by Amy Andrews
‘No.’ Ben shook his head, his command final.
Katya raised her chin. ‘Are you telling me that you plan to physically restrain me?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he snapped.
‘Then I am going to London.’ Katya’s heart banged loudly against her ribs. Her hands trembled slightly but she was pleased to see the old strong-as-steel Katya was still there when she needed her.
Ben regarded her seriously, his mind frantically thinking of a legal way to keep her in Italy. Anything he could organise through a court would take a few days. He looked at her stomach full with his child. There had to be a way to keep her here. To convince her to stay.
‘I have rights to this baby, too,’ he said, injecting steel into his voice.
‘I’m not denying you your rights, Ben. Please...I just need some time.’ Everything was so mixed up in her head and she couldn’t sort it out living here.
Ben could see her torment. Could see this conversation wasn’t easy for her either and he took some calming breaths. Maybe some time away would help her see the wisdom of his suggestion? ‘How much time?’ he demanded.
‘A few weeks.’ She shrugged.
‘You can have two.’
Two? She felt like she would do nothing but cry for at least the first two weeks. ‘Four.’
Ben did a quick calculation in his head. She’d be thirty-six weeks. Still a good month until the baby was born. ‘You promise you’ll get help if anything else goes wrong with the baby?’
Katya ground her teeth. ‘Hell, Ben, of course. Don’t worry, your baby will be well looked after.’ Its mother, on the other hand, will be a mess. But don’t concern yourself about that.
‘Four weeks, then,’ he said, pulling his wallet out of his bedside table drawer, pulling out a credit card and scribbling on a piece of paper. He handed them both to her.
‘My card and its PIN number,’ he said.
Katya looked at them blankly and then threw them on the bed, rage and disgust as stormy brew in her gut. ‘I don’t want your money, Ben.’ She picked up her bag. ‘I’ve never wanted your money.’
She opened the door, hardly able to believe they were parting like this.
‘I’ll be keeping in touch.’
Katya stilled with her hand on the doorknob – she had no doubt. ‘Goodbye,’ she said, her heart breaking as she walked out of the room without a backward glance.
CHAPTER TEN
TWO weeks later, Katya sat in a glass bubble high above the Thames as the London Eye slowly completed a revolution. She hadn’t really seen any of the capital spread out below. Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament were directly in front of her now, but their architectural beauty didn’t register. She sat on the central seat staring out aimlessly, while tourists walked around the car, snapping photos.
Katya didn’t even know how she’d ended up here. She’d just had to get out of the flat. Being alone gave her too much time to think, to reflect.
To be miserable.
She was annoyed with herself that she couldn’t just shake it off and that after a fortnight away from Ben she still didn’t know what to do.
She yearned desperately for the old Katya to make an appearance. The one who had gone to Italy. The one who had seen her through years of hard times. The one who had ruled her life with an iron fist. But being with Ben - falling in love with him - had softened that woman. His support and understanding had dispensed with the need for her. And furthermore, she couldn’t get her back.
Loving Ben, having his baby, had changed her forever.
The ride came to an end and Katya stepped out of the slowly moving car with the other passengers. She pulled her coat collar up and fastened the buttons over her baby bump. She was grateful for the warm, knee-length wool as the crisp March air enveloped her.
Where to now? She didn’t know.
Just walk, be among crowds, wander along Oxford Street maybe or around Covent Garden. Wherever. Just not back to the poky little flat in Islington which she was house-sitting for a MedSurg colleague.
She almost wished she’d taken Gill and Harriet up on their offer of a bed in Australia. But it was too far away from Ben. And he had made it very clear from his text messages that he wanted to be part of his child’s life. And she knew that if he’d really wanted to play hard ball, he had the money and the means to provide for their son better than she did.
And the money and the means to ensure he got his way.
Going back to Italy was inevitable. She knew that deep down. Unless she could persuade Ben to come to London. But ultimately where they lived didn’t matter. It still involved seeing him regularly. Seeing him and knowing he could never be hers. Watching him with their child. Maybe even with other women.
The newer, softer Katya wasn’t strong enough for that.
She was fairly sure, though, that Ben would insist on Italy. He had the Lucia Trust, his pride and joy, still in its infancy, and also his heritage. It may have been one he hadn’t wanted but he was embracing it more and more, determined to put his own stamp on the clinic.
So it was either go to Italy willingly or face a court battle for their son. Something she wasn’t up to financially or emotionally.
Katya’s mobile rang and her heart skipped crazily in her chest. Ben. They hadn’t spoken since she’d left, communicating by text only. She flipped the phone open. ‘Hello.’
‘I’m in London.’
Katya gasped. She wasn’t ready yet. Even though every cell in her body ached to see him again. ‘I have another two weeks.’
‘We need to talk, cara.’
Katya swallowed. Even being brisk and businesslike, his voice was still as sexy as hell.
‘I couldn’t wait.’
His voice was softer this time and she shivered, her toes curling at the sensual, husky purr of his voice. Heaven help her, his voice was stroking all the places that had ached for him this last fortnight.
‘Meet me for dinner at seven tonight. One-fifty Piccadilly.’
The disconnected tone signalled Ben was done and Katya folded the phone away. She should have been annoyed at his presumption but hearing his voice again after so long had obliterated everything. And in a few hours she’d be actually seeing him.
At least he hadn’t insisted on coming to the flat. It was small, the entire thing not much bigger than their quarters at the clinic. The bed took up three-quarters of the available room. And they didn’t have a very good track record around beds. If she was going to survive with her heart intact, they could never cross that line again.
Ben waited impatiently at the table. She was late. If she didn’t show soon he was going to go to her temporary dwelling and drag her out, kicking and screaming.
Well...he wouldn’t do that but he was at his wits end.
OK, he’d changed the rules but, then, so had she. She couldn’t turn his whole world upside down and then just leave and expect him to take it on the chin. Waking up without her the morning after that fateful day two weeks ago had been the worst moment of his life. Worse than finding his brother making love to his fiancée, worse than the news of Mario’s death.
Worse than watching her walk out the door.
Because he’d realised in that moment, with an empty space in the bed beside him, that he loved her. That he’d fallen in love with her the night they had first made love. He’d just been too stubborn to see it.
And from then on, he’d just been plain mad. The first time he’d risked his heart in a decade and it was being ripped to shreds all over again. It was déjà vu and he’d be damned if he would take that sitting down this time. Last time running had been his way of coping.
This time he would fight.
But he wouldn’t fight for Katya. Yet again it had been proved to him that women only brought heartache. Obviously if she could just walk away from him, she didn’t return his feelings. Had only sought him out in Italy when she’d been convinced she couldn’t raise the baby herself.
To use him.
But he would fight for his child. He’d gone from potentially being a sole parent to no baby at all, and if she thought he’d take that without a fight, like he’d taken Mario and Bianca, then she was wrong. He would play a role in this child’s life and she either agreed to that or he would make it his life’s purpose to seek it through any means at his disposal.
He just wished there was a way to make her love him. That he could take her to court and have a judge order her to love him. But he knew it didn’t work like that. That love was either there or it wasn’t.
And it obviously wasn’t for her. Something he was going to have to deal with for the next however many years.
It would be exquisite torture loving her and not being able to tell her. Watching her give birth to their baby. Breast-feeding him. Laughing and talking in Russian to him. Maybe having to put up with another man in her life. In his son’s life.
It would all be unbearable — but he’d do what he had to do to be a father to his son.
Ben gripped a fork absently, concentrating on his anger. He’d need it to harden his heart. She mustn’t know the power she had over him. One woman with the power to crush his heart had been more than enough in his life. And he wouldn’t give it to another, not when his child was in the middle.
Because that had to be his focus now. Their child. Their son. This was what being in London was about. To convince her to return to Italy. To hash out a mutually satisfying parental agreement. And if she didn’t agree?
He’d find a judge who’d force her to.
Katya sat on the back seat of the black cab, watching the lights of London flash by. The taxi pulled up outside the Ritz.
‘No, I’m sorry, there must be a mistake.’ She stared at the opulent building. ‘I said 150 Piccadilly.’
The taxi driver nodded. ‘The Ritz. One-fifty Piccadilly.’
Katya felt her shoulders slump. Of course. The Ritz. Where else? She paid him and alighted from the vehicle. It was a chilly night and she hoped she was dressed well enough for such a swanky restaurant.
The doorman opened the heavy gold and glass door for her and Katya stepped inside with trepidation as she silently cursed Ben. He knew she didn’t feel comfortable in places like this. If he’d wanted to put her on the back foot, he had certainly achieved it!
Ben wasn’t anywhere in the foyer and she peered into the elegant French-influenced surroundings to see if he was waiting for her further along the vaulted gallery that ran the length of the building.
‘Miss Petrova?’
Katya turned to find a concierge in a dark suit with gold braid on his epaulettes addressing her. ‘Yes?’
‘Count Medici is waiting for you in the dining room,’ he said, gesturing down to the end of the gallery.
‘Oh, right...Thank you,’ she said peering in the direction he’d indicated. It seemed like a very long walk.
‘May I take your coat’ he asked.
‘Ah...yes.’ Katya shrugged out of the dark wool. The temperature inside was toasty compared to the chilly night air outside.
Her hands shook and she buried them in her pockets as she walked on equally shaky legs towards the dining room. She passed the elegant Palm Court on her left, where glasses tinkled, crockery clattered and muted laughter mingled with piano music. She continued on until she reached the entrance to the dining room.
‘Miss Petrova?’ a waiter enquired as she nodded. ‘This way, please. The count is expecting you.’
Katya followed the waiter into the glamorous room, her eyes searching the tables, oblivious to the Louis XVI-inspired decor. Her heels sank in to the plush carpet of muted pink, green and cream. Above her head chandeliers linked by gilt garlands cast a subdued glow.
The ceiling from which they hung displayed an amazing fresco. The large floor-to-ceiling windows that faced Green Park were hung with heavy formal drapes. A four-piece band was playing and some couples were dancing.
Katya felt exactly how she’d felt the first time she’d seen inside the Lucia Clinic. Smothered. Stifled.
And more and more annoyed.
She’d rather be eating a BLT from Pret on a park bench. Was Ben trying to impress her with his stature and power. Trying to intimidate her?
Well, she didn’t scare easily.
And if Ben thought he was going to lord it over her, he could think again. She had as much right to this baby as he.
The waiter stopped at a table set for two and pulled out Katya’s chair. She ignored it her eyes meeting Ben’s stare. Her heart slammed madly in her chest. He looked tired and haggard. His jaw boasted a three-day growth and there were darker smudges beneath his eyes.
‘The Ritz, Ben? How predictable.’
‘Sarcastic, Katya? How predictable,’ he mimicked as he half rose. ‘You’re late. Sit.’
Ben could smell cinnamon as his gaze ate her up. She was a sight for sore eyes and, as she twisted to sit, he saw how much more the swell of her stomach had increased. He suppressed the urge to reach over and embrace her, feel her belly pressed against his.
Katya felt rather than saw the waiter pushing her chair under her as Ben ordered a Scotch for himself and some iced water with lemon for her. It irritated her that he hadn’t even asked. She wasn’t used to seeing him like this. He seemed to be playing Count tonight and she didn’t doubt it was another power ploy.
He certainly looked every inch the aristocrat. He was wearing a suit that shrieked of class and money. His shirt was blue with a blue pinstripe and his tie was navy. He looked...wealthy. There was just something about the way he held himself that spoke of old money.
He passed her a menu. ‘I’m not hungry,’ she said refusing to look at the offending item.
He looked at her over the top of his menu. ‘I’ll have the snails. The signorina will have the quail,’ he said, snapping his menu closed and handing it to the waiter.
The last thing Katya wanted to do was sit there and make small talk over tiny birds and disgusting slugs. She just wanted to get this over with so she could get the hell away. Away from the oppressive opulence in a place she’d never belong. Away from his brooding presence.
She’d missed him. So much she ached all over.
‘Just say what you need to say, Ben.’
Ben decided I love you, my life is awful without you wouldn’t wash right now. ‘What the hell happened to the plan, Katya?’
The plan sucked because she’d fallen in love with him. And the baby. That’s what had happened. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I can’t just hand him over to you. I thought I could. Then I took that fall and nearly lost him and I felt so awful, so wretched ...I just knew I couldn’t give him up.’
‘I would never have asked you to.’
No. But you’d ask me to commit to a loveless marriage. ‘Once I realised I could do it by myself, I had to get away. It’s all this.’
Katya gestured around her at the palatial dining room. Waiters with different-coloured jackets fussed over each table under the watchful eye of the head waiter, who wore tails. ‘This isn’t me, Ben.’
It wasn’t the real reason but it was another aspect of their relationship that had always made her uneasy.
‘It isn’t me either,’ he denied.
Katya snorted. ‘You look like you were born at this table.’
Ben could feel his patience wearing thin. ‘So it was OK for our child to have all this when it was me raising him. But now you want to raise him, all this is too rich for you?’
Oh, God, it sounded so awful when he said it like that. She shook her head. ‘You said it yourself, Ben. All a baby really needs is love. It just took me a little while to realise that.’
‘Well, whether you like it or not, this child is the heir to the entire Medici fortune, Katya. You think I should let you raise him in some grubby little Islington bedsit?’
Katya gasped. ‘How did you...?’
He shrugged. ‘As you pointed out, I’m a wealthy person. I have ways.’
‘What do you want, Ben?’ She needed to get away from him. Every minute she spent in his company was torture. Even through her anger she wanted him to kiss her again.
Ben regarded her seriously. She sounded tired. He would like nothing better now than to take her up to his suite, undress her and rock her to sleep with his hand cradling her stomach.
‘You. Back in Italy. I’ll set you up in a flat in Ravello. But we share the parenting half-half. It’s that or I take you to court and get full custody. And I’ll win.’
Katya felt as if he’d thrown knives at her. She knew he was right. What hope did a Russian nurse from a poor background with an average income have against a rich, titled surgeon? Even if she was the mother.
‘So I’ll be like your kept woman? Like a whore? Like how you offered me a job the morning after we slept together for the first time. Payment for service?’
Ben shut his eyes. He’d known that morning, from her vehement rejection, that he had made a gaffe but he hadn’t realised that he’d hurt her quite so much.
‘No. I’m sorry, I handled things badly that morning. I didn’t mean to make you feel cheap. I was going back to a world and memories I didn’t want to confront. I was trying to get my head around all that and I spoke without thinking.’
Katya could hear his sincerity but was too angry to cut him slack. ‘I am not my mother,’ she said frostily. ‘I can get my own place.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he snapped. ‘You’re the mother of my child.’
She folded her arms mutinously against her chest. ‘You want me back, this is non-negotiable.’
‘Places are hideously expensive, Katya.’
‘I’ll manage,’ she said tightly.
Ben realised they could argue the logistics later. The important part was that she was agreeing to return. ‘So, you’re coming back? And you agree to equal parenting?’