by Various
CHAPTER NINE
‘THERE really is no need for you to come with me to Gloucestershire,’ Daniella insisted, for what had to be the tenth time, as Niccolo accompanied her inside her apartment after driving from the private airport where his twelve-seater jet had landed an hour or so ago.
And for the tenth time Niccolo made an effort to control the angry reply he wanted to make!
With nothing left to say between the two of them—as far as Daniella was concerned, that was—Niccolo still had plenty to say on the subject of their marriage—but he had arranged for his pilot to fly them back to England earlier that evening.
His suggestion that they drive down to her parents’ home the following day had been quite sensible, it seemed to Niccolo, as Daniella was tired from the hours of travelling and he had some business to attend to in London this evening. But it was a suggestion Daniella was still protesting against most vehemently.
‘There is no question of whether or not I will accompany you to Gloucestershire, Daniella,’ he bit out forcefully. ‘There is only the timing of the visit to decide.’
‘I have already decided—’
‘You are behaving ridiculously by even considering making that three-hour drive tonight,’ Niccolo growled.
Her mouth twisted. ‘In your opinion.’
Dani knew she was being awkward by insisting on driving to Gloucestershire tonight. Knew it, but couldn’t control it.
She was tired and upset, completely over-emotional after hours of travelling with a silently disapproving Niccolo. Not even the luxury of flying in the private jet, with an attentive steward to see to her every need, had helped to alleviate the uncomfortable silence that had existed between herself and Niccolo for all of those hours.
And the same awkward discomfort still existed between them!
It was why she was feeling so contrarily determined not to do what Niccolo wanted her to do and wait until tomorrow to go and visit her parents. Even when she knew he was right. Especially because she knew he was right.
‘In my considered opinion, yes,’ Niccolo said tersely.
‘Oh, your considered opinion?’ she echoed sarcastically. ‘Well, that makes all the difference, of course!’
Niccolo drew in an angry breath, knowing that Daniella was spoiling for an argument and that he was determined not to give her one.
She had to know how reckless it would be to make a three-hour drive this evening. It was already growing dark, and she was too tired—as was he—to make the drive safely tonight.
Besides, he really did have some business in London that he simply had to take care of this evening….
‘Daniella, please.’ He forced a calming tone to his voice. ‘Do this for the baby’s sake if not for mine, hmm?’
She flinched. ‘That was pretty low!’
Niccolo almost ground his teeth with frustration. ‘I will use whatever methods I deem necessary in order to make you see sense.’
‘Obviously,’ she scorned, dropping down into one of the armchairs in her tiny but comfortable sitting room. ‘Very well, Niccolo. I will visit my parents tomorrow—’
‘No, we will visit your parents tomorrow,’ he contradicted her harshly. ‘Do you have to fight me on everything, Daniella?’
She hadn’t fought him this morning. In fact she distinctly remembered being the one to invite Niccolo into her bed!
Which was her main problem, Dani recognised heavily.
Being with Niccolo this morning—making love with him, laughing with him, teasing him during that lovemaking—had only made her fall in love with him even more. And she knew now just how wonderful it could have been between them if things had been different.
If Niccolo had loved her as she loved him.
Something that was never going to happen.
The duty and honour Niccolo offered, his taking responsibility for the child they had created together, had become a bitter taste in her mouth that simply wouldn’t go away.
‘Yes. I. Do,’ she answered him quietly, firmly, knowing that to do anything else but fight the way Niccolo seemed so determined to take over her life was totally unacceptable to her. She could not become some sort of adjunct to Niccolo’s life, just the mother of his child, simply because she was too tired or emotional to fight him anymore.
Niccolo sighed. ‘I think it’s best if I leave you now,’ he said wearily. ‘I have a meeting later this evening, but I will be staying at Eleni’s tonight if you should need me.’
‘I won’t.’
His mouth tightened at the flat finality of her tone. ‘I will be at Eleni’s if you should need me,’ he repeated, his tone of voice bordering on the savage. ‘Tomorrow morning I will drive back here, and then we will go to see your parents together.’ He knew he was being overly forceful, knew from the angry glitter in Daniella’s eyes that she resented what she saw as his high-handedness, but Niccolo also knew it was either that or he would take hold of her and shake some sense into her.
He had no guarantee of what his next move would be once he touched her again. He had deliberately not touched her since leaving her bedroom this morning. Not even so much as a casual hold on her arm to help her in and out of the jet.
Because he dared not.
He could not be responsible for his own actions once he felt her warm softness beneath his hands. He had never wanted any woman as he wanted Daniella. In every way. Not just physically either. He wanted her laughter, too—and that easy teasing they had found together during their lovemaking. He wanted it all.
But her emotions were so fragile at this moment—she was so fragile—that he didn’t want to risk saying or doing anything that might shatter their already shaky relationship.
This forced inaction was not an easy thing for a man used to dealing with hundreds of employees on a daily basis, as well as being head of the D’Alessandro family and managing all their finances. It was not an easy thing when dealing with the mother of his unborn child, the woman he—
The woman he what…?
Niccolo became very still, his gaze guarded as he looked across at the seated Daniella.
What was it he felt for this woman?
Whatever it was he had never felt it before. He was definite about that. He had never wanted to protect a woman as well as cherish her. To make love with her as well as laugh with her. To tell her all of his hopes and dreams as well as his fears.
All of those things he wanted with her.
Yet he knew he could never share his main fear with her—that she would never, ever allow him to have any of the things he wanted with her.
‘I will leave you now, Daniella,’ he repeated stiffly.
‘Fine,’ she accepted dully, her head resting back on the chair.
‘Daniella, are you all right?’
‘What do you want from me, Niccolo?’ Her weariness faded as she turned to glare at him with fiercely angry green eyes. ‘You’ve accompanied me to England against my wishes. You’re coming to see my parents with me tomorrow, also against my wishes. What else do you want?’ she challenged furiously, her hands clenched on the arms of the chair.
Niccolo bit back his reply, instead shaking his head before turning and striding quickly to the door of her apartment before all his good intentions fled and he said or did something he would definitely regret!
Dani watched him leave, angry with Niccolo, but most of all knowing she was angry with herself.
For needing him.
For loving him.
She was less angry the following morning, when Niccolo returned to her apartment to begin the drive to Gloucestershire. Less angry, but more determined.
She had made a mistake yesterday morning by making love with Niccolo. A mistake that would not be repeated. Not that Niccolo looked as if he would care for a repeat of that lapse either. His manner was curt in the extreme as he opened the car door for her to get into the passenger seat, his expression decidedly grim as he settled himself behind the wheel.
She
shot him a sideways glance as he manoeuvred the car out into the busy London traffic. Apart from a terse greeting when Dani had answered the door earlier to his knock, Niccolo hadn’t even spoken to her this morning.
Had these hours apart given him time to reflect too? To realise that his suggestion that the two of them marry had only been a knee-jerk reaction to knowing that she was pregnant with his child? After careful consideration, had he decided he didn’t really want to marry her?
Perhaps it would be better for both of them if Niccolo had decided that.
‘You seem a little—preoccupied this morning. Didn’t your business meeting last night go as planned?’ she ventured lightly.
Niccolo wasn’t preoccupied—he was feeling murderous!
But not with Daniella. Never with Daniella.
No, his anger—this almost uncontrollable fury—was directed at another person entirely. But until he had his emotions under tighter control he would have to choose his words carefully.
‘I don’t remember saying that it was a business meeting, Daniella,’ he countered with the same lightness.
‘Oh…’ Daniella finally murmured, after thinking over his remark for several tense seconds.
It instantly alerted Niccolo to his mistake—so much for choosing his words carefully!
‘Neither was it a social occasion,’ he assured her. ‘It was more in the nature of a—’ What the hell could he call his visit last night to Philip Maddox’s apartment? A duty call? A need to know the truth about his marriage to Daniella?
Whatever it had started out as, Niccolo had ended up wanting to physically injure the other man. But that would have made Niccolo less of a man in his own eyes, his father having taught him long ago that a man’s real strength lay in not resorting to physical violence. So, instead, Niccolo had chosen to rip Philip Maddox apart with words. Hard, cutting words of disgust for a man who had no right to call himself such.
Certainly Philip Maddox would not forget Niccolo’s visit in a hurry.
He knew he couldn’t talk to Daniella about any of that just yet—that she needed all of her emotional energy at the moment to deal with telling her parents about the baby they were expecting. But later they would talk…
Later Niccolo intended telling Daniella of his visit to her louse of an ex-husband. And he fully intended talking to her again about their own future together.
‘It was a meeting that could not be put off any longer,’ he concluded.
Which told Dani precisely nothing as to who the meeting had been with or what it had been about!
Perhaps he had no intention of telling her.
Very likely, she acknowledged heavily. Niccolo was a very private person, and had never felt the need to explain himself to anyone, so why on earth should she expect him to be any different with her? She shouldn’t, was the answer.
‘Sounds a bit boring,’ she commented. ‘I trust Eleni and Brad are both well?’
Eleni had rung her apartment that morning, but Dani had anticipated such a call from her friend and switched on the answer-machine; her parents first and then Eleni—that was how Dani had decided to deal with this situation. Besides, she had reasoned, if Niccolo wanted to tell his sister about the baby then no doubt he would do so.
‘Eleni is intrigued,’ Niccolo drawled. ‘To quote my little sister exactly, she said, “First Dani disappears for a couple of days and then you turn up—what’s going on, Niccolo?”’ He gave a rueful grimace.
Dani felt some of her own tension leave her as she easily imagined Eleni’s forthright curiosity. ‘So what did you decide to tell her?’
He shrugged. ‘Nothing. I thought we could join her and Brad for dinner later this evening and tell them our news together.’
Tell them exactly what? That was the question!
Just about the baby? Or did Niccolo also intend confiding in his sister and brother-in-law that he had offered Dani marriage and she had refused?
Eleni would never forgive Dani if Niccolo told her that!
Nothing would please Eleni more, Dani knew, for her two most favourite people in the world besides Brad to actually marry each other.
Great—now Dani was going to have two lethally determined D’Alessandros to oppose!
Niccolo glanced at Daniella, knowing from her silence that she wasn’t altogether happy with his reply. ‘I will leave it up to you exactly what we tell them,’ he said. ‘I realise I am only allowed to be here at all on sufferance!’ His voice had hardened with the frustration he still felt at Daniella’s stubborn refusal to marry him.
Not that Niccolo intended letting the matter rest there—because, quite simply, he could not do that.
Three and a half weeks ago he had decided he had to give Daniella time to know whether or not she wanted to continue a relationship with him. But now that he had seen her again, spent time with her in his Venetian home, made love with her again, he could no longer bear to be apart from her.
That longing had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she carried his child. Last night, as he’d lain awake long into the night in one of the guest bedrooms of Eleni’s home, his thoughts—all of Daniella—had been enough to convince him of that.
‘Perhaps you should tell me exactly how you wish to deal with this when we get to Wiverley Hall?’ he asked.
Dani didn’t want to ‘deal with this’ at all! But she appreciated she had no real choice—especially as there had never been any doubt in her own mind that she’d go through with the pregnancy. Not that Niccolo would have given her any choice in the matter; if she had so much as even suggested the possibility of a termination she knew he would have locked her up for the required eight months until she had given birth!
She grimaced. ‘I don’t intend stopping any longer than it will take to tell my parents about the baby.’
‘And your grandfather?’
No, not her grandfather!
Dani had already decided that she simply couldn’t bear the look of smug satisfaction that was sure to be on her grandfather’s face when he learnt that she was pregnant and hopefully going to give him the great-grandson that he so wanted to continue the Bell name.
‘No,’ she stated flatly.
Niccolo gave her a brief glance. The look of almost stubborn anger on Daniella’s face told him more than any words ever could have done that she had absolutely no interest in how her grandfather reacted to the news of her pregnancy.
‘Do you fear that he will once again be disappointed in you?’ Niccolo queried gently.
‘Disappointed?’ Daniella echoed. ‘I imagine disappointment is the last emotion my grandfather will feel when he hears he is to be a great-grandfather at last! Or rather that there is to be a Bell heir at last,’ she added, with a bitterness that was unmistakable.
That statement, as far as Niccolo was concerned, required clarification! ‘Our child will be the D’Alessandro heir,’ Niccolo reminded her pointedly.
‘Not if my grandfather has anything to do with it!’ Daniella retorted.
‘Which he does not,’ Niccolo snapped.
She shrugged, not wanting to carry on this thread of conversation any longer. ‘Then I suggest you take that up with him.’
‘Daniella—’
‘Look, Niccolo,’ she interrupted him. ‘You’re going to find out later anyway, so I may as well be the one to tell you now…’
‘Tell me what?’ he prompted guardedly, already knowing from her tone that he was not going to like what he heard.
Dani drew in a ragged breath. She hated having to do this, but knew that if she didn’t, then her totally insensitive grandfather was sure to. It was one of the reasons she hadn’t wanted Niccolo to accompany her today, if she was honest. Only one of them, of course. But at the moment it was the most urgent.
Niccolo had already questioned the reason for her uncharacteristic behaviour the night of Eleni’s party, and once he learnt of that clause in her grandfather’s will, he was sure to draw only one conclusion.
An incorrect one, as it happened. But if Eleni, who knew and loved Dani, had felt compelled the day following the party to voice her doubts concerning Dani’s motives for making love with Niccolo, how much easier would it be for Niccolo—who didn’t know or love her!—to have those same doubts?
But it was no good believing—no, hoping—that Niccolo would never learn of that damning threat. As Dani knew only too well, her grandfather had absolutely no conception of the words ‘sensitivity’ or ‘diplomacy’, and was only ever interested in his own wants and needs.
It was far better that Dani tell Niccolo the truth now.
Better, but certainly not easier!
CHAPTER TEN
NICCOLO listened in stony silence as Daniella told him of the clause in Daniel Bell’s will that could potentially disinherit Beatrice and Jeffrey Bell of not only the Bell money, but Wiverley Hall and the Wiverley Stables, if his granddaughter had not produced an heir before the time of his death.
His hands tightly gripped the steering wheel as he fought to control his inner fury. It was all too easy to guess why Daniella hadn’t told him any of this yesterday.
Because she had feared his reaction.
His contempt.
His accusations!
And she was right to do so. His anger and contempt were so strong, so deep, that it was taking every effort of will he possessed not to voice those emotions.
Because he dared not.
Could not.
Not when he was all too aware of the fragility of Daniella’s condition.
But that didn’t mean there weren’t plenty of things he would have liked to say!
‘For goodness’ sake, say something, Niccolo!’ Dani all but shrieked as he remained icily silent.
She knew how bad it sounded—knew how damning it made her actions the night of Eleni’s party look. Especially as those actions had resulted in her pregnancy. And she would much rather Niccolo vented his feelings here and now than just sat there in icy silence beside her.
That he was furious there was no doubt. His mouth was a thin line in his tautly set face, his knuckles showing white where his hands were gripping the steering wheel so tightly. He looked as if he would like to hit something or someone—although she knew absolutely that that someone would never be her. Niccolo had far too much honour to ever strike a woman in anger.