Lynne Graham's Brides of L'Amour Bundle

When a noisy click sounded on the line, Pippa assumed they had a bad connection and raised her voice to be heard over the interference. ‘There’s really nothing to tell—’

‘Does that mean that you still haven’t told him about the baby?’ Tabby exclaimed in a tone of disbelief.

‘Tabby…’ Pippa felt stabbed in the back by that incredulity. After all, what harm was she doing in remaining silent a little longer?

‘I wouldn’t have asked if I hadn’t found you in residence at the end of Andreo’s phone line,’ Tabby sighed, sounding even more anxious. ‘I’m sorry…forget I even mentioned the baby. I really didn’t mean to put pressure on you. It’s just…I’ve been so worried.’

But Pippa’s attention had been stolen from their conversation for she had heard a step on the stone stairs. She spun round just as Andreo appeared in the arched doorway. Sheathed in faded denim jeans and a black designer shirt, he looked darkly handsome and dangerous. When she clashed with the furious challenge in his hard appraisal, she frowned in bewilderment and then gulped at the sight of the cordless phone grasped in his hand. From that phone Tabby’s voice could still be clearly heard setting up an echo in concert with the phone that Pippa held herself. Her blood ran cold: Andreo must have lifted the phone downstairs and overheard their dialogue.

‘Sorry, I have to go…’ Pippa breathed flatly. ‘I’ll call you later.’

CHAPTER NINE

‘I ASSUMED you were still in bed. I lifted the hall phone to call Marco. Is it true?’ Andreo demanded.

Pippa was very pale but reluctant to accept that he knew her secret. ‘Is what true?’

Andreo dealt her a raw look of derision. ‘Is it true that you’re pregnant?’

Pippa breathed in slow and deep to steady herself and laced her hands together in a nervous motion. ‘Yes…’

‘And is the baby mine?’

She reddened. ‘How can you ask me a question like that?’

‘Easily. This is not how I expected to hear that kind of news from you. Since it’s clear you’re not the very honest woman I thought you were, what else might I have got wrong?’ Andreo fielded harshly, lean, strong face rigid with the same tension that was holding her taut.

‘Not that anyway…the baby is yours,’ she stated in driven reproach.

Stunning golden eyes veiling, Andreo swung away from her so that she could not see how he had taken that blunt confirmation of his paternity.

Had he had some wild hope that he might not be the male responsible for impregnating her? Pippa wondered in dismay. She felt demeaned by that suspicion but could not avoid thinking along such lines. He had taken her to bed. At no time had he talked of a future that lay further away than the next day. Those were the facts. Facts that were bare of the taint of her hopes and dreams. Naturally Andreo would have been relieved to hear that the responsibility for the baby she carried was not his.

‘This is not the way I wanted you to find out about my…er…condition,’ Pippa muttered uncomfortably, shying away from that word, ‘baby’, lest it increase his shock.

‘Don’t try to fool me. You had no plans to tell me at all. Why else would you have remained silent this long? Do you think I haven’t worked that out for myself?’ It was a low, bitter response that sliced through the tense atmosphere like a knife blade.

‘I don’t know what you’re trying to say…’ Pippa could hardly think straight because she felt wretched. Last night and every night since her arrival at his idyllic home in the Dordogne she had slept in his arms, but now he was poised on the far side of the room surveying her with grim, shuttered eyes as though she were his mortal enemy. ‘Of course I was going to tell you…OK, so I wasn’t in a hurry to do it, but I hardly think that’s a crime!’

‘Per meraviglia…I think you were more concerned that I might try to interfere in how you chose to deal with what you no doubt saw as a colossal problem,’ Andreo framed in a raw undertone. ‘That’s why you left London but you weren’t prepared to admit that. If I hadn’t heard you talking to Christien’s wife, I would never have found out that I’d got you pregnant. You intended to keep that fact from me. Why won’t you admit that?’

Pippa stared back at him in consternation. ‘Because it’s not true and I wouldn’t behave like that. You’ve got it all wrong—’

‘I don’t think so.’ Hard dark eyes assailed hers with fierce distrust.

Andreo was playing judge, jury and executioner all at one and the same time and very much in his element, Pippa decided in furious frustration. ‘You aren’t listening to what I’m saying—’

‘Why would I?’ Andreo vented a derisive laugh. ‘Why would I listen to a woman who has so little regard for either me or our relationship that she leaves the country without even leaving me a note?’

‘You know why that happened!’ Pippa protested, alarmed by that condemnation being recycled. ‘I saw you with Lili Richards and assumed the worst—’

‘As you chose not to confront me on that score, I only have your word for that. In point of fact, you just vanished—’

‘My departure from London had nothing to do with me being pregnant because I only found out that I had fallen pregnant the day after you arrived in France!’ Pippa argued vehemently, her bright blue eyes pinned to his lean chiselled features with a concern she could not hide. ‘I was planning to tell you, I was—’

‘I don’t think so. Your behaviour speaks for itself—’

‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’