The Uncompromising Italian

He was a man who moved on when it came to women. Always had been—never mind when it came to moving on from a woman who had dumped him!

Just thinking about that made his teeth snap together in rage.

‘I don’t intend walking back into your life,’ Lesley replied coolly. So, now she knew where she stood. Was she still happy that she had come here? Frankly, she could still turn around and walk right back through that door but, yes, she was happy she was here, whatever the outcome.

Alessio’s eyes narrowed. He noticed what he had failed to notice before—the rigid way she was sitting, as though every nerve in her body was on red-hot alert; the way she was fiddling with her fingers; the determined tilt of her chin.

‘Then why are you here?’ His voice was brusque and dismissive. Having lingered on the pleasant scenario of her pleading to be a part of his life once again, he was irrationally annoyed that he had misread whatever signals she had been giving off.

‘I’m here because I’m pregnant.’

There. She had said it. The enormous thing that had been absorbing every minute of every day of her life since she had done that home pregnancy test over three days ago was finally out in the open.

She had skipped a period. It hadn’t even occurred to her that she could be pregnant; she had forgotten all about that torn condom. She had had far too much on her mind for that little detail to surface. It was only as she’d tallied the missed period with tender breasts that she remembered the very first time they had made love...and the outcome of that had been very clear to see in the bright blue line on that little plastic stick.

She hadn’t bothered to buy more, to repeat the test. Why would she do that, when in her heart she knew that the result was accurate?

She had had a couple of days to get used to the idea, to move from feeling as though she was falling into a bottomless hole to gradually accepting that, whatever the landing, she would have to deal with it; that the hole wouldn’t be bottomless.

She had had time to engage her brain in beginning trying to work out how her life would change, because there was no way that she would be getting rid of this baby. And, as her brain had engaged, her emotions had followed suit and a flutter of excitement and curiosity had begun to work their way into the equation.

She was going to be a mum. She hadn’t banked on that happening, and she knew that it would bring a host of problems, but she couldn’t snuff out that little flutter of excitement.

Boy or girl? What would it look like? A miniature Alessio? Certainly, a permanent reminder of the only man she knew she would ever love.

And should she tell him? If she loved him, would she ruin his life by telling him that he was going to be a father—again? Another unplanned and unwanted pregnancy. Would he think that she was trapping him, just like Bianca had, into marriage for all the wrong reasons?

Wouldn’t the kindest thing be to keep silent, to let him carry on with his life? It was hardly as though he had made any attempt at all to contact her after she had left Italy! She had been a bit of fun and he had been happy enough to watch her walk away. Wouldn’t the best solution be to let him remember her as a bit of fun rather than detonate a bomb that would have far-reaching and permanent ramifications he would not want?

In the end, she just couldn’t bring herself to deny him the opportunity of knowing that he was going to be a father. The baby was half his and he had his rights, whatever the outcome might be.

But it was still a bomb she’d detonated, and she could see that in the way his expression changed from total puzzlement to dawning comprehension and then to shock and horror.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a clear, high voice. ‘I know this is probably the last thing you were expecting.’

Alessio was finding it almost impossible to join his thoughts up. Pregnant. She was pregnant. For once he couldn’t find the right words to deal with what was going through his head, to express himself. In fact, he actually couldn’t find any words at all.

‘It was that first time,’ Lesley continued into the lengthening silence. ‘Do you remember?’

‘The condom split.’

‘It was a one in a thousand chance.’

‘The condom split and now you’re pregnant.’ He leant forward and raked his fingers through his hair, keeping his head lowered.

‘It was no one’s fault,’ Lesley said, chewing her lower lip and looking at his reaction, the way he couldn’t even look at her. Right now he hated her; that was clear. He was listening to the sound of his life being derailed and, whether down to a burst condom or not, he was somehow blaming her.

‘I wasn’t going to come here...’

That brought his head up, snapping to attention, and he looked at her in utter disbelief. ‘What, you were just going to disappear with my baby inside you and not tell me about it?’

‘Can you blame me?’ Lesley muttered defensively. ‘I know the story about how you were trapped into a loveless marriage by your last wife; I know what the consequences of that were.’

‘Those consequences being...?’ When Bianca had smiled smugly and told him that he was going to be a father, he had been utterly devastated. Now, strangely, the thought that this woman might have spared him devastation second time round didn’t sit right. In fact, he was furious that the thought might even have crossed her mind although, in some rational part of himself, he could fully understand why. He also knew the answer to his own stupid question, although he waited for her to speak while his thoughts continued to spin and spin, as though they were in a washing machine with the speed turned high.

‘No commitment,’ Lesley said without bothering to dress it up. ‘No one ever allowed to get too close. No woman ever thinking that she could get her foot through the door, because you were always ready to bang that door firmly shut the minute you smelled any unwanted advances in that direction. And please don’t look at me as though I’m talking rubbish, Alessio. We both know I’m not. So excuse me for thinking that it might have been an idea to spare you the nightmare of...of this...’

‘So you would have just disappeared?’ He held onto that tangible, unappealing thought and allowed his anger to build up. ‘Walked away? And then what—in sixteen years’ time I would have found out that I’d fathered a child when he or she came knocking on my door asking to meet me?’

‘I hadn’t thought that far into the future.’ She shot him a mutinous look from under her lashes. ‘I looked into a future a few months away and what I saw was a man who would resent finding himself trapped again.’

‘You can’t speculate on what my reactions might or might not have been.’

‘Well, it doesn’t matter. I’m here now. I’ve told you. And there’s something else—I want you to know straight off that I’m not asking you for anything. You know the situation and that’s my duty done.’ She began standing up and found that she was trembling. Alessio stared at her with open-mouthed incredulity.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’

‘I’m leaving.’ She hesitated. This was the right time to leave. She had done what she had come to do. There was no way that she intended to put any pressure on him to do anything but carry on with his precious, loveless existence, free from the responsibility of a clinging woman and an unwanted baby.

Yet his presence continued to pull her towards him like a powerful magnet.

‘You’re kidding!’ Alessio’s voice cracked with the harshness of a whip. ‘You breeze in here, tell me that you’re carrying my child, and then announce that you’re on your way!’

‘I told you, I don’t want anything from you.’

‘What you want is by the by.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘It’s impossible having this sort of conversation here. We need to get out, go somewhere else. My place.’

Lesley stared at him in utter horror. Was he mad? The last thing she wanted was to be cooped up with him on his turf. It was bad enough that she was in his office. Besides, where else was the conversation going to go?

Financial contributions; of course. He was a wealthy man and in possession of a muddy conscience; he would salve it by flinging money at it.

‘I realise you might want to help out on the money front,’ she said stiltedly. ‘But, believe it or not, that’s not why I came here. I can manage perfectly well on my own. I can take maternity leave and anyway, with what I do, I should be able to work from home.’

‘You don’t seem to be hearing me.’ He stood up and noticed how she fell back.

She might want him out of her life but it wasn’t going to happen. Too bad if her joyful hunt for the right guy had crashed and burned; she was having his baby and he was going to be part of her life whether she liked it or not.

The thought was not as unwelcome as he might have expected. In fact, he was proud of how easily he was beginning to take the whole thing on board.

It made sense, of course. He was older and wiser. He had mellowed over time. Now that sick feeling of having an abyss yawn open at his feet was absent.

‘If you want to discuss the financial side of things, then we can do that at a later date. Right now, I’ll give you time to digest everything.’