And with those damning and insulting words ringing in her ears, Eve listened in disbelief as his footsteps echoed down the corridor and the front door slammed shut behind him.
This was getting to be something of a habit, she thought tiredly. But once he had gone, she felt oddly lighter—as though a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders, and until it had gone she hadn’t realised just how much she had been dreading telling Luca.
His reaction had been even worse than her worst imaginings, but at least now it was over. The obstacle had been faced and overcome. Whatever happened now, nothing could be as bad as that had been, surely.
And then she remembered the cold anger on his beautiful face and she bit her lip, tears threatening to well up in her eyes, but she swallowed them down. There was no point in thinking about it, or him. It was over.
She heard a protesting rumble in her stomach, and for the first time since she had found out the news, she felt hungry.
You’ve got a baby to feed, Eve Peters, she told herself sternly as she op
ened the fridge door.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘THERE has been no phone call?’
The lawyer shook his head. ‘Nothing, signore.’
‘And you telephoned her, as I instructed?’
‘I have attempted to telephone Signorina Peters on four occasions, and on each occasion she has steadfastly refused to take my call.’
Beneath his breath, Luca swore. He turned to the window, his mind turning over the facts in his cool, clear-headed way.
But for once, he was perplexed.
This had been the last thing he had expected. Her words of protest he had naturally assumed to be false, her declaration that she never wished to see him again he had thought was the defiant words of a woman who meant no such thing but was simply playing a clever game. He hadn’t been sure what it was she had wanted—him or his money, or both—but he had been certain that he would find out soon enough.
But indeed it seemed that she had severed all contact.
He continued to stare unseeing as the midday sun illuminated the magnificent spectacle of Roman rooftops, and then his heart clenched in fear.
Unless…unless there was a very good reason why she hadn’t contacted him. Inside the pockets of his trousers, his fingers clenched themselves into tight fists.
What if…what if there was no longer any reason for her to do so? What if the pregnancy no longer existed?
For a moment Luca felt physically sick, and, for a man who had rarely known a day’s sickness in his life, it was an unwelcome sensation. But then, he was getting quite used to those.
‘Signor Cardelli?’
Luca turned around, surprising the look of concern on the face of his lawyer.
‘You are sick, signore?’
Resolve returned to fill his blood with the fire of determination and Luca shook his head. ‘No, my friend. Not sick at all,’ he said grimly. It was time to take matters into his own hands. Something that he should have done weeks ago.
Eve cheerily said goodbye to the crew, but once she was headed for her car and her driver her smile faded. It was hard work trying to pretend that nothing was wrong, and she didn’t know how much longer she would be able to keep it up.
Sooner or later she was going to have to tell Clare, her editor, and it had better be sooner rather than later, before she, or someone else on the show, guessed her secret. And it wouldn’t take a member of the regional crime squad to do that.
Twice this morning she had had to leave the set, trying not to rush out to the bathroom, where she had been violently sick. She had stood before the mirror, trembling, before rubbing some blusher into her cheeks and hoping she looked halfway decent. She wasn’t going to be much use as a breakfast presenter if she spent all her time throwing up.
But even if, as the doctor had suggested, the sickness passed—and, infuriatingly, by the end of the show all the nausea had passed—the fact remained that she was soon going to become very obviously pregnant.
No. She was going to have to make an appointment to speak to Clare.
She walked out into the bracing air, glad of the welcoming coolness after the stifling atmosphere of the studio, and as she looked around for her car her heart missed a beat.