The Cost of Her Innocence

He felt a strange tightening in his chest as he did so. It was incredible how young, how innocent she looked, with her hair washed and left to dry in surprisingly silken waves. She wore no make-up, and was wearing a simple, brightly patterned summer dress that skimmed over her breasts and slender body. He noticed she wasn’t wearing a bra and stiffened, remembering the full firmness of her breasts and the erotic taste of her nipples in his mouth. He also remembered that thanks to him she was not physically innocent anymore—and, of course, the real reason he was here.

His mouth tightened grimly. He was angry for letting her obvious attributes get to him and, straightening up, dismissed the wayward thoughts from his mind, determined to get this over with quickly.

‘Look at me, Beth,’ he demanded, and watched her raise her head, her expression guarded. ‘This is a serious matter. Are you on the pill?’

‘No, of course not,’ she said without thinking.

‘In that case we might have a problem. It may have escaped your attention, but I did not use protection when we had sex. You could be pregnant, and if you are I need to make suitable arrangements.’

‘What?’ Beth cried, appalled, as the true reason for Dante being here registered in her mind. It had never occurred to her that she might get pregnant—how stupid was that? Would she never learn? Was she sentenced to go through life being made a fool of by this man? she wondered. ‘You didn’t use...?’ Of course he hadn’t. She hadn’t noticed, but he had just said so, and she suddenly had a hysterical desire to laugh.

‘No. It was my fault and I take full responsibility. I am prepared to take care of everything, all the monetary aspects, should the worst circumstance arise.’

‘You are unbelievable! You sound like a lawyer even when you drop a bombshell like that on me!’ Beth exclaimed, thinking the only thing that would be arising was her stomach if his suspicion was true. Because no way would she take a penny from Dante Cannavaro under any circumstance.

‘What can I say? I am what I am?’ He shrugged negligently.

Ignoring him, Beth swiftly thought back over the eight weeks she had been here and realised she had been so busy planning and working she hadn’t noticed she had missed her period. Suddenly Dante’s fear was a very real possibility. Her recent aversion to coffee, which Janet had remarked on when Beth had switched to drinking tea, now held a different connotation. But she hadn’t been sick—well, not physically. Though she had felt nauseous and had blamed it on the pervasive smell of the decorator’s paint that had filled the house for weeks.

The little colour she had leached from her face. The very idea filled her with horror; not the thought of a baby—she would love to have a child of her own, someone to love unconditionally—but with Dante Cannavaro as its father! To be connected to him for years by a child didn’t bear thinking about....

Then another even more disturbing thought occurred to Beth. What exactly was he offering to pay for—take care of?

She looked at him with dislike. ‘By “monetary aspects” do you mean you will pay for an abortion if I am pregnant?’ she asked.

‘Is that what you want?’ he prompted, his hard face expressionless.

‘No, never,’ she said instinctively.

‘Good, because if that was what you wanted I would have done everything in my power to convince you otherwise. So, are you pregnant or not?’

She turned her head to stare out to sea again, suddenly very afraid. Dante was a powerful, clever man, and very persuasive—as she knew to her cost. If she was pregnant, and if she had a healthy baby and he decided to claim custody, where would that leave her? She was probably worrying unnecessarily, but Dante was a lawyer, and she had no doubt he was ruthless enough to use her past history against her in court. What chance would she have of keeping the baby herself?

Beth looked back at Dante and considered lying. She had loved her adoptive parents, and had no idea who her biological parents were. All she knew was that as a baby she had been left in a sports bag in the emergency department of a hospital. Her mother had never been found. With her own lack of a true identity she knew instinctively that there was no way she could refuse her own child the right to know its father.

‘I don’t know. It’s too early to tell,’ she said calmly. It wasn’t really a lie, there could be other reasons why she was late, but offhand she could not think of one.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

He rose to his full intimidating height and Beth swallowed hard.

‘You are an intelligent, adult woman—you must know if you have missed menstruating.’

‘I am not the ridiculous one here,’ she shot back. ‘I have some excuse, but for a man of your age and experience to forget protection is rid

iculous.’

‘Point taken.’ Dante grimaced. ‘But you still have not answered my question. Have you missed your period?’

‘Maybe. I don’t know. I’m not regular anyway,’ Beth said, and immediately wished she had told an outright lie. But she had been so shocked at the thought of pregnancy, and Dante had been so blunt, she had not had time to think things through properly and had simply reacted.

‘I don’t have patience and I am a busy man. I need to know now, so I can rearrange my schedule if I have to without too much inconvenience. I have a meeting in Rome at midday tomorrow as it is. When I arrived in London yesterday I expected to find you there—not miles away in the middle of nowhere. You said there was a café? Come, I need a coffee.’ He reached out a hand. ‘And if there is a pharmacy we can get a pregnancy test at the same time and settle the matter now.’

Beth’s mouth fell open. ‘Are you crazy? I could never buy a pregnancy test in the chemist here. Everyone knows me and it would be around the village in a flash.’

‘So we will go to the nearest town.’

Beth tried to argue with him. What man in his right mind went looking for a woman after what had been basically a one-night stand and demanded a pregnancy test? The nearest town was a forty-minute drive away, and she was going there this afternoon with her friend Janet and her daughter anyway. She would get one then.