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Authors: Sharon Kendrick

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‘What do you want?’ she asked cautiously.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, and it was the first time in all his charmed and powerful life that he had ever made such an admission. He sat down on the sofa and studied her, the dark eyes narrowed in question. ‘You haven’t even told me how far advanced you are.’

‘Nearly five months.’

Five months! ‘Already?’ he asked, slightly unsteadily.

‘Yes, my bump’s hardly showing yet.’ She met his eyes, and despaired, for their inky allure still touched a part of her she had decided had to be out of bounds. If he had stayed away—even for a bit longer—she
might have become immune to him. But she wasn’t—and that didn’t help matters. ‘Time flies when you’re having fun,’ she said sarcastically.

Had it really been that long? She must have got pregnant the very first time—before Rome, before he had gone to the States. He remembered with a sinking heart the way he had been incautious, the way he had wanted to make love to her straight after the first time. And she had stopped him.

He frowned. How had so much time passed, almost unnoticed? He had thrown himself into his work since she had first told him—perhaps, he recognised now, using it as a kind of denial therapy. And all the time he had been waiting for the financial demands he was certain would come his way. He had set her a test, he recognised, just as he had right at the beginning when he had waited for her to contact him. And wasn’t that what he always did, in his professional as well as his personal life—set impossibly high standards and wait for people to fail to meet them?

Only Eve had not failed.

‘Anyway.’ She forced herself to be businesslike, because surely that was what it all boiled down to. ‘If it’s just the finance thing you’re worried about, then don’t, because I will be fine.’ She gave him a bright smile. ‘Unless there was anything else?’

He stared at her incredulously. ‘You think this is simply about
money
? You expect me to walk out of that door without a backward glance and have no interest in this child of mine?’

This child of mine.
Powerful words. Daunting words. But then Luca was a powerful and daunting man.

‘I have no expectations whatsoever. I never did have,’ she added deliberately and at least he had the decency to flinch. ‘You’d better tell me what yours are. Some kind of contact, I suppose?’

‘Contact!’ he repeated furiously. ‘What an ugly word that is!’

‘Well, it may be ugly, but it happens to be the relevant word!’ she retorted, stung. ‘All in all it’s a pretty ugly business, isn’t it?’

He rose to his feet then, came over to where she sat and crouched down beside her. If it had been any other woman, in any other situation, he would have taken her in his arms, to comfort her and to soothe her. But her frozen stance told him not to try.

All his life, Luca had been able to seduce any woman he wanted, to persuade her round to his way of thinking, but now he suddenly recognised that Eve was not so malleable.

His eyes travelled to the perfect fingernails, painted a coral-pink today, and he remembered his outrageous accusation.

‘So what is it to be?’ continued Eve remorselessly. ‘Every other weekend, with some of the holidays? Alternate Christmases? That’s how it works, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t give a damn how it works!’ He reached out and caught her face in the palm of his hand and tipped it up to look at him, and to his surprise she didn’t stop him. ‘There is only one sensible choice which lies ahead of us,’ he said, and his perfect English suddenly became a little more broken. And in a way, maybe this was how it was supposed to be. All his life he had run from commitment, but he
could run no longer. ‘You will marry me, Eve,’ he said fiercely.

She looked at him. ‘Marry you?’ she said incredulously.

CHAPTER NINE

‘A
ND
those are the facts,’ finished Luca, with a shrug.

‘Wow!’ said his sister softly, and handed him the sleeping baby.

Luca raised his eyebrows sardonically as his hands tightened automatically around the warm little bundle. ‘What’s this?’ he questioned drily. ‘Aversion therapy?’

‘Nonsense! You are brilliant with your nephew—you always have been. You’re a natural with babies, Luca.’

The baby stirred and sighed and Luca glanced down at him, his hard, handsome features softening. ‘Just that it seems I won’t get much practice with my own.’

‘Oh, Luca—for heaven’s sake! It isn’t like you to be such a defeatist!’

‘I am not being defeatist, Sophia!’ he snapped, but the baby made a squeak of protest, so he lowered his voice. ‘I am merely being practical. She lives in England and I live in Rome—and we are not together. The facts speak for themselves.’

‘Well, why don’t you
be
together?’ demanded his sister. ‘For heaven’s sake, Luca, you can’t spend your whole life as a commitment-phobe, searching for the impossibly perfect woman. You’ll just have to marry her—I can’t think of a better reason for
breaking your long-term bachelorhood than a baby! People do it all the time!’

Thoughtfully, Luca stroked a tender finger across the glossy raven hair of his nephew and then looked up at his older sister, with an expression in his eyes he could see surprised her.

‘I have asked her to marry me,’ he said.

‘You
did
?’

He nodded.

‘And?’

‘And she said no.’

There was a moment of shocked, stunned silence, and then, to his astonishment, his sister tipped her head back and burst out laughing, causing her son to squirm in Luca’s arms and he handed him back, a stern look on his face.

‘I see no cause for laughing,’ he said icily.

Sophia wiped the corner of her eyes. ‘You don’t? Well, I think it’s priceless! A woman has turned the great Luca Cardelli down! Do you know, I think I like this woman!’

‘It is
not
funny!’

‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘No, I suppose it’s not. Well, you’re going to have to do something, Luca.’

‘I know I am,’ he said grimly.

 

The red studio light went off and there was a burst of spontaneous clapping and Eve looked round and smiled as she saw the executive producer walking into the studio, a sheaf of papers in his hand.

‘It went well?’

‘Eve, it was absolutely
brilliant
!’ He waved the papers like a winner’s medal. ‘I have here the viewer
figures, my dear, and I can say, without fear of contradiction, that we have a hit on our hands.’

She knew they did. It was indefinable, that feeling, but she had worked in television long enough to know success when she encountered it. She had been pretty optimistic from day one, but you never really knew for sure, not until the figures came in.

‘We’ve had a sack-load of letters and emails, the phone hasn’t stopped ringing all week and the duty log is full of praise.’

It had all worked out perfectly, so perfectly that she sometimes felt she ought to pinch herself.

She hadn’t even had to tell Clare about her pregnancy—the editor had guessed it for herself, and so it seemed had most of the crew. Leaving the set regularly in order to be sick had kind of given the game away.

Her early-morning sickness had shown no sign of abating. And that was when the idea had come up for Eve to be taken off the breakfast show and given her own daily slot just before midday. As someone had remarked, it wasn’t exactly a loss to the world of television if they used the show to replace the endless reruns of a comedy which had been made two decades earlier.

Eve In The Morning!
was to be modelled on the classic audience-participation theme, but with an added twist. As well as the usual studio discussions on the lines of: ‘Too Fat To Enjoy Sex!’ or ‘My Husband Doesn’t Know I’m A Stripper!’, there was to be a special five-minute slot every week which would keep the viewers up to date with her pregnancy. Viewers liked to be involved, and what better way to involve them?

‘That’s fantastic.’ Eve smiled broadly at the executive producer, some of the tension leaving her, and she placed her hand over her swollen belly as the baby gave a kick as if to say, Concentrate on
me
, now! Time to go home for a well-earned rest. She picked up her handbag, switched on her phone and it began ringing immediately.

Number unknown.

‘Hello?’

‘Eve?’ The voice was so frosty that Eve was surprised it didn’t freeze her slim little mobile phone.

The baby kicked again. It’s your daddy, she thought to herself and her initial feeling was one of relief. She had not heard a single word from him since the day she had refused his offer of marriage, which had left her wondering whether Luca Cardelli had washed his hands of his baby. But it seemed he had not.

‘Hello, Luca,’ she said steadily, and licked her suddenly dry lips. ‘Er, I can’t really talk now.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’m in the studio and there are a lot of people around—’

‘Then find somewhere where there are not!’

There was some note of implacable determination which made her do just that, and she quickly walked out until she found an empty dressing room.

‘How are you?’ she asked.

He ignored that, drawing in a deep breath in order to keep his temper in check. ‘More importantly,
cara
,’ he said silkily, ‘how are
you
and, more importantly, how is my baby?’

Inexplicably, his possessive statement didn’t ruffle her one little bit. Indeed, there was a mad, stabbing
maternal pride that he chose to acknowledge his child like that. She sighed. Sometimes you just couldn’t argue with nature.

‘I’m fine. Well, I am now. They took me off the breakfast show because I was being so sick—and they’ve given me my own show—’

‘I know they have,’ he interrupted coldly.

‘You do?’ Eve frowned in confusion. ‘But we don’t transmit to Italy!’ she said, rather stupidly.

‘I am not in Italy.’

‘Then wh-where are you?’ she asked, but even as she asked it she knew what the answer would be.

‘I’m in the Hamble.’

A nameless dread crept over her. ‘What are you doing there?’

‘We’ll discuss that later,’ he clipped out. ‘I think we’d better meet for lunch, don’t you, Eve?’

It was one of his questions which wasn’t really a question at all, and Eve knew that there was only one answer which was acceptable to them both. For him, because he demanded it and she knew that he had the right to, and for her because her curiosity was roused. ‘Okay, I’ll meet you,’ she said slowly. ‘Where?’

‘I’ll meet you at the Fish Inn at one forty-five.’

‘One forty-five,’ she echoed.

The journey back seemed to take for ever, and Eve glanced at her watch. There wasn’t time to go home first, and besides—what would she go home for? It wasn’t like a normal lunch date with a normal man. She was pregnant and about to see the reluctant father. Not a lot of point prettying herself up. And suddenly Eve felt a pang. Luca was a formidable man.

So why the hell was he here?

The Fish Inn was the best restaurant in the village. Simply furnished, serving fresh food and with a stunning view over the harbour—people flocked from miles around to eat there. It was usually impossible to get a table at this short notice, but Luca had somehow managed.

He was already seated when she arrived and his tall, lean body unmistakable. His black hair was ruffled and he wore some beautiful cashmere sweater, the colour of soft, grey clouds, and her heart turned over at the sight of him.

And that is enough, she told herself. More than enough.

He stood up as soon as he saw her, his face looking brooding and shuttered and the dreamy feeling fled, leaving her with a faint feeling of unease.

From behind the lashed curtain of his narrowed eyes, he watched her approach as if his life depended on it. Her face was blooming, he noted with approval, and her eyes were shining with life and with health. She wore dark trousers and a big, soft oatmeal-coloured sweater. Big as a man’s sweater, he thought viciously, and felt a stab of anger. But, big as it was, it could not disguise the definite swell of her belly and the anger transmuted into fierce and atavistic pride as he realised that the swell was part of him. His child in her belly. And, to his horror and shock, he felt the early, aching throb of desire.

‘Eve,’ he said.

He spoke pleasantly, but as he would to some casual acquaintance. It was as if they were oceans apart. There was no kiss on either cheek, no guiding of the arm to her seat. Nothing to treat her in any
way as special. In fact, he seemed almost to recoil from her and she wasn’t quite sure why that should hurt as much as it did.

‘Luca,’ she said evenly, and sat down.

‘How formal we are with each other,’ he mocked softly. ‘Why, we speak as strangers, Eve. Who would know, to look at us—that we have made such beautiful love together, and that we have created a child which grows beneath your heart?’

His words were like weapons.
The child beneath her heart.
Didn’t that phrase mock her with the tantalising image of what it
could
have been like, if theirs were a normal, loving relationship? And, at the same time, didn’t it manage to emphasise just what little there was, or ever had been between them?

Was he trying to wound her, to pay her back?

How calm he looked today, light years away from the man who had stared at her in complete and utter disbelief when she had refused his offer to marry her.

‘I don’t want to marry you!’ she had declared. ‘You just want to use marriage to acquire me, and to acquire rights over our baby! Just as you would a business deal!’

He had neither denied nor confirmed it. Just given her a long, considering look and said flatly, ‘And that is your decision?’

‘It is.’

‘Then there is nothing more to be said, is there?’

And the finality of that statement had left her wondering why she hadn’t said the most sensible thing, such as: I’d like to think about it, or I’m not ruling anything out. Instead, she was aware that she had burnt her boats, until she reminded herself that her
first assessment had been the correct one. She didn’t want to marry a man who didn’t love her.

With trembling fingers she shook out her linen napkin and laid it carefully over her knees, doubting that she would be able to eat a thing, not with those brilliant black eyes burning into her. But the action composed her, so that she was able to look up at him with a calm expression on her face.

‘So,’ she said equably. ‘You were going to tell me why you were here.’

Did nothing touch her? he wondered furiously. He could be some business acquaintance she was meeting for the first time for all the reaction on her face. What was going on in her mind? In her heart?

For a moment he wished that he had arranged to meet her down by the water, where the foam-flecked grey waters would have drowned his angry words. But he must temper his anger. She carried his child, and although it would have made him feel better to have stormed his rage like the strongest tempest, he must not.

‘I saw you on television this morning,’ he said unexpectedly.

It was the last thing she had imagined he would say.

‘Oh?’ she questioned warily.

The waitress came up with her pad, but he waved her away with an impatient hand, then leaned across the table, so close that she could feel the warmth of his breath and see the darkened irises of his eyes which made him look like the devil incarnate.

‘You are, as they say, very…telegenic,
cara
,’ he drawled.

He made it sound like an insult.

‘The camera loves you, doesn’t it, Eve?’ he continued softly. ‘It throws intriguing shadows off those high cheekbones and makes your face look as though it is composed of nothing but those grey-green eyes, like an ocean that a man could drown in.’

The words were like poetry, but he delivered them like a man who didn’t want to believe them. ‘If that was supposed to be a compliment, then I’ll pass on any others,’ she said shakily and caught the waitress’s eye, gave her a beseeching smile and, thank heavens, she came over.

‘I’d like the sole with new potatoes and green beans,’ she said steadily. ‘And just water to drink. Luca? What would you like?’

If looks could kill, she thought, with a momentary satisfaction.

‘I’ll have the same,’ he said shortly, but inside he was fuming. He was used to a woman letting
him
do the ordering!

Had she done that to demonstrate superiority or equality? A pulse began to beat at his temple and for just one wild, crazy moment he wondered what she would do if he went round to her side of the table and hauled her to her feet and began to kiss her. Would she press her body so eagerly to his, and wind her arms around his neck with the passion she had displayed in such abundance?

‘Luca? Are you all right?’

The erotic, frustrating fantasy evaporated and hard on its heels came the sense of burning injustice.

‘No, Eve, I am not “all right”. In fact, I am angry, very, very angry—probably angrier than I have ever been in my life, but I am doing my best to control it.’

Was he trying to intimidate her? Because he would
soon find that she would not be. ‘And managing very admirably,’ she said sweetly.

‘I will not be managing very admirably unless you wipe that smug little smile from your mouth and tell me exactly why you have taken on this new
show
.’ The word slid sarcastically from between his lips.


Eve in the Morning!
?’ she questioned helpfully.

‘Eve,’ he said warningly. ‘I would like some kind of explanation.’

She decided to stop playing games. She was a free agent. He might have claims on the baby, but none on
her
and she was perfectly entitled to live her life as she saw fit.

‘I was too sick in the mornings to manage the other ones… Luca, what on earth is the matter?’

BOOK: The Italian's Love-Child
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