Happy Mother's Day!

‘There must have been others! Other men? How many others, Aisling?’ The white-hot heat of fury that he was going to be a father and that she hadn’t told him now manifested itself in angry accusation. ‘How do I know it’s mine?’ he demanded.

Did he really think so little of her that she could pretend about something as monumental as that? Well, she certainly wasn’t going to grovel in order to try to prove herself. ‘Do you imagine that I would attempt to foist a false paternity claim on you? What would be the point of that?’ she iced back. ‘Take a damned DNA test if you don’t believe me!’

He stared her out, believing her—her defiance telling him that she spoke the truth. She was a strong woman, yes, but no woman would have been able to maintain such a huge lie about something like this—not in the face of his formidable line of questioning.

‘You told me you were protected,’ he said quietly.

How humiliating it felt to discuss it so cold-bloodedly. Like picking over the debris after a wild party when everyone else had gone home. ‘And I was.’ ‘So what happened?’

‘I had taken antibiotics and they reacted against the pill. I didn’t realise. It was an accident, Gianluca.’ ‘I see. How convenient.’

‘Really?’ Her head jerked up. ‘Convenient for whom? What are you suggesting—that I became pregnant in order to trap you?’

He didn’t answer that, just continued to fix her in the ebony spotlight of his eyes, because at the moment he needed facts before reasons. ‘When is it due?’

Aisling swallowed down the bitter taste of fear in her mouth. ‘Any day now,’ she whispered, and the answering light of comprehension which flashed in his black eyes made him look oddly vulnerable and she felt her heart twist with sudden longing. And you stop that right now, she told herself fiercely. He’s about as vulnerable as a steel trap.

Any day now. Any day now and his child would be born. Gianluca shook his head as he took in the enormity of this news. She was glaring at him like an adversary, and her attitude made him want to …

He let out a heavy sigh. To what? He didn’t know. But he could see that her skin was paler than perhaps it should have been—the beads of sweat about more

than a stuffy summer’s day—and he was stricken with a momentary guilt.

‘Hadn’t we better sit down?’ he suggested. ‘You in particular.’

Proudly, Aisling drew her shoulders back, then winced as the nagging pain in her back began to grow more intense. ‘I don’t remember inviting you to stay.’

‘Sit down!’ he urged urgently.

Aisling did as he said, suddenly realising just how tense she was and as her hand fluttered instinctively over her bump she saw his eyes drawn to it with an expression of horrified fascination.

‘You need a drink,’ he said grimly. And so did he.

Pointing wordlessly towards the kitchen, she didn’t contradict him. She needed something. Anything. She felt faint. Sick—and she didn’t want to harm the baby.

It wasn’t a huge apartment and the doors along the corridor on the way to the kitchen had been left open. All bar one. He passed a gleaming white bathroom and, right beside it, a closed door.

He knew he shouldn’t open it. That this was her place and itwasn’t his right to do so. Yet what Gianluca had learnt had turned his whole world upside down. Did she have the monopoly on secrets? Did she control all the information which flowed in and out of his life? Like hell she did!

Quietly, he turned the door handle and just stood there, as if he had been carved from rock. For this was Aisling’s bedroom, yes—with its big bed and its neat counterpane. And off the bedroom was what must have once been a dressing room and which she was now clearly intending to act as a nursery. Silently, he walked towards it and it was as alien to his life as if a meteor had crashed in through the ceiling and embedded itself on the soft, primrose-coloured carpet.

She must have spent years wanting and waiting for this baby, he thought—because the tiny room was furnished with loving care and precision to detail. Yellow seemed to be the main colour. Did that mean she didn’t yet know the sex—or was that something else she was withholding from him?

There was an old-fashioned crib draped with gauzy material, which had some kind of gold thread running through it—making it look like a canopy of sunshine. There was a mobile hanging over it, composed of different animals—both wild and domestic—and Gianluca’s mouth curved as his fingers drifted over the sleek body of a tiger.

Quietly, he shut the door and his eyes were hooded when he returned to the sitting room a couple of minutes later, with a beaker of iced water for her and a glass of wine for himself. She took the tumbler from him with shaking fingers and gulped some down, spilling a little as she did—so that drops of it splashed over the material which strained over her bump.

But he didn’t sit down, he just drank off half a glass of wine with a speed he’d never used before and stood staring down at her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’ he demanded.

Why, indeed? Because she was frightened of his reaction? And hadn’t she been right to be—judging by the thunderous look on his face? ‘There never seemed to be a right time,’ she said.

‘So you wait until now—when it is almost over,’ he said bitterly.

She looked at him. ‘Over? It hasn’t even begun, Gianluca.’

‘Madre di Dio!’ he exclaimed, in a strangled voice as the monumental significance of what had happened really hit home and he half wanted to turn his back and to walk away from her—to erase her and this unplanned baby from his life. Yet there was part of him which wanted to go over to her, to take away her hand and to lie his own over her belly—perhaps to feel the infant kick beneath him.

He took another swallow of his wine and looked away. He must keep focussed and deal with the facts, he reminded himself. Then, and only then, would he be able to decide what action to take.