded. It was intimate, yes, but not truly intimate.

She put on her best, practical voice. ‘But how on earth are you going to do that? We live miles apart. I suppose I could send you scans, email you—that kind of thing.’

But he shook his head. ‘No, not second hand,’ he said firmly.

‘How?’ she questioned simply.

‘Give me enough notice and I can fly over for your appointments.’

‘What about your job?’

He looked at her, realising that she had no idea about the nature of his work, but then why would she have? Intellectually, she might be aware that he owned a bank, but she did not live in Italy, she would not know the extent of his power and influence. And since she seemed to have no intention of making any claims on him, he saw no reason not to tell her. It was a curiously liberating feeling not to have to play it down.

‘I am rich enough never to have to work again, Eve,’ he said softly. ‘And certainly in a position to take it easy for a while. I can come and go as I please. I can be there. For the baby.’

And Eve wasn’t at all sure how she felt about that.

CHAPTER TEN

L
UCA
walked into the scanning room and the first things he noticed were the lights. He frowned, his eyes narrowing as they accustomed themselves to the brightness, but the frown deepened as he took in the rest of the small room.

There was Eve, lying on a trolley, with a white-coated technician smearing some thick kind of jelly all over her swollen belly—while a man dressed entirely in denim was swinging a little meter close by.

In one corner, a youngish woman with jangly earrings was in earnest conversation with another man—
another
—who was holding a hand-held camera.

They all looked up as he walked in, and the woman with the jangly earrings smiled and, before Eve could stop her, said, ‘I’m sorry—but we’re filming in here.’

There was a short, tense silence.

‘And what
precisely
,’ said Luca, in a voice of dangerous silk, ‘do you think you’re filming?’

The woman with the jangly earrings stared at him. ‘We’re doing a feature for a television show, and it’s really very crowded in here—so if you wouldn’t mind leaving.’

It was exactly like a bomb going off, thought Eve. A deadly little stealth bomb. ‘I am not going anywhere,’ he grated. ‘But I’m afraid that you are. Get out.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You are not, repeat
not
, filming Eve having a scan. Now are you going to leave or do I have to pick up the damn cameras myself and throw them out?’

Jangly earrings looked at Eve. ‘Eve?’

She should have been mortified, outraged, and furious with Luca marching in here and single-handedly managing to put her livelihood in jeopardy. But she was none of those things. In theory, the filming of her scan for the show had seemed like a great idea, but the reality was that it had felt intrusive.

And she had never been so glad to see someone in her life.

‘Just who
is
this man, Eve?’

‘He’s…’

‘I’m the baby’s father,’ interjected Luca icily. ‘And I want to see the scan of my baby. In
private
.’

There was something about his face and something about the tone of his voice which dared anyone to defy him and the news crew were clearly not going to be the exception.

With much mumbling and clicking of tongues, they packed up their equipment and left, but not before the woman with the jangly earrings had turned to Eve.

‘Perhaps you could call me later?’

It took Luca a moment or two to control his breathing, and the white-coated technician was blinking in bemusement.

‘And here was me thinking I was going to be on television!’ she joked.

Steadying his breathing, Luca shot Eve a look which said ‘I will talk to you afterwards’ and she felt
exactly like a schoolgirl who had been summoned to see the headmaster.

But Luca’s rage was temporarily forgotten when the technician began to slide the scanner over the bump and what had looked like a blur of grey and black gradually began to seem real.

‘There we are,’ said the technician. ‘Two arms and two legs—perfect. And there’s the heart—can you see it beating?’

There was silence, only this time a breathless, excited kind of silence.

‘Oh, look!’ said the technician, as if she hadn’t said this a thousand times before. ‘He’s sucking his thumb!’

‘He?’
shot out Luca.

‘Oh, sorry! We always say “he”. Habit, really, I know I shouldn’t. Would you like to know your baby’s sex?’ she asked casually.

At exactly the same time, Eve and Luca looked up.

‘No,’ they said together, their eyes meeting and in that meeting was a moment of shared and delicious collusion.

But when the technician had wiped off the conducting jelly and told her to get dressed, Eve began to feel slightly uneasy. Luca’s face was a study in brooding displeasure. She reached for her trousers.

‘I’d better get dressed.’

‘I’ll wait outside,’ said Luca shortly.

As she pulled on her clothes Eve told herself that she was
not
going to be intimidated by him. She was
not
. She could tell that he was mad—hopping mad—but he had no right to tell her how to run her life.

She sighed as she slithered into a pair of trousers
with difficulty. Things had been going so swimmingly, too. He had behaved like a perfect angel on trips to see the doctor, shamelessly charming her so that the medic had billed and cooed at him with what Eve had thought was quite unprofessional abandon. He flew in at the drop of a hat, as if he were merely travelling from one part of the South Coast to another, and not from another country.

But then he travelled a lot. She knew that because he had told her, in one of his increasingly frequent telephone calls to see how she was.

She had begun to look forward to them. In a way, it was easier talking to him on the phone—then she didn’t have to look at his gorgeous dark face or cope with the very real awareness of him as a man, and how her feelings towards him hadn’t changed.

Or rather, they had. The attraction she felt for him hadn’t, but getting to know him had made her realise what she had always feared, deep down—what she had thought the moment she’d seen him on the other side of the room at Michael and Lizzy’s party.

That he was ‘the one’.

But that was strictly a one-way street and there was absolutely no point going down there.

He was waiting for her outside in Reception and his face was like thunder.

‘Did you bring the car?’

She nodded.

‘Give me the keys.’

She handed them over and wondered if she was becoming one of those frightful women who secretly wanted to be dominated. But she reasoned that maybe it was just nice to have someone take over for a change. She yawned.

He didn’t say a word when they got in the car, and when they were headed out towards the Hamble he still maintained a simmering silence.

‘Luca?’

‘Not now, Eve,’ he said quietly. ‘I am trying very hard to concentrate on driving and if we have this conversation then I am very afraid I won’t be able to.’

He waited until they were back in her cottage and then he let rip.

‘Are you going to explain what all that was about?’

‘You mean the film crew?’

‘Please don’t play games with me, Eve. You are an intelligent woman—you know exactly what I mean.’

She sat down in one of the armchairs and looked up at him defiantly. ‘It’s for the programme.’

‘Yes, I gathered that much.’

‘They wanted to film the scan, that’s all.’

‘That’s
all
?’

She shot a glance at him. ‘I don’t see what the problem is.’

He gave an angry laugh. ‘You don’t see what the problem is?’ he repeated incredulously. ‘What, for half the nation to be staring at your naked stomach!’

‘It isn’t half the nation,’ she began automatically, and then stopped when she saw his face. ‘It’s supposed to help women see how easy it is,’ she tried placatingly.

‘And what about the labour itself?’ he demanded, hotly. ‘Are you going to let a film crew of men film
that
, so that the viewers can see how “easy” it is?’

‘No, of course not!’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Quite sure.’ In fact, the idea had actually been mooted at one of the production meetings, but Eve had turned the idea down flat.

‘I suppose you think I’m being very old-fashioned.’

‘Very.’ But wasn’t it also protective, and wasn’t there some stupid side of her which thrilled to that? It must be the hormones making her react like that.

‘I don’t want the viewers seeing what is essentially a very private moment. It should be for the mother and father, Eve—for us.’

Except that there was no ‘us’. Overwhelmed by an aching sense of longing for what could never be, Eve closed her eyes.

He looked at her. She was pale, he thought, and again a slow, simmering anger began to bubble up. What the hell was she doing, lying there being filmed, her stomach heavy with his child? How had he allowed this to happen? ‘I’m going to make some tea,’ he said shortly.

She could hear him clattering around in the kitchen, and when he came back in with the tray he was frowning. ‘Why were you having a scan at this stage anyway?’

She shrugged listlessly. ‘Just routine.’

‘Sure?’

She nodded.

He sat down, and picked up her hand, began to stroke it, almost thoughtfully, and Eve’s eyes flew open. It was such a little thing. Such a tiny, little thing and yet it felt like heaven. Her body craved comfort and human contact. She met his eyes, wanting above all else for him to take her into his arms,
to hold her and to stroke her, but he did not and the dark eyes were thoughtful, watchful, wary.

‘For how much longer are you contracted to do this show?’ Idly, he circled a finger over her hand.

She swallowed. Don’t stop touching me, she thought. ‘It finishes on the third.’

‘That’s next week.’

She nodded.

‘And then?’

‘Then I’m on maternity leave. I’ll look at other options when…when I’ve had the baby.’

‘Eve.’ He paused. ‘Are you happy with what you’re doing?’

‘You mean the show?’

‘That is part of it. But your life here. What you see for the future. Just what
do
you see for the future,
cara mia
?’

It was a long time since he had called her that, and it made her want to weep with longing. For what it might have been. For what it was not.

‘It’s like I jumped onto a merry-go-round and I can’t get off,’ she admitted slowly, and at that moment she didn’t care if she sounded vulnerable. She
felt
vulnerable—and pregnant women were allowed to, weren’t they? She was fed up with being brave and strong and coping. She
did
want to lean on Luca, if not emotionally, then at least practically. Just for a little. To pretend that he would really always be there for her…

‘As for the future—well, it isn’t something that I gave much thought to before. But now…’ Her voice tailed off.

‘Now?’ he prompted.

‘I realise that I have to. And I just don’t know any
more. Oh, Luca!’ And to her horror, tears began to slide from her eyes. She bit her lip and tried to stop them, but she could not and it was as though she had been teetering on a knife-edge of control as she began to cry.

An expression of pain crossed his face. Had he pushed her so far to cause her this? He pulled her into his arms and began to smooth his hand down over the silken mane of her hair, over and over again in a soothing and comforting rhythm. ‘Shh. Don’t cry, Eve. Don’t cry,
cara mia
. No need for tears. Everything is going to be fine, I promise you.’

Her tear-wet cheek was buried in his neck. She could smell the raw maleness of him and feel the warmth which radiated from him. His arms were tight and strong and protective. Nothing could hurt her here. At least, no outside forces could—her ache in her heart was the most dangerous thing she had to fear.

She drew away from him, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sniffed.

‘Don’t be sorry.’ He touched away a last stray tear with the tip of his finger. How shocked would she be if he told her that a part of him liked seeing her weak, like this? For her weakness meant that his own strength could come to the fore, and wasn’t that the way he liked it best? ‘What would happen if you told them you didn’t want to go back to work? At least for the foreseeable future?’

‘It would probably be the end of my career. Viewers have very short memories and even shorter loyalties.’

‘Yes, your career.
Your damned career
,’ he said softly. ‘What’s going to happen when the baby is
born, Eve? Who will look after our son or our daughter when that car whisks you away to the studio every day?’

She looked at him. He was still so close, close enough to kiss, but she did not dare. ‘I don’t know anything any more,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t even know how much I care about my career.’ Her eyes glittered defiantly. ‘I suppose you think that’s a shocking admission?’

It was the best thing he had heard her say in a long time, but he was clever enough not to say so. ‘Why should it be?’

She shrugged, thinking that the woman he had been attracted to was the smart, able career woman. ‘I guess I think that my job defines me.’

‘No job should define a person. And you haven’t answered my question,’ he persisted. ‘What’s going to happen when the baby is born?’

‘I don’t have a choice. I have to work.’

‘But that’s just the point, Eve—you
do
have a choice. You can come back to Italy with me. As my wife.’

There was a long, breathless silence.

‘You don’t mean that.’

‘I never say anything I don’t mean. But believe me when I tell you that I will not ask you again.’

She sat back against the cushions. ‘Why? I mean—really?’

‘Truthfully?’ He rubbed his finger along the shadowed line of his chin. ‘I would like the child to be born in Italy, and I want to see that child grow up.’

At least he hadn’t told her lies. Told her that he loved her and couldn’t live without her. ‘You think those are good enough reasons for getting married?’
she asked, and her voice was trembling in a way that didn’t sound like her at all.

‘I can’t think of any better,’ he said simply. ‘What is the alternative? That you bring up the baby here, alone.’ His eyes darkened. ‘Or maybe not alone. Think what you like of me, Eve—but the thought of another man bringing up my child as his own sickens me to the stomach.’

She nodded. Oh, yes, she could see that. They were qualities of possessiveness and ownership, certainly, but at least he had had the guts to admit it. He wasn’t to know that the situation would never arise and she wasn’t going to tell him that no man would feature in her life, not after him. For who could hold a candle to Luca Cardelli?

And the flip-side to his not being able to stand the thought of another man was the spectre of Luca being with another woman. Could she bear that? Imagine if Luca married someone else, and she had to send the child to stay with them, weekends and holidays and, worse, alternate Christmases? Another woman being a stepmother to her child. If there were qualities of ownership and possession, then Eve was just discovering that Luca didn’t have a monopoly on them.

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