The answer was simple, of course, though it had taken her long enough to work it out: he didn’t miss her. He had simply written off their marriage, put it down to experience and picked up the threads of his life.carried on being important and dynamic and stopping conversations when he walked into a room.
‘When I rang, your mobile was switched off.’
‘I lost the old phone, I think. I don’t know where it is.’ The days immediately following her return to England two months earlier were still something of a blur to her.
Before she could put a name to the flare of emotion that spilled from his dark eyes, Francesco’s heavy lids lowered concealing his expression under the thick mesh of his lashes. ‘That was careless of you.’
E
rin gave a wistful little smile and placed a hand lightly to her belly. ‘Even when you’re careful, accidents happen.’
‘Did you have any accident in particular in mind?’
The edge in his deep accented voice brought her wary glance upwards. ‘What do you mean?’ she demanded shrilly.
One dark brow lifted to a sardonic angle. ‘Defensive, Erin?’
The suggestion brought a guilty flush to her cheeks. ‘No … I just meant accidents, accidents in general.’ The retort sounded pathetically lame even to her own ears so she was surprised and relieved when Francesco didn’t comment on it.
Instead he explained tautly, ‘I have been ringing your home number several times a day for the past four days—your mother told me you did not wish to speak to me.’
‘My mother!’ she echoed, an audible thread of uncertainty entering her voice. ‘But she.’ She stopped and bit her lip.
It was entirely possible he spoke the truth. Her mother’s antagonism for the man her daughter had married had been instant and the feeling had been mutual. The overnight visit they had made to break the news to her parents in person the week after the wedding had been a total disaster.
Her mother had gone to pieces when Erin had gently explained that she would be moving to Italy, and Francesco had not helped matters by not being at all sympathetic to her distress.
When she had taken him to task over his attitude in private he had informed her that her mother would soon find someone else to take her place as an emotional prop.
‘She is playing on your guilt, but what do you have to feel guilty about?’ he asked her.
‘I don’t feel guilty,’ Erin protested.
‘You are not responsible for your parents. It’s time you realised that they stay in their marriage, not because they have to, but because it suits them both.’
Recalling the conversation now ignited the resentment Erin had felt at the time.
‘Yes, I spoke to your mother. She has explained in some detail how the mention of my name makes you feel sick and the only thing keeping you going is the thought of taking me for all I’m worth.’
‘And you believed her!’ It made her angry that he could consider her capable of being so mercenary.
‘Was she not following your instructions?’ He shook his head incredulously and loosed a bitter laugh. ‘Believed her? One thing you are not guilty of, cara, is avarice!’ His eyes dropped and it seemed to a horror-struck Erin that he was staring at her still-flat stomach.
My God, he knows about the baby …!
She froze, her eyes wide and shocked, the colour leaking from her face. Common sense reasserted itself about a heartbeat later. A shaky sigh of relief escaped her lips as she recognised her guilt-fuelled imagination was making her read things into his expression and body language that weren’t there.
Francesco couldn’t possibly know, unless he was a mindreader. Nobody but her doctor knew and she wasn’t showing yet. In fact after the weeks of vile morning sickness she weighed less than she had ever done.
She allowed the hands she had instinctively brought up in a protective gesture to casually fall from her middle. ‘I won’t ask what I am guilty of.’
‘Your mother didn’t tell you about the calls?’
Her eyes slid from his. ‘I expect Mum was just trying to protect me.’
‘From me?’ A muscle in his lean cheek clenched. Erin’s head lifted. ‘It’s what mothers do.’ ‘Not yours, I think,’ he drawled.
Erin’s eyes flashed. ‘How dare you criticise my mother?’