The Shock Cassano Baby (One Night With Consequences)

by Andie Brock

  ‘Life is tough, Isobel.’ He knew his voice sounded harsh, callous. ‘Stuff happens...things don’t work out the way we planned. We just have to deal with it as best we can.’

  A cold silence settled like a blanket of snow, broken by a small sniff. Opening his eyes, Orlando saw that Isobel was still looking at him, tears brimming in her eyes, sliding quietly down her cheeks. And it all but crucified him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  FUMBLING FOR THE box of tissues, Isobel dabbed her eyes, then blew her nose noisily. For heaven’s sake, what did she think she was doing, bursting into tears like this? She was supposed to be the strong one here, the one taking charge. But the more she tried to stop the wretched tears, the faster they wanted to come, until they ended up blocking her throat, producing a guttural gurgling sound that had Orlando staring at her in alarm.

  Why had she told Orlando about the accident and opened the floodgate on her tears? Whatever had made her share her deepest, darkest secret with him? The guilt that had shaped her, tortured her all her adult life. The guilt that she had never spoken about to anyone—ever. Not even her mother. Especially not her mother.

  But, sitting beside Orlando in the dark confessional of this castle bedroom, she had felt the strangest of sensations come over her: an overwhelming need to confess her most harrowing of secrets to him. And now, in answer to her own question, she knew why. It was because she trusted Orlando. This realisation had sprung from nowhere, but once lodged in her brain she knew it to be true with an instinctive, unwavering certainty.

  She trusted Orlando more than anyone she had ever known, more than anyone else on this planet. Orlando. Strong, authoritative, demanding. Intelligent, inscrutable and infuriating. All of those things. But honourable too, upright and decent and determined to do the best for his child. Isobel knew she would trust him with her life—more than that, she would trust him with her darkest of secrets.

  And her instinct had been right. Orlando hadn’t met her confession with the sign of the cross and banished her from the room. He hadn’t judged her, or offered misplaced sympathies or platitudes. In true Orlando style he had merely ascertained the facts, reviewed them, and then pronounced his judgement. And for one light-headed moment Isobel had felt the guilt starting to lift, the weight rising from her shoulders.

  Only to have it replaced with the burden of his next crushing statement.

  Stuff happens... We just have to deal with it as best we can.

  The words still rang in Isobel’s ears. She had no doubt as to what he’d been talking about. She and the baby were the stuff and that was what Orlando was doing—dealing with it. He had used this beautiful castello as a means to an end—the lure that he’d needed to stop her prevaricating and commit to making a family home together. Except it would never be that...not in the true sense of the word. In reality it was little more than a prison—for both of them.

  And this was the brutal fact that had made the tears flow.

  ‘Isobel?’ Propping himself up on his elbow, Orlando tried to look at her.

  Blowing her nose again, Isobel turned away.

  ‘Isobel, what’s the matter?’ He stretched out to reach her, his hand grasping her upper arm. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Look at you. You are shaking.’

  It was true—she was. The trauma of Orlando’s accident followed by the emotional outpouring of her confession and then the cruelty of Orlando’s callous remark meant her overloaded body couldn’t take any more and had started to shiver, the tremors spreading up her arms to the slender shoulders that now shook alarmingly.

  ‘Isobel. Speak to me.’

  Pulling back the covers, Orlando swung his legs over the bed. Isobel caught the flash of lean muscled flesh, the white of his boxer shorts, before she lowered her eyes to her lap.

  ‘Do you need a doctor?’

  ‘No, no. I’m not ill.’ Wrapping her arms around herself, she tilted her chin, knowing she had to meet his worried gaze. He was leaning in close now, seated on the edge of bed with his hands on his bare thighs, poised, as if ready to take whatever action he deemed necessary.

  ‘It’s just been a very long day, that’s all.’ She drew in a shuddering breath.

  It certainly had. Long and traumatic and at times mind-numbingly terrifying.

  When Maria had first told her about the accident Isobel had been afraid that the devastating shock would render her unable to function at all. But somehow she had managed to rouse herself, pure adrenaline keeping her heart pumping and giving her the strength to get to the hospital.

  Sitting in the car next to an anxious-looking Pietro, she had felt as if she was living a nightmare. Because this accident was her fault too. It had to be. This was what happened when she loved someone...they died. First her father and now Orlando... History was cruelly repeating itself.

  But Orlando hadn’t died. He was here, flesh and blood, all magnificent six-foot-plus of him, a little bruised and bloodied, but still his normal forceful, macho self. Very much alive.

  And the relief had been too enormous for words. Like an aftershock it had flooded through her, weakening her bones still further, draining what little resistance she had.

  ‘Certamente. And it has been made considerably longer by my having this stupid accident.’ With his head on one side he peered at her. ‘I’m sorry, Isobel.’

  ‘It was hardly your fault. Yours or the deer’s.’ Oh, no. At the thought of that poor deer she could feel the tears building up again.

  Pushing himself to stand, Orlando tugged the cover off the bed, then leant forward to drape it over Isobel’s shoulders. ‘Here—this will stop you shivering.’

  Holding the cover under her chin with one hand, he bent down until his face was just inches from her own, the large swelling on his head clearly visible. Isobel closed her eyes against the soft assault of his breath, the masculine heat emanating from his body.

  ‘You need to go to bed, Isobel, get some rest.’

  ‘I’m not leaving you alone, Orlando.’ She fought to open her eyes again. ‘The doctor said...’

  ‘I don’t give a damn what the doctor said. You look utterly exhausted and you are obviously seriously overwrought. I am not going to be responsible for the breakdown of your health—nor for putting our baby at risk, come to that.’

  ‘And I am not going to be responsible for you having brain damage.’

  Pulling the bedcover closer around her, Isobel retaliated with as much force as she could muster. Orlando scowled, his eyes darting across her obstinate face, his mouth opening and then closing again.

  ‘Very well.’

  He pulled himself upright and Isobel found herself staring at the waistband of his boxer shorts, the jut of his hips, the line of dark hair descending from his navel. She swallowed.

  ‘In that case we will have to reach a compromise. You will have to get into bed with me.’

  Isobel stared as he walked stiffly around the bed, pulling back the sheet and rearranging the pillows.

  ‘I can’t.’ Isobel felt the breath catch in her throat. ‘I mean...you have just been in an accident...’

  ‘I’m suggesting we lie quietly side by side, Isobel, nothing else.’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Isobel felt herself blush, glad that the dim light in the room hid her embarrassment. ‘But I still think it would be better if I stayed here in the...’

  ‘Get in.’ It was an order now, barked from the other side of the bed, where he stood all lean, shadowed muscle and impatient glowering. ‘You really don’t want to make me force you, do you? Not in my present injured condition?’

  Isobel lowered her eyes, away from the oh-so-seductive image before her. She knew getting into bed with Orlando was the last thing she should do, but she felt so tired...so overwhelmingly, debilitatingly tired...as if her bones had turned to lead, and suddenly it seemed like the most tempting thing in the world.

  Before giving herself any more time to think she stood up, unfas
tened her sandals and moved to the side of the bed. Orlando watched her, waiting with exaggerated patience, one arm extended to indicate the space he had made for her.

  ‘I would suggest removing some clothes—unless you want to make me feel seriously underdressed.’

  Isobel looked down at herself. She was still wearing the jeans and T-shirt she had put on that morning in London. Was it really possible that what seemed like a lifetime ago had actually been the same day? Taking in a breath, she quickly undid her jeans and tugged them off, leaving them on the floor beside her.

  She found herself wishing she wasn’t wearing such skimpy lace knickers at the same time as she asked herself what it mattered. After all, Orlando had made it quite clear that this was nothing more than a practical arrangement. But with his eyes mercilessly raking over her she decided that was as far as her strip was going and, jumping into bed, pulled the sheet up to her chin and lay very, very still.

  ‘That’s better.’ She felt him climb in beside her, moving his body around to try to get comfortable. ‘At least this way you will get some rest, even if you refuse to sleep. And should anything untoward happen to me during the night you will be the first to know.’

  ‘That isn’t funny, Orlando.’ Anger spiked through her anxiety and she turned to slant him a furious look. Propped up against the pillows, he had linked his hands behind his head, defining the pectoral muscles of his bare chest and cording the tendons of his forearms. He looked nothing like the invalid he was supposed to be. ‘You’ve been in a serious accident. You could have been killed.’

  ‘I know. Mi dispiace... I’m sorry.’

  Careful not to meet his eyes, for fear of what she might see there, Isobel turned back, shifting across the bed to make sure there was a decent space between them. Then she gazed up at the ceiling.

  ‘Are you going to turn off the light?’ he asked.

  ‘Um...yes.’ Reaching across, Isobel did as she was asked.

  Silence reigned.

  Isobel could hear Orlando’s breathing—soft, rhythmic, seductive. Squirming as little as possible, she adjusted the T-shirt that had twisted under her. Squeezing her eyes closed, she flatly refused to let her body succumb to his nearness. Even if every nerve ending was screaming at her that he was lying virtually naked only inches from her, she didn’t have to listen. She could block out the throb of awareness, the pulsing, masculine virility that surrounded him, charging the small gap between them like a force field. She could block out the physical yearning to feel his arms around her if she really tried.

  She would just keep calm and stay alert for any changes in his condition. Perhaps she would match the rhythm of his breathing with her own. In...out. She felt the tension in her body start to lessen, her eyelids grow heavy. In...out...

  * * *

  Orlando stared at the sleeping beauty next to him. Several hours had passed and now dawn was starting to break. A new day. He wanted to move, desperately needed to shift his position to ease the stiffness in his spine, the aching of his limbs. But moving would disturb Isobel, and right now he couldn’t bear to do that.

  Having finally persuaded her to get into bed with him, much to his surprise he had seen her fall asleep almost immediately. And in the oblivion of sleep she had turned towards him, curling her body against his, flinging out one arm so that it rested across his chest, her hand lightly settled on his shoulder.

  She looked so peaceful, so innocent, but the rush of tenderness he felt towards her twisted his heart. Because he knew he could never be the man he wanted to be for her. He was too damaged, too scarred.

  When she had finally opened up about the car accident, the way her father had died, he had felt her pain like a punch in the gut, and the anguish swirling in her beautiful green eyes had threatened to undo him completely. More than anything he had wanted to help her, to reach out and take away her misery and grief, to protect her from the pain, from all the agonies that life could throw at her. But what right did he have to do that? Him of all people? He who was riddled with demons of his own—demons he had no intention of exposing to Isobel or anyone else.

  He didn’t have Isobel’s courage to come clean, but he refused to be a fraud. So what had he done? Cruelly ended the conversation. Shut her down. Made her cry. Because that was the man he was, the only man he could ever be.

  Looking down at Isobel now, he lightly brushed a strand of silky hair away from her face. Her eyelids flickered, the dark lashes twitching, then settling against her cheek. He knew only too well that he had turned her life upside down—first by getting her pregnant and then by insisting that she came to live with him. Like a rag doll in the mouth of a Rottweiler she had been shaken until she had dropped at his feet.

  Except Isobel was no rag doll—far from it. Yes, he had managed to bend her to his will, but it was Isobel’s courage that had made her agree to his terms, not weakness. She was the feistiest, most independent young woman he had ever met. And he loved that about her. He loved a lot of things about her.

  Which made his next decision even harder. He was going to insist they got married right away.

  Despite his attempt to make light of his accident—both to himself and to Isobel—the fact was it had shaken him up. Not in the physical sense—he’d been lucky, nothing more than a bump and a few bruises, and he knew perfectly well that all Isobel’s concerns were unfounded. But the accident had made him face up to his own mortality.

  Supposing he hadn’t been so lucky? Supposing it had been him lying glassy-eyed in a ditch instead of the stag?

  He and Isobel had to get married now—as soon as possible. He wasn’t prepared to wait any longer. If he had died in that crash, where would that have left his child? Not only fatherless, but with no legal rights whatsoever—not to his business empire, the Trevente estate or the title of Marchese di Trevente. Nothing. And, worse still, an earlier bit of research had revealed that his child wouldn’t even have been able to take the Cassano name. Legally, with an unmarried couple, the father had to be there in person to register the birth in order for his name to go on the birth certificate. Either that or it would have to be authorised by the courts, as had been the pitiful situation with his own father. But both of those were clearly impossible if you were dead.

  Orlando would have been erased from his child’s life as if he had never existed. And suddenly he knew he sure as hell wasn’t going to let that happen.

  Isobel stirred against him, her lips parting in sleep as if she was going to say something, then settling again into an adorable pout.

  There was another reason Orlando wanted to move the wedding forward. One that he had to force himself to acknowledge. Supposing Isobel changed her mind? She had agreed to marry him at some unspecified date in the future, but what was to say that she wouldn’t have a change of heart? Or that she’d never really planned to go through with it in the first place, just agreeing to get him off her back? Or, worse still...and this thought had clawed its talons into Orlando’s skin, made his hands ball into fists...supposing she met someone else?

  It was possible...it could happen. Isobel was an extremely attractive young woman and Orlando had seen the way men looked at her. And now they were in Italy, where every man was convinced he was a red-hot lover and would leap at the opportunity to prove it.

  Turning slightly, he felt Isobel’s hand tighten on his shoulder. His own body tightened in response. It would be so easy to plant a kiss on those pink lips, to wait for her reaction, for her to mould herself against him, invite him to make love to her in the way his body had already pre-empted, evident in the growing erection that he was fighting to ignore.

  ‘You are so beautiful, Isobel. Have I ever told you that?’

  Lowering his head, Orlando whispered the words so quietly he wasn’t sure if they were even audible. He wanted to make love to her so badly it hurt. But sex solved nothing—no matter how good it felt at the time.

  So instead he lifted her arm and laid it gently by her side. Then, inching b
ack the covers, he ordered himself to creep away from her delectably warm and sleeping body. It was time to take a very long, very cold shower.

  * * *

  You are so beautiful, Isobel.

  The words floated around inside her head, repeating themselves over and over until Isobel found herself smiling, reaching out for Orlando to reassure herself that he was there.

  Except he wasn’t.

  Waking from her lovely dream with a jolt, Isobel found the bed beside her empty. Panic immediately gripped her. What time was it? She squinted at the watch she still had on her wrist. Nine fifteen! How on earth had she slept that long? How had she fallen asleep at all? She was supposed to have been watching over Orlando. What if something terrible had happened to him?

  Pulling on a robe over the crumpled T-shirt, Isobel dashed out into the corridor, looking both ways before starting to run down the stairs, her mind already conjuring up hideously dramatic images of him lying comatose on the floor somewhere, a resuscitation team desperately trying to bring him back to life.

  It was a scenario only made a thousand times worse when through the window she caught sight of a recovery truck towing the crumpled wreck of Orlando’s sports car up the long driveway. She couldn’t bear to look at it.

  But the window at the next turn of the stairs revealed something else. A flash of sunshine on water and there, cutting long, slow strokes from one end of the swimming pool to the other, was Orlando.

  Returning to the bedroom, Isobel sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for her heart rate to steady, for the awful image of that mangled car to disappear. She would take a quick shower, get dressed, and then go and give him a piece of her mind.

  He was out of the water and towelling himself dry when Isobel finally arrived at the poolside.

  ‘What do you think you are doing?’ Placing her hands on her hips, she squinted up at him. ‘You are supposed to be in bed.’

  She watched as he wrapped the towel low around his hips, staring at the beads of water that were clinging to the taut planes of his chest, at the bruises shadowing his olive skin.