The Italian's Unexpected Baby

Mia looked away, knowing she could have done exactly that. Guilt needled her again, sharp, painful pricks. ‘To be honest, Alessandro, I didn’t think you’d care.’

The silence that met this statement was thunderous. Alessandro stared at her, his mouth open, his eyes flinty, before he folded his arms across his impressive chest and raked her with a single, scathing glare. ‘You didn’t think? Or you didn’t want to know? You hid my own child from me—’

‘Yes, I did,’ Mia cried. ‘I felt I had to.’

‘Why?’

‘Because…because I was scared.’ She hated admitting it, but she didn’t know what else to do.

‘What were you scared of?’

‘You. Sweeping into my life, making demands.’

‘Like seeing my own child? Is that such an outrageous demand?’

‘I was afraid you might ask for something else,’ Mia admitted in a low voice. Alessandro’s eyes narrowed to deadly slits.

‘Ask for something else…?’

‘A termination,’ she admitted, unable to look at him as she said it. ‘You didn’t seem thrilled about a potential pregnancy when you mentioned it to me…’ She trailed off, because the absolutely outraged look on Alessandro’s face kept her from any speech or thought. She shrank beneath his anger, hating that she was doing so.

She’d promised herself never to cower or cringe, and yet here she was, doing both.

‘A termination,’ Alessandro said, and then swore. ‘How dare you make such decisions for me?’

It seemed a strange twist of irony that in trying not to be controlled, she had come across as controlling. Mia sank onto the sofa, overwhelmed by Alessandro’s anger, by the way

everything had been turned upside down.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I see now that I shouldn’t have. You just seemed so alarmed by the possibility of a pregnancy…’

‘And you assured me you couldn’t be pregnant! You were on the pill.’

‘I was, but I missed two, because of…well, because of everything.’

‘And you didn’t think to tell me that? To alert me to the possibility?’

‘It seemed such a tiny risk…’

‘Obviously not.’ He wheeled away from her, his anger making him need to move. ‘You made decisions you had no right to make.’

‘I thought I was doing what was best. And it isn’t as if you were checking up or even thinking of me all year, were you?’ she flung at him, tired of being on the defensive. ‘I did an internet search on you, you know. And I have to tell you, Alessandro, what I saw made me less inclined to search you out.’

Alessandro turned back to her, his powerful body taut and still. ‘What you saw?’

‘It looked like you were with a different woman every night.’ Mia lifted her chin. ‘Supermodels and socialites, by the look of them. Your bedroom must have a revolving door.’

‘You almost sound jealous,’ Alessandro remarked in a low, dangerous tone.

‘Hardly,’ Mia scoffed. ‘But from what I saw, you didn’t seem like father material.’ As soon as she said the words, she knew she’d gone too far. Something dark and deadly thrummed through Alessandro, tautening his body, flaring in his eyes.

‘You are not in a position to judge my parenting skills,’ he said in a voice that was all the more frightening in its quiet intensity. ‘That was not your right, just as it was not your right to keep this information—and my own child—from me.’ Mia opened her mouth, trying to frame a response that was not quite an apology, but Alessandro cut across her before she’d barely drawn a breath. ‘In any case, whatever you saw online…those were nothing more than social engagements.’

‘Are you saying it never went further?’ she scoffed. ‘I have trouble believing—’

‘I’m not saying one thing or the other,’ Alessandro replied, his voice rising, edged with ire. ‘It has no relevance. We weren’t a couple. I didn’t know.’ He took a step towards her, menacing in his stature, his pure physical presence. Mia held her ground, but only just. ‘No matter what photos you saw of me online, you should have told me I was going to be a father. End of.’

‘Fine.’ Her voice quavered as her hands once more bunched into helpless fists at her sides. ‘Fine, I should have. I admit that. But…can’t you admit your part in this? Getting rid of me the day after…’ Her voice trembled and broke. ‘The very next day, Alessandro. Can’t you realise how that made me feel?’