The Uncompromising Italian

‘I’ve digested it. Now, sit back down.’ This was not where he wanted to be. An office couldn’t contain him. He felt restless, in need of moving. He wanted the space of his apartment. But there was no way she would go there with him; he was astute enough to decipher that from her dismayed reaction to the suggestion. And he wasn’t going to push it.

It crossed his mind that this might have come as a bolt from the blue for him, turning his life on its axis and sending it spiralling off in directions he could never have predicted, but it would likewise have been the same for her. Yet here she was, apparently in full control. But then, hadn’t he always known that there was a thread of absolute bravery and determination running through her?

And when she said that she didn’t want anything from him, he knew that she meant it. This situation could not have been more different from the one in which he had found himself all those years ago.

Not that that made any difference. He was still going to be a presence in her life now whether she liked it or not.

Lesley had reluctantly sat back down and was now looking at him with a sullen lack of enthusiasm. She had expected more of an explosion of rage, in the middle of which she could have sneaked off, leaving him to calm down. He seemed to be handling the whole thing a great deal more calmly than she had expected.

‘This isn’t just about me contributing to the mother and baby fund,’ he said, in case she had got it into her head that it might be. ‘You’re having my baby and I intend to be involved in this every single step of the way.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Do you really take me for a man who walks away from responsibility?’

‘I’m not your ex-wife!’ Lesley said tightly, fists clenched on her lap. ‘I haven’t come here looking for anything and you certainly don’t owe me or this baby anything!’

‘I’m not going to be a part-time father,’ Alessio gritted. ‘I was a part-time father once, not of my own choosing, and it won’t happen again.’

Not once had Lesley seen the situation from that angle. Not once had she considered that he would want actual, active involvement, yet it made perfect sense. ‘What are you suggesting?’ she asked, bewildered and on the back foot.

‘What else is there to suggest but marriage?’

For a few frozen seconds, Lesley thought that she might have misheard him, but when she looked at him his face was set, composed and unyielding.

She released a hysterical laugh that fizzled out very quickly. ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this. Are you mad? Get married?’

‘Why so shocked?’

‘Because...’ Because you don’t love me. You probably don’t even like me very much right now. ‘Because having a baby isn’t the right reason for two people to get married,’ she said in as controlled a voice as she could muster. ‘You of all people should know that! Your marriage ended in tears because you went into it for all the wrong reasons.’

‘Any marriage involving my ex-wife would have ended in tears.’ Alessio was finding it hard to grapple with the notion that she had laughed at his suggestion of marriage. Was she that intent on finding Mr Right that she couldn’t bear the thought of being hitched to him? It was downright offensive! ‘You’re not Bianca, and you need to look at the bigger picture.’ Was that overly aggressive? He didn’t think so but he saw the way she stiffened and he tempered what he was going to say with a milder, more conciliatory voice. ‘By which I mean that this isn’t about us as individuals but about a child that didn’t ask to be brought into the world. To do the best for him or her is to provide a united family.’

‘To do the best for him or her is to provide two loving parents who live separately instead of two resentful ones joined in a union     where there’s no love lost.’ Just saying those words out loud made her feel ill because what she should really have said was that there was no worse union     than one in which love was given but not returned. What she could have told him was that she could predict any future where they were married, and what she could see was him eventually loathing her for being the other half of a marriage he might have initiated but which had eventually become his prison cell.

There was a lot she could have told him but instead all she said was, ‘There’s no way I would ever marry you.’

CHAPTER TEN

THE PAIN STARTED just after midnight. Five months before her due date. Lesley awoke, at first disorientated, then terrified when, on inspection, she realised that she was bleeding.

What did that mean? She had read something about that in one of the many books Alessio had bought for her. Right now, however, her brain had ceased to function normally. All she could think of doing was getting on her mobile phone and calling him.

She had knocked him back, had told him repeatedly that she wasn’t going to marry him, yet he had continued to defy her low expectations by stealthily becoming a rock she could lean on. He was with her most evenings, totally disregarding what she had said to him about pregnancy not being an illness. He had attended the antenatal appointments with her. He had cunningly incorporated Rachel into the picture, bringing his daughter along with him many of the times he’d visited her, talking as though the future held the prospect of them all being a family, even though Lesley had been careful to steer clear of agreeing to any such sweeping statements.

What was he hoping to achieve? She didn’t know. He didn’t love her and not once had he claimed to.

But, bit by bit, she knew that she was beginning to rely on him—and it was never so strongly proved as now, when the sound of his deep voice over the end of the phone had the immediate effect of calming her panicked nerves.

‘I should have stayed the night,’ was the first thing he told her, having made it over to her house in record time.

‘It wasn’t necessary.’ Lesley leaned back and closed her eyes. The pain had diminished but she was still in a state of shock at thinking that something might be wrong. That she might lose the baby. Tears threatened close to the surface but she pushed them away, focusing on a good outcome, despite the fact that she knew she was still bleeding.

And then something else occurred to her, a wayward thought that needled its way into her brain and took root, refusing to budge. ‘I shouldn’t have called you,’ she said more sharply than she had intended. ‘I wouldn’t have if I’d thought that you were going to fret and worry.’ But she hadn’t thought of doing anything but picking up that phone to him. To a man who had suddenly become indispensable despite the fact that she was not the love of his life; despite the fact that he wouldn’t be in this car here with her now if she had never visited him in his office.

She had never foreseen the way he had managed to become so ingrained into the fabric of her daily life. He brought food for her. He stocked her up with pregnancy books. He insisted they eat in when he was around because it was less hassle than going out. He had taken care of that persistent leak in the bathroom which had suddenly decided to act up.

And not once had she sat back and thought of where all this was leading.

‘Of course you should have called me,’ Alessio said softly. ‘Why wouldn’t you? This baby is mine as well. I share all the responsibilities with you.’

And share them he had, backing away from trying to foist his marriage solution onto her, even though he had been baffled at her stubborn persistence that there was no way that she was going to marry him.

Why not? He just didn’t get it. They were good together. They were having a baby. Hell, he had made sure not to lay a finger on her, but he still burned to have her in his bed, and the memory of the sex they had shared still made him lose concentration in meetings. And, yes, so maybe he had mentioned once or twice that he had learnt bitter lessons from being trapped into marriage by the wrong woman for the wrong reasons, but hadn’t that made his proposal even more sincere—the fact that he was willing to sidestep those unfortunate lessons and re-tread the same ground?

Why couldn’t she see that?

He had stopped thinking about the possibility that she was still saving herself for Mr Right. Just going down that road made him see red.

‘I hate it when you talk about responsibilities,’ she snapped, looking briefly at him and then just as quickly looking away. ‘And you’re driving way too fast. We’re going to crash.’

‘I’m sticking to the speed limit. Of course I’m going to talk about responsibilities. Why shouldn’t I?’ Would she rather he had turned his back on her and walked away? Was that the sort of modern guy she would have preferred him to be? He hung onto his patience with difficulty, recognising that the last thing she needed was to be stressed out.

‘I just want you to know,’ Lesley said fiercely, ‘That if anything happens to this baby...’

‘Nothing is going to happen to this baby.’

‘You don’t know that!’

Alessio could sense her desire to have an argument with him and he had no intention of allowing her to indulge that desire. A heated row was not appropriate but he shrewdly guessed that, if he mentioned that, it would generate an even bigger row.