Shaking his head to fend off the knife-like anguish that surged into his chest, Luca pushed impatiently to his feet and started to walk again. From now on, he decided grimly, he would be shadowing Katherine like a hawk. And if he got even the slightest hint that she was lying to him in any way she would not get off lightly for deceiving him….
CHAPTER FIVE
WOULD Luca come to believe that the baby really was his? Kate fretted. Priding herself on always being a very honest person, she hated the idea that he might think she was lying. Yet she could easily see why he might doubt her. The truth was she had left it too long to get in touch with him—and perhaps she really should have tried much harder to find him?
She would be lying if she said she hadn’t had any fears surrounding telling him she was pregnant. A man as wealthy and influential as Gianluca De Rossi would hardly be interested in a relationship with a mere PA like Kate, she’d reasoned painfully. Having seen the incredible mansion he lived in, and witnessed for herself the opulent lifestyle he enjoyed, it was obvious they were poles apart in almost every way she could think of! It still seemed like a miracle to Kate that Luca had set his sights on her that night, when there had been so many more stunning women to choose from! Women dressed to kill in outfits that probably would have cost Kate more than a year’s wages! And, no…not even one of them had had the courtesy to speak to Kate. They had probably guessed from the outset by her shop-bought dress that she was nobody important.
To give Luca his due, he hadn’t treated her like that. Which made it even sadder that she had let herself be beset with doubt and fear that he would ultimately reject her when she woke up to find herself in his bed. That chilly but sunny December morning in Milan Kate should have been feeling on top of the world after the pleasure Luca had given her, but instead she’d let those old debilitating feelings of inferiority get too much of a grip. Feelings that had been exacerbated by her grief over her mother’s death and what had happened with Hayden. And when she’d returned to her friend’s apartment to pack for her flight home she’d desperately tried to convince herself that Luca wouldn’t give her a second thought when he woke and found her gone….
* * *
When he returned she was busy typing letters. The door opened suddenly in the outer office, and Kate heard it slam. She tensed as she heard him stride across the room to his desk, and her shoulders practically flew up around her ears when he made a detour almost straight away into her room. With him he brought the earthy scent of the outdoors, and his dark hair was boyishly ruffled, she noticed—if not by his fingers, then by the elements.
‘Any messages?’
For a moment, the intensely blue eyes that bored into hers made her fall into a trance. Would her baby inherit that same divine colour? she mused.
‘Just a couple… Clients returning calls, but nothing urgent.’ She tore off a page from the pad she’d scribbled on and handed it to him.
His glance was brief, almost dismissive. ‘Like you said, nothing urgent.’ Scrunching up the paper, he threw it into the wastepaper basket. ‘I have been walking in the park,’ he told her.
‘Oh, yes?’
‘I have been doing a lot of thinking.’
Her throat swelling with tension, Kate said nothing.
‘And I have made some important decisions.’
Still Kate remained mute, but she had the definite feeling that her life was about to take a new dramatic turn and her heart skipped a beat.
‘I have decided that you cannot continue working when you are clearly not well and need proper rest. I have been needing to take a break from work myself for some time also. Therefore I propose that we go back to Italy for a while. The atmosphere there will be much more conducive to rest and relaxation, and the sooner we can leave the better. Tomorrow would be ideal.’
Staring at him in astonishment, Kate marvelled at his skill in making such a potentially contentious statement with such apparent ice-cool calm! As if he were merely saying to her, Take a letter, Miss Richardson instead of Risk everything…your job, your livelihood, your way of life…and fall in with my plans wherever they might lead you! But even though she sensed many obstacles ahead if she were to comply, Kate also sensed a jolt of excitement go through her at the idea of returning to Italy with Luca.
‘It’s not that I’m unwell,’ she said reasonably. ‘I’m pregnant—that’s all!’ Even as the words left her mouth, she thought about the genuine toll early pregnancy had taken on her body and mind, and realised she would welcome a holiday…however short or long. But the unresolved issues between her and Luca nevertheless made her less than easy about the prospect.