The Italian's Future Bride

Without saying a word, he walked over to the drawer and opened it. Long fingers withdrew the paper bag containing the only purchase she had made that afternoon.

Such a small purchase for something so important, Rachel thought bleakly as he withdrew what was inside the bag, then just stood looking down at it.

The mood was different now, still tense but thick and heavy. She looked at his profile and saw that the drawbridge had been brought down on his anger and what he was thinking.

‘When did you buy this?’

‘Today,’ she answered. ‘Th-this afternoon.’

‘I thought we agreed that you would not risk making intimate purchases like this,’ he said with super-controlled cool.

A strained little laugh left her throat. ‘There was no one I could trust enough to get them to do it for me and I…needed to know.’

‘Did you?’

The odd way he said that brought her head up. ‘Of course—don’t you want to know?’

He did not answer. There was something very peculiar about the way he was standing there, tense and grim.

‘If you’re concerned that I’ve given the paparazzi something else about us to feed on, then I was careful,’ she assured him. ‘In fact,’ she said, sliding her feet to the floor, ‘you wanted to know what I did with my afternoon. Well, wandering round the shops trying to fool any followers into leaving me alone before I dared to buy the test was it.’

He said nothing. Rachel wished she knew what was going on in his head. Hurt was beginning to prick at her nerve endings. Didn’t he think this situation was difficult enough without him standing there resembling a block of stone? Was he scared in case they discovered she was pregnant and that sense of honour he liked to believe he possessed would require him to marry her when he didn’t want to?

Standing up, she went to take the package from him. ‘I’ll go and find out if it’s—’

His fingers closed around it. ‘No,’ he said gruffly.

Rachel just stared at his hard profile.

‘We—need to talk first,’ he added.

‘Talk about what?’ she said curtly. ‘If I am pregnant we will deal with it like grown-ups. If I’m not pregnant, then I go home.’

‘What do you mean, we deal with it like grown-ups?’ At last he swung round to look at her. His face was pale and taut.

Rachel sighed. ‘If I am pregnant I’m not marrying you, Raffaelle,’ she informed him wearily.

‘Why not—?’

Why not—? If she dared to do it without risking setting her queasy stomach off again—Rachel would have laughed. ‘Because you don’t want to marry me?’ she threw at him. ‘Because I can take care of myselfand a child! And because I refuse to tie myself to a man who justloves to believe the worst of me!’ She heaved in a breath. ‘Do you want more—?’

‘Yes,’ he gritted.

She blinked, not expecting that response.

‘Okay.’ She folded her arms across her shaking body and looked at him coldly. ‘You don’t trust me. You think I am a liar and a cheat. I give you perhaps a couple of months held in marital captivity before you start questioning if the baby could be some other man’s.’

‘I am not that twisted!’ he defended that last accusation.

She put in a shrug. ‘Trapped by a child on purpose, then.’

‘We’ve been through that. Idon’t think that!’

‘You’ve got your old lover already lined up ready to take my place.’

‘Francesca was not lined up for anything other than to get that photograph,’ he sighed out.

‘Well, guess what?’ Rachel said. ‘I don’t believeyou .’