Shameful Secret, Shotgun Wedding

But it wasn’t.

It wasn’t.

It was glaringly and frighteningly positive.

Cassie went to bed, huddled beneath the duvet and pretended to be asleep when her mother got back. For the next five days she carried on trying to convince herself that there had been some awful mistake when deep down she knew there had not. And that she had to tell him.

In a way, the phone call was made worse by the realisation that Giancarlo had meant what he’d said. Because if there had been a small part of her which had longed for him to retract his words and go back on his intentions, then she had been sorely disappointed. There was no change of heart from her ex-lover. No emotional telephone call on Christmas Day, telling her how much he was missing her—even though she had stared at the phone and willed and willed it to ring. Nothing on New Year’s Eve either—the other prime time when people allowed sentiment to take over from sense. He had meant what he said. It was over—and he had planned never to see her again.

Even making the telephone call required careful planning—it mustn’t be anywhere where she could be overheard, and she couldn’t make it outside because of the freezing weather and the ever-present pounding of the sea.

In the end she called when her mother had gone out for the day, praying that he would pick up and not let the call go through to voicemail. Because she couldn’t tell him in a recorded message. She couldn’t.

Pick up, she urged silently as she listened to the ringing tone.

Pick up!

‘Cassandra?’

She was so startled by the sound of his richly accented voice that for a moment she was rendered speechless by a hundred different emotions, of which longing and sadness were the main ones. But she had never heard that note of wariness in his voice before—a note which told her more clearly than words that this was not a welcome call. If she had simply been calling on the off chance that he might want to see her again she would have ended the conversation as quickly and with as much dignity as possible. But she was not in a position to do such a thing. And how on earth did she even begin to tell him her momentous news?

‘Giancarlo. I need to speak to you.’

At the other end of the phone, Giancarlo frowned, wondering what had made her abandon the pride he had so admired in order to ring him. Was she calling him on some flimsy pretext—the supposedly forgotten pair of earrings she had neglected to take with her, or the book she had been reading, which she had left behind? Was this a ploy to get back into his bed—and, if so, wasn’t there a small part of him which was tempted to indulge her? For hadn’t he missed the warmth of her beautiful body in his arms and the sight of her sweet smile greeting him when he returned from work each day?

‘Giancarlo, are you still there?’

His eyes narrowed as he noted the lack of affection or everyday courtesy in her voice. This was not the wheedling tone of a woman who was prepared to trample on her own pride to get him back—and his senses were immediately alerted.

‘You are speaking to me,’ he pointed out coolly.

‘I meant…in person.’

‘In person might be difficult.’ He thought of her firm young body. Her violet eyes and rose-petal lips. The way her hair had spilled like a pot of pale gold all over his bare chest. Yet what would be the use of seeing her again and letting temptation distort his thinking? Long-term she was an unsuitable consort for all kinds of reasons—he knew that and he thought that she had known it, too. This wasn’t going anywhere—and maybe he needed to spell it out to her. ‘I have a business trip coming up. Time is tight, Cassandra—you know how it is.’

In her little Cornish sitting room, Cassie flinched, wishing that she’d just come right out and told him—for then she would not have had to face the reality of hearing that note of cold dismissal in his voice. And hadn’t there been a part of her which had hoped that maybe he was regretting letting her go? The little-girl part of every woman who clung onto a dream that he might want her back in his life—even when that was a hopeless and foolish fantasy? Well, she had just received her wake-up call because he very definitely didn’t.

And, meanwhile, the harsh reality was that she still had to tell him…

‘I’d prefer not to have to tell you this on the phone.’

‘Tell me what?’

She swallowed. What else could she do but come right out with it? ‘I’m pregnant, Giancarlo.’

The world tipped on its axis. Giancarlo heard the rapid thunder of his heart and felt a sensation of complete and utter powerlessness. And then anger. Pure and blinding anger.

‘You can’t be pregnant,’ he said flatly.