The Italian's Love-Child

d a schoolmarm.

He followed her into the kitchen, his eyes narrowed with irritation. What kind of a greeting was this? Did she think that he had flown all the way here to be marched into her kitchen like a hungry schoolboy?

‘You know, an Italian woman would never treat her lover so,’ he observed, on a sultry note of caution.

Slowly, Eve turned around. ‘Then I suggest you find yourself an Italian lover, instead of an English one.’

‘Tell me, do you give all your men such a careless greeting?’

His silky question made it sound as though she had a line of lovers stretching as far back as the eye could see! Eve felt sick and the sickness reminded her of the secret—such a tiny secret at the moment—which was growing inside her belly.

And suddenly she realised that her instinct had been correct all along and that there wasn’t any such thing as a ‘right time’ to tell him. To wait would be to perpetuate the deception and to let him make love to her first would be unthinkable. And much too poignant. Tell him when he was naked and she was vulnerable? She couldn’t.

‘Sit down, Luca,’ she said heavily.

Luca’s eyes narrowed. Something did not add up. He had been given an inkling that something was not right from the moment he had arrived, but he had put it down to nerves, even though there had been no nerves during that deliciously enjoyable weekend in Rome. She wasn’t the kind of woman to be shy at showing him her home—for a start, he had already seen some of it and she wasn’t insecure enough to need his approval about where she lived.

So what was it?

Silently, he pulled out a chair and sat down, stretching out his long legs, his expression pokerfaced and shuttered.

Eve’s nerve suddenly failed her. ‘I’ll just finish making the tea,’ she blustered

Still he watched and waited.

Eve tipped boiling water in the teapot, making a drink that she knew neither of them would touch, but it seemed important to be going through the motions of doing something. And why didn’t he say something? Why was he just sitting there, like a brooding dark and golden statue? Why wasn’t he asking her what was wrong and then she could have blurted it out, instead of having to say it cold, searching for words to cushion it and knowing deep down that there were none.

‘I’m pregnant.’

For a long, tense moment, Luca thought that he was dreaming, or in the middle of a nightmare.

‘Turn around and look at me,’ he said softly. ‘And say that again.’

Her hands gripping onto the sink as if for support, Eve sucked in a hot, painful breath and turned around to face him. She had expected to see anger, fury, disbelief, but there was none of these things. His eyes were as cold and as forbidding as black ice and his face was like that of a stranger. She looked at him and felt as though she hardly knew him, and she didn’t, she supposed, not really.

And yet, even now his child was growing inside her.

‘I’m pregnant.’

His eyes roved to her belly, looking for a tell-tale swell, but the sweater she wore told him nothing.

He nodded. ‘That is why you didn’t want to make love.’

Something in the calmness of his voice washed over her like a balm and for the first time since she’d found out she felt a small degree of comfort. He was an intelligent and perceptive man—he had obviously realised that no earthly use would be gained from anger.

‘That’s right. I just felt that it would be inappropriate in the circumstances.’

He gave a low, contemptuous laugh. ‘Inappropriate? For whom? For you, or for your baby—or for the poor fool who fathered it?’

She had thought that anger could only be expressed in a loud and furious storm, but Eve realised at that moment that there was another, different kind of anger. A quiet and scornful kind of anger which was far more deadly. She stared at him, her eyes full of consternation, not quite understanding—for if blame could be apportioned, then it was equal blame, surely? If fault was to be found, then they were both at fault.

‘Luca—’

His icy words cut across her as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Were you already pregnant the night you slept with me?’ he hissed. ‘Or was there just a chance that you might be?’ He gave a low, bitter laugh, barely able to believe that he had been so sucked in by her offhand attitude that he had pursued her like a schoolboy!

His black eyes bored into her like daggers. ‘Won’t this complicate things for you?’ he questioned sardonically. ‘I should not think that the father will offer support if he finds out that you have been intimate with another!’ Another low, bitter laugh. ‘Well, do not worry, cara. He will not hear it from me! I will take it to the grave with me.’

His eyes were cold, she thought. So cold.