by Lynne Graham
‘Then you’ll have to relay the news over the telephone.’
‘You can’t hold me prisoner here.’
‘Is that what you think I would be doing?’
‘What else, Luca?’
‘Let’s focus on one thing at a time, cara.’ He flipped his mobile phone out and dialled, speaking in rapid Italian, not a word of which Cordelia understood. That, in itself, only served to make her feel even more disoriented. When the call was over, he sat back and looked at her with a shuttered expression.
‘Tomorrow,’ he announced, ‘we will visit my consultant. Only then will any serious conversations begin…’
* * *
Within twenty-four hours, Cordelia realised that by serious Luca had actually meant boardroom-formal.
She had shown little resentment at having to prove to Luca what she knew to be the case. She was pregnant. She could have suggested taking a simple test—another one—but if he wanted to involve a consultant, then he would whether she did a thousand tests or not.
Along with the fact that he was not the man he’d said he was, she was discovering all kinds of sides to his personality that had not been at the forefront when they had had their brief, heady affair.
He was stubborn, proud, ridiculously traditional. He was also a man who expected to get exactly what he wanted and what he wanted was his child, with her as the price he would pay to achieve that.
The second the pregnancy had been confirmed, he had ushered her out into the fading sunshine, straight into the passenger seat of his low, sleek sports car and from there directly back to his mansion. Nothing had been said on the drive. He’d been thinking. She could sense that. As for the direction of his thoughts… Cordelia could only guess but, whatever she’d come up with, she had a suspicion that it would only cover part of the ground.
She’d reminded herself that it didn’t matter what he was thinking because he couldn’t force her to do anything she didn’t want to do, and what she didn’t want to do was marry a guy for all the wrong reasons.
Still, her stomach had been tightly clenched with nerves by the time they had arrived back at his house and he’d ushered her through the front door and into a kitchen that was as big as a ballroom and just as grand.
Had she decided about her father? he’d asked. Bring him over or deliver the news via phone? He would give her a night to mull it over and to digest the direction her life would now be taking. She was free as a bird to explore every nook and cranny of the house. It was, however, late. He would instruct the resident housekeeper to deliver her food to her bedroom. He, meanwhile, had phone calls to make but he would see her first thing in the morning for breakfast and they would begin their discussions about the future they would now be sharing.
If he had hoped to soothe her frayed nerves, he’d definitely gone about it the wrong way. She had barely been able to enjoy the lavish pasta meal that had been delivered to her door at a little after eight by a shy young girl who had practically genuflected as she’d revealed the elaborate meal she had wheeled in on a super-sized trolley.
Cordelia had tossed and turned, thinking about how she was going to handle the forthcoming conversation.
Now, here she was, summoned by the very same shy young girl who had delivered her meal the previous evening and taken through the vast, echoing mansion to a sitting room where a selection of breads, cold meats and cheeses were waiting, on a highly polished sideboard, to be sampled.
The appetite that had deserted her the evening before enthusiastically responded to the tempting spread and she was slapping way too much butter on some sourdough bread when she heard the door behind her being pushed open.
She spun round as though yanked by invisible strings and inhaled sharply at Luca, who was standing by the door, one brown hand resting light on the doorknob.
He looked stunning. When did he ever disappoint on that front? she reflected a little sourly.
On every other front, he had come up short, but when it came to looks, he continued to deliver with a punch.
‘Good,’ he opened, strolling towards her and looking at her plate with satisfaction, ‘you’re eating. Better than last night.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Strings cut, her legs remembered what they were there for and she walked towards the small circular table by the bay window, which overlooked the swathes of grapevines.
It was the most relaxing view she had ever had. The sea, in all its glory, was fascinating and ever changing, roaring with black anger one minute, as flat and as calm as a sheet of glass the next. But this was so still, so perfectly peaceful.
It was a reminder of just why she had always craved escape from the narrow confines of her life. To taste all the different things the world had to offer. It was unfortunate that her first taste had been offered to her in the way it had.
She looked at him with guarded eyes as he sat opposite her with a plate of breads and cheese. It was a small table. She could reach out and touch him if she wanted.
‘Sylviana reported back to me, as duly requested.’
‘You’re now spying on my eating habits?’
‘You’re carrying my baby. Everything you do now is of importance to me.’ He paused and looked at her, taking everything in. Luca wasn’t a fool. He knew he had to tread gently, manoeuvre the situation with the agility and expertise of someone navigating a minefield.
She wasn’t like any other woman he had ever known. She was like quicksilver. Money didn’t interest her, which was something he had found incredibly appealing and frankly still did, it would seem. She had laughed off his marriage proposal because love wasn’t on the table. Cold logic dictated that he pay close attention to that line of reasoning. Women always wanted more than he was prepared to give on the emotional front and, even though she had made it perfectly clear that she had never seen them as anything other than a couple of people who’d had a bit of fun, an enjoyable no-strings fling that had escalated into the unthinkable because of the pregnancy…who knew…?
Was the silent rider to his proposal that she would accept if there was a courtship involved? Did she think that the only way for them to have a permanent relationship would be if they aimed for the fairy-tale ending where he looked soulfully into her eyes and promised her the earth? Did she secretly crave what every other woman craved, aside from Isabella, which was what had made her so suitable a marriage prospect? That gradual breaking down of all defences until you were left as raw, vulnerable and exposed as a mollusc without its shell?
It wasn’t going to happen and Luca knew that he had to work his way carefully around that while still getting her on board with the marriage idea, because married they were going to be.
His eyes lingered for a few seconds on her and he found himself staring.
That face of hers. Strong-boned, free of make-up, healthy and without artifice. Her hair was plaited. Just the one plait, which she had dragged over her shoulder. The vibrancy of her blonde hair stood out even more over here in a country where most of the women were brunettes.
He felt his pulse pick up speed and a dragging in his groin. He’d spent the night thinking of her, working out a future that he hadn’t bargained for. He’d thought of her and had felt the same ache, reminding him that his libido was all present and intact and had not been sated since he had last slept with the woman now carefully working her way through the various fresh breads she had taken. He’d had a lot on his plate workwise and, with Isabella looming on the horizon, he had not been tempted to immerse himself in any kind of dating scene.
Marriage, he reflected, was not going to be all bad. They would naturally share a bed and, while love in all its nauseating complications wouldn’t be part of the equation, sex most definitely was going to be on the menu, and the menu looked very tempting from where he was sitting.
But, he reminded himself with baffled frustration, nothing was g
oing to be on any agenda until vows had been exchanged. Right now, he would do well to keep her at arm’s length until the details had been sorted.
‘I have already apprised my father of the situation.’
Cordelia looked at him in consternation. ‘He must have been devastated. All those plans made…’ The enormity of what Luca was prepared to sacrifice for her made her suddenly uncomfortable with her stubborn refusal to play ball. Her head was pointing her in one direction but her heart…what it wanted…
‘Have you decided when you will tell your father?’
Cordelia shifted uneasily. Would a simple ‘No’ sound too abrupt? It was so complicated, but then she thought of arrangements made from birth, a marriage understood, a future planned, the twinning of great fortunes and everything that came with that…all gone in a whoosh. For Luca, there would be devastation all round and not just for him, but for everyone associated with a marriage that would now never happen.
To his credit, he hadn’t raged and stormed and if he’d used the vocabulary of shock, then who could blame him? He certainly didn’t seem to be dwelling on the downsides of the situation and she could only reluctantly admire him for that.
‘I plan on phoning him later…’ she said vaguely.
‘But you’re not sure.’
‘He needs to find out, of course he does.’
Luca sat back and looked at her thoughtfully, gauging the atmosphere, his antennae picking up on things that weren’t being said, sensing her doubts and confusion and sympathetically understanding the reason behind them.
She was an innocent. She didn’t have the tools at her disposal to deal with some of the things life decided to throw at you. He did. He knew the value of working with what couldn’t be changed and then adding the upsides to the situation. It was the difference between winners and losers and he had always been a winner.
He winced. Unlike his father, who had actually congratulated him on living life properly for the first time.
‘You have enough money for a thousand lifetimes,’ Giovanni Baresi had bellowed down the phone, drowning out the disturbing sound of music and laughter in the background. ‘Time you started really finding out what life’s all about!’
That had been before he could tell his father that it wasn’t the exalted love affair he seemed to believe it was, but an honest mistake that carried consequences. After that bracing, booming, slap-on-the-back response, Luca had held his tongue, and the weird thing was that there was a part of him that had been secretly pleased to have heard genuine admiration in his father’s voice.
He had made more money for the family than could be counted in gold coins…he was respected and held in awe by financiers the world over…and yet, telling his dad that he had had a three-week fling with a girl in Cornwall, had got her pregnant and was going to marry her, had elicited more joy and pride than anything he had ever done in his life before.
‘I want us to be married,’ Luca began with rough sincerity. ‘You think it’s because I’m a dinosaur. You think I’m mired in pointless tradition that’s past its sell-by date because who needs marriage these days when a baby is involved? There are countless single mothers bringing up kids while fathers get a look-in now and again before moving on to have their own families.’
He paused and Cordelia looked at him as his words sank in. Single mothers. Visiting fathers. And then, naturally, those visiting fathers would move on to perhaps have another family. She thought of Luca having children with another woman, Isabella. Children who would be born to roam on these vast estates while on the other side of the ocean…
Her heartbeat sped up and she gulped.
‘And maybe,’ he continued quietly, ‘I am a little old-fashioned when it comes to family. Maybe it’s beyond the pale to see duty and responsibility as things to be worn proudly on one’s shoulders. Yes, I have sometimes yearned to be free to do whatever I want to do but, mostly, I have been content and proud of my heritage and my legacy. Is that a bad thing?’
Luca allowed the rhetorical question to hover in the silence between them.
‘I will love our child with everything in me. I will protect him from every sling of every arrow and he, I feel, will learn to love his inheritance the way I have. You tell me that you can’t consider marriage without love. Love you may not have, but respect you will, and in abundance.’
But he would never love her. He had just confirmed that, in case she started getting any ideas. She could see the way his brain was working. But was the search for love, if it ever happened anyway, enough to compensate for their child being torn apart from a father who dearly wanted him?
And what about her feelings for Luca? They ran deep. Deeper than he could ever imagine and it was no use pretending otherwise. Who would catch her when she was falling hard for a guy who wasn’t going to be truly emotionally available to her? The balancing act between her head and her heart made her dizzy.
‘And think of that one thing you’ve always wanted, Cordelia. To see the world. That would be what our child would have were we to marry. There would be no corner of the globe left unexplored. Great wealth, I’m driven to say, can buy travel to the four corners of the world…’
‘I… I’ll think about it,’ Cordelia said helplessly, knowing that he had struck below the belt but unable to resist the glorious image of planes and ships and foreign lands and her child—their child—being exposed to all the adventure that went along with that, adventures she had never had.
‘Say yes,’ Luca urged, leaning forward and taking her fingers in his hand, an absent gesture that made her skin tingle with forbidden pleasure.
‘But surely you would eventually resent me? Resent the fact that I had stopped you from marrying Isabella?’
‘You haven’t stopped me from doing anything,’ Luca murmured. ‘This decision is my choice. How could I resent you, that being the case? Say yes and here is what will happen next. I will tell Isabella and her family. Tomorrow. And then we will get your father over, tell him face to face. Together. But not just yet. In the meanwhile, I will show you my land, show you my country, show you…what our child will enjoy. What do you say, mi tesoro?’
Caught on the horns of a dilemma, she breathed in deeply and sank into the earnest intent in his eyes.
‘Okay. I’ll say yes—even though…’
‘Shh.’ He placed his finger over her mouth. ‘Yes is enough. No need to qualify it.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE FOLLOWING DAY Luca had had his chauffeur drive him the lengthy three-hour round trip to Isabella’s parents, where he’d presented the situation as a fait accompli, no questions asked, no room for manoeuvre.
He had sat in a living room as grand and as formal as his own, where he had been served delicate morsels and strong coffee in china cups and watched his hosts’ disappointment as he’d broken the news. There had been no formal engagement but, between families, the unspoken understanding had been almost as strong, and, while they had politely congratulated him on a marriage no one had foreseen, they could scarcely contain the fact that they had been badly let down.
‘It would have been so good for Isabella,’ Maria, her mother, had said, shooting a glance at her husband, who had looked away. ‘She…’
‘Maria!’ Alberto had said sharply. ‘We do not need to trouble Luca with our regrets. It is as it is. Naturally, we will continue to work harmoniously together. Our great wines benefit from this close relationship, not to mention the other avenues for development that are in the making.’ At which point he had ushered Luca to the cellar where he had shown him his addition of rare reds to the collection he already had.
Both Maria and Alberto were far too well bred to show any emotion and neither had he. It was as it was.
He was more concerned about Isabella. This marriage would have suited her but maybe, he’d thought, on his way back to his villa, it was fate. Perhaps
she needed to find the courage to tell her parents about her sexuality instead of trying to hide behind a façade of a happy marriage.
He had, in fact, spoken to Isabella at length on the telephone on the way to her parents’. A face-to-face meeting was out of the question as she was holidaying with friends on the Riviera. He had smiled wryly at the relief in her voice when he had broken the news of his upcoming marriage to Cordelia. Let off the hook for the time being. Her congratulations had been sincere and heartfelt and when he had hung up, it had flashed through his head that neither Isabella nor Cordelia were what might be considered orthodox candidates for walking up the aisle.
One was relieved not to be doing so and the other was doing so only because all alternative exits had been barred. Money, it had to be said, definitely didn’t buy love. Just as well, considering it wasn’t something he was looking for.
That job over, here he was now, at ten the following morning, waiting at a chic café in the stunning city of Siena. He’d returned late the previous night to find Cordelia dead to the world in one of the guest bedrooms. He had left orders for her to be given whatever she wanted for breakfast and, at a little after six in the morning, he had taken himself off to his head office, where he had powered through key emails and filled various CEOs in on what might prove a temporarily disjointed work schedule.
A makeover for his reluctant wife-to-be was on the cards.
Then, once they were back at his house, a jeweller would be personally escorted on Luca’s private plane so that a ring could be chosen.
She had taken some persuading to agree to marry him and he wasn’t going to sit on his hands and hope she didn’t change her mind. Speed was of the essence and he intended to put his foot on the accelerator until she was bound to him, with all i’s dotted and t’s crossed.
Woolly nonsense about love not being on the agenda was not going to be a spoke in any revolving wheels.
His father had offered to return to Tuscany immediately so that he could meet the lucky bride and Luca had only just managed to dissuade him, pointing out that it would be far better to wait a couple of weeks until she was fully settled before bombarding her with yet more stuff to confuse her.