The Italian's Pregnant Mistress

‘I have nothing to say to you, Georgina.’

‘Oh, but I have something to say to you.’ The smugness was right out in the open now and Angelo allowed his feelings to get the better of him. Damned if he was going to let her have free rein to gloat over things that were none of her business.

‘Do you now?’ he enquired coldly. ‘Well, I’m not interested and, in fact, I’m on my way out to see Francesca. So if you’ll excuse me…’ He hung up, almost expecting to hear the insistent ringing of the phone as she tried to reconnect, but the house was silent.

He left before the silence could be broken and forced himself not to drive like a madman over to her house. The situation felt almost dreamlike, surreal. With the ease of habit, he began thinking about the consequences of the situation. She would have kept this baby to herself because, at the end of the day, whatever good sex they had shared, it wasn’t enough. It hadn’t been enough three years ago and it wasn’t enough now. But she was having his baby and her feelings would have to be secondary, whether she liked it or not.

His jaw clenched in anger and he breathed in slowly and deeply, taking his time in the Saturday morning traffic.

It was mid-morning by the time he reached her place and he almost expected to find that she had gone out, but no. He rang the doorbell and heard the sound of footsteps behind the closed door.

Francesca took a deep breath, hand on the door knob. She had been dreading this moment, knowing it would come, and knowing, as well, that he wouldn’t give her any advance warning. No time for her to prepare herself. It wouldn’t have mattered at any rate. She was as prepared now as she would ever be.

She opened the door and her courage failed her at the sight of his grim, implacable face.

‘Come in.’ She turned around and began walking towards the sitting room. She only faced him when they were both in the room, at which point she had no choice, but that didn’t mean that she was any less afraid. Her heart was thumping inside her and she felt sweaty.

‘Would you like something to drink?’ she asked, clasping her hands together on her lap and leaning forward.

Angelo’s mouth twisted. ‘Bit late in the day for polite exchanges, don’t you think? Bearing in mind that you were going to disappear off the face of the earth with my baby?’

Francesca blanched. ‘I…I…wasn’t going to disappear off the face of the earth…’

‘No? Just duck out of sight? Call it whatever you want to call it, Francesca, but you had no intention of telling me, did you?’ He clenched his fists to stop himself from hitting something. ‘How dare you,’ he said coldly, ‘think that you could keep my child away from me?’

‘I did intend to tell you, Angelo, but, if you recall, you weren’t exactly receptive when we last met!’

‘And you didn’t think that the information was important enough to make a stand!’

‘I didn’t think that it would do any good telling you!’

Angelo stared at her as though she had taken leave of her senses, stared at her until a soft pink glow invaded her cheeks. ‘Run that by me again,’ he said with silky threat. ‘I’m struggling to understand how having my child and keeping it a secret would benefit me.’

‘Look at your life, Angelo! You know where you’re going. You like to be in control. What happened was my fault. I got swept away that first time we…Well, anyway, I wasn’t using any protection on that one occasion, I lied to you when I said I was, and now I’m pregnant. I didn’t think it was right for you to spend the rest of your life paying for the mistake.’

‘And it didn’t occur to you that I should have been given the choice?’

‘Yes, of course it did! Which is why I went to see you, to tell you, but you wanted me out and I realised that leaving was probably the best way.’

‘Handy conclusion, wasn’t it? Any time you had a struggle with your conscience you could always remind yourself that you had tried, after all, given it your best shot.’ He moved to stand in front of her, his towering anger sheathing his body like a steel glove.