She was wearing jeans and a soft pink sweater and did not look at all pregnant, but Nicolo supposed it would be a few months before she showed signs that his child was growing inside her. His child … His hands tightened on the steering wheel. It still seemed unreal. Yet when he studied Sophie more closely he noticed that her breasts beneath her clingy sweater looked fuller and her face was softer somehow, as if she was concealing a miraculous secret.
She gave a tiny yawn. ‘Who looked after Dorcha while you were in London?’
‘Betty stayed at the house with him.’ Nicolo smiled ruefully. ‘The dog has been pining for you. He often sits outside your bedroom door, howling.’
‘I’ve missed him too.’ She had missed the wolfhound almost as much as she had missed Nicolo, Sophie admitted to herself. Dorcha wasn’t the only one who had been pining.
The red-brick house looked as austere as she remembered it, but she was glad to be back in Buckinghamshire. Nicolo opened the front door and they were immediately greeted by an ecstatic Dorcha, who barked madly until Sophie made a fuss of him.
‘I’ll take him to the garden,’ she said. ‘I could do with stretching my legs after sitting in the car.’
The lawn still looked like a wild meadow, but when she strolled down to the swimming pool she discovered that it was now fully restored and the clear blue water looked inviting.
‘The weather is still warm enough to use the pool,’ Nicolo said when he joined her. ‘We could swim now, if you like?’
‘Maybe tomorrow,’ Sophie decided quickly. ‘I’m tired.’ More to the point, she knew she would be unable to keep her eyes, and quite probably her hands, off Nicolo if he was half naked, wearing only a pair of swim shorts. She bit her lip. ‘I still can’t believe that this is happening. I keep thinking that I’ll wake up and find it was all a dream.’
Nicolo shot a glance at her troubled face and felt a surge of guilt, aware that his irresponsibility was to blame for the situation they were now in. Sophie had believed she was infertile, and he had known that when he had made love to her without protection.
‘Do you wish it was a dream?’ he asked quietly. ‘Don’t you want the baby?’
Was it selfish to admit that she wished she could have her old life back—a fulfilling career, travel to far-flung corners of the globe, adventurous friends who were not tied down with the responsibility of a child? Sophie knew that her pregnancy was a million to one chance, a miracle. But a little part of her could not help thinking that it was a disaster.
‘I don’t know,’ she told Nicolo with painful honesty.
They walked back to the house in silence, and Sophie wished she knew what he was thinking. ‘What shall I cook for dinner?’
‘It’ll have to be steak, I’m afraid. That’s all that’s in the fridge.’
‘Oh, well, the iron will probably be good for the baby anyway,’ she said wryly.
Nicolo shook his head. ‘I can see I’m going to need to make some changes at Chatsfield House, starting with employing a few more staff, including a housekeeper and cook. You might not feel like cooking when you’re busy with a new baby,’ he told Sophie.
Her steps faltered. ‘I don’t know where I’ll live with the baby once it’s born, but it’s unlikely to be in Buckinghamshire. I’ll need to be closer to London for work.’
He frowned. ‘You won’t be able to work for the first few months after the baby arrives. You can hardly take a newborn infant into the office.’
‘Obviously I’ll have to find a good nursery.’ Sophie rubbed her brow. ‘I haven’t had a chance to think about how I’ll manage.’ It was all very well for Nicolo to criticise, but the responsibility of caring for their child would fall mainly to her. ‘Do you have any suggestions?’ she snapped.
‘Yes, you can live here with me.’
If only Nicolo had made that suggestion after they had slept together, she thought sadly. Unfortunately he was five weeks too late. ‘It’s not what you would have chosen. You like living alone,’ she reminded him.
If that was true, then why had he missed Sophie so much since she had left him that he’d felt as if a lead weight had taken up residence in his chest? Nicolo brooded.
‘Things are going to be different from now on, and we will both have to make adjustments and compromises,’ he said tersely.
Later that evening, as they ate steak with Béarnaise sauce in the dining room, Sophie remembered Nicolo’s extreme reaction when she had been about to light a candle. He had been left with physical and emotional scars from the fire years ago, and she was afraid that he would never come to terms with his guilt that he had started the blaze which had had such devastating consequences for him and the chambermaid.
‘Why were you so angry with your father when you went to his penthouse suite at the hotel?’
Nicolo had once accused her of asking too many questions, but she sensed that the explanation behind this was crucial for her to be able to understand him better. After all, Nicolo was going to be a father himself in a few months, and understanding his complex character was vital if they were both going to be involved in their child’s upbringing.
He was silent for several minutes. ‘I’ve never told anyone—including my father—what I am about to tell you,’ he said finally. Nicolo exhaled deeply. ‘A week before the fire I had gone to stay at the Chatsfield London. Gene was more or less living there permanently. It was a year after my mother had left the family and disappeared. Lucilla was doing her best to look after the younger ones here because my father was apparently too busy running the hotels to have time for his children.
‘I didn’t tell him about my visit. I wanted to surprise him.’ He grimaced. ‘Instead it was me who had the surprise. I had a key to the penthouse and I let myself in. I heard my father’s voice from the bedroom—and a woman’s voice.’ He gave Sophie a resigned look. ‘I should have left then, but I was curious. The bedroom door was half open and when I looked in I saw my father naked in bed with one of the hotel’s chambermaids.’
‘Oh, no!’ Sophie could imagine how shocked and horrified a thirteen-year-old boy must have felt.
‘They didn’t notice me as I slipped out of the penthouse. No one knew what I had seen. But I realised that the rumours I had heard about my father having affairs with other women—which I hadn’t believed—must be true. I was convinced that my mother had discovered my father’s infidelity, and that was the reason she had left. She adored my father but he had broken her heart and I did not blame her for wanting to get away from the pain and humiliation he had caused her.
‘I hated my father for what he had done,’ Nicolo admitted roughly. ‘I felt betrayed. I’d hero-worshipped Gene but now I had seen that he was a liar and a cheat and I wanted to hurt him like he had hurt my mother.’
‘So you went back to the penthouse to tip his whisky collection away, and you inadvertently started the fire.’ Sophie sighed. ‘You were a child, Nicolo, a young boy who felt let down by the person you should have been able to trust. But the past is history and your father is an old man. Maybe it’s time you forgave him.’
A week ago, even a day ago, Nicolo would have rejected Sophie’s suggestion. He had been angry with his father for so many years, but now he was going to be a father himself and he found his attitude towards Gene softening. People made mistakes. Perhaps his father had regrets about the past. Nicolo had refused to listen when Gene had tried to talk to him. Dio, for nearly twenty years he had pushed his father away. He hoped that if he made mistakes in the future, his child would be more forgiving of him.
‘I want to be a good father,’ he told Sophie gruffly. He reached across the table and took her hand in his.
‘We have a duty to try to be the best parents we can be. Every decision we make from now on must be in the interest of the child. Do you agree?’
Sophie stared down at their linked fingers. Her heart had leapt when Nicolo had clasped her hand, but now she felt trapped by his firm grip. He was holding her fi
ngers as though he never wanted to let her go—but it wasn’t her he wanted. He simply felt duty bound to take care of her because she was pregnant with his baby. The realisation felt like an arrow through her heart.
‘You’re right, of course,’ she muttered as she got up from the table. ‘But the baby isn’t due for another eight months and we have plenty of time to decide how we are going to manage things.
‘It’s been a busy day.’ She ignored the thought that she had slept in the car for a chunk of it. For some reason she felt like crying, and whether or not pregnancy hormones were to blame for her ragged emotions she did not want to break down in front of Nicolo. ‘I’m going to bed,’ she announced abruptly.
Sophie searched around the guest bedroom she had occupied the last time she had stayed at Chatsfield House, wondering where Nicolo had put her suitcase. The bed was unmade and she would have to collect clean sheets from the laundry cupboard—unless he assumed …
Her heart was thudding as she walked along the landing and knocked on the door of his room. The first thing she saw when she walked in was her suitcase lying empty on the floor. Her eyes flew to Nicolo, who was sprawled on the bed.
‘What have you done with my clothes?’
‘I unpacked for you and put your things in my spare wardrobe.’ He gave her a bland smile but the expression in his eyes was watchful and faintly predatory, and Sophie sensed that if she attempted to leave the room he would spring up with the speed of a panther and stop her.
She could feel the pulse at the base of her throat beating erratically. ‘You said that spending one night together was fun, but two would be foolish,’ she reminded him.
His eyes glinted. ‘Perhaps we are both foolish then, Sophie, because last night was our second night together and we proved when we made love at your flat that we can’t resist each other.’
Tonight, more than ever, he looked like the highwayman of Sophie’s imagination. With his loose white silk shirt unbuttoned to halfway down his chest and his long dark hair falling over his collar he looked indolent and so dangerously sexy that desire tugged swift and sharp in the pit of her stomach. She could feel her resolve to keep her distance from him crumbling.
‘What would a third night be?’ she could not prevent herself from asking.
His smile softened, and his voice deepened and became lush and beguiling. ‘Inevitable,’ he murmured.
He stood up and crossed the room in long strides to stand in front of her, but did not touch her. He simply stared down at her as if he was waiting for her to decide what should happen next, as if he was giving her a choice.
‘The only reason you brought me to Chatsfield House is because I’m carrying your baby,’ she whispered.
‘I didn’t know you were pregnant when I came to your flat yesterday. I didn’t know when I made love to you. All I knew was that I’d missed you like hell,’ he said roughly. ‘Believe it or not, I had every intention of asking you to come back to me.’
Sophie bit her lip, torn between wanting to believe him, and the voice of caution inside her head which pointed out that when Nicolo said he’d missed her he was talking about their physical attraction. Sex was not a basis for a relationship. She did not even know what sort of relationship she wanted with him. If she hadn’t been pregnant, would she have agreed to come back to Chatsfield House?
Of course she would have, she thought with a rueful sigh. She had ached for him for five long weeks, and she ached for him now. She could not deny the truth to herself when her body was responding to his nearness. Her breasts felt heavy and her nipples were already hardening in anticipation of him caressing them with his hands and mouth.
He lifted his hand and cradled her cheek. The gesture was unexpectedly tender and when she looked into his eyes she glimpsed something in his expression that tugged on her heart. She could not help herself, and took a tiny step towards him. It was the sign Nicolo had been hoping for. With a muffled groan he drew her into his arms and slanted his mouth over hers.
The last time she had been in his room he had rejected her. Sophie blocked out the memory as Nicolo kissed her with increasing passion, as if he was deliberately trying to make up for his coldness when he had sent her away. He traced his hands over her body, removing her clothes so that he could reacquaint himself with her slender shape and discover the new fullness of her breasts. Pregnancy had made her nipples ultrasensitive, and she gasped when he gently teased each taut peak with his tongue before he suckled her, creating exquisite sensations that arced down to her pelvis.
When he laid her on the bed Sophie reached for him and pulled him down onto her eager body. It was easier not to think about the future, and instead she became a slave to Nicolo’s sensual foreplay as he aroused her with his clever fingers and then lowered his head between her legs and brought her almost to the edge of heaven with his tongue.
As the first ripples of her orgasm ran through her she clutched his shoulders and wrapped her legs around his back as he surged forward. In the moment that their bodies became one she felt a connection with him that went beyond their physical union. He was the father of the baby developing inside her and Sophie realised that they would be forever linked by their child.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
OVER THE FOLLOWING weeks Sophie purposefully did not allow herself to think about the future that seemed frighteningly uncertain. Hugh Bryant arranged for her to have an early ultrasound scan. ‘There is no evidence to show that the chemotherapy you received could cause any abnormalities in the baby,’ he assured her. ‘But obviously it’s a good idea to monitor your pregnancy closely.’
Nicolo drove her to a hospital in London for the scan. At this early stage of her pregnancy the baby was no more than a tiny blob shaped like a kidney bean, and the sonographer explained that the regular flutter they could see was the baby’s heartbeat. The evidence of the miracle of new life was beautiful and awe-inspiring and Sophie tried to feel excited, but she still felt apprehensive and trapped at the prospect of being a single mother.
Her life would never be the same again and she felt resentful that Nicolo’s life would not be as affected as hers would be. They had not discussed the baby since he had insisted that he wanted to be involved in their child’s upbringing, but she assumed he intended to offer financial assistance and perhaps arrange visitation rights. No doubt they would be able to come to an amicable arrangement, she thought dully. She told herself she should be glad that he was prepared to stand by her, but deep down she wished that things were different and they were a normal couple who were looking forward to having a baby together.
Back at Chatsfield House she deliberately switched her mind off, and once she’d stopped worrying, she found it surprisingly easy to relax. Maybe it was her body’s natural defence mechanism in the early stages of pregnancy, she mused. Christos was still in Greece and Jessie seemed to be handling both Lucilla’s and Christos’s calls well enough.
Nicolo had hired a friendly new cook, Joan, and her husband, George, who was a gardener. The transformation to the garden was amazing, no longer a wilderness but a beautiful place to sit and admire the roses. The golden days of late summer drifted past. Although Sophie was sometimes sick first thing in the morning the nausea soon passed and with the help of Joan’s wonderful dinners the waistband on her jeans started to feel tight.
The reminder that her pregnancy was progressing forced Sophie to face up to reality. She could not continue to live with Nicolo indefinitely. He still spent many hours working in his study, but to her surprise and secret delight he spent a lot of time with her. The weather continued to be warm and they swam in the pool every afternoon. Sometimes they made love on a sun lounger, or lying on the cool green grass, and every night became a feast for Sophie’s senses as Nicolo used all his skill to excite and arouse her.
Pregnancy had certainly not affected her libido, she thought ruefully. She lived for those moments of pleasure in Nicolo’s arms. The long nights of making love left her body utterly sa
ted but her heart achingly empty. It was her own fault for falling in love with him, she reminded herself. Nicolo had opened up to her, probably more than he had done with anyone else, but he was still a reclusive, enigmatic man who had cut himself off from his emotions and she doubted he would ever change.
Nicolo pushed open the gate to the walled garden and felt a familiar tightening sensation in his stomach when he saw Sophie sitting on a bench beneath the willow tree. He’d guessed he would find her here. She came most mornings to read in the peaceful garden his mother had created many years ago.
She was unaware of his presence and he allowed himself a few moments to study her. Beautiful did not begin to describe her. He moved his eyes possessively over her, from her silky honey-gold hair rippling past her shoulders, to the new luscious fullness of her breasts. She was still slim now, but in a few more months her belly would be swollen with his child. The knowledge filled Nicolo with fierce pride and excitement, but he sensed that Sophie did not share his feelings. At the scan appointment she had looked tense, and since then, whenever he mentioned the baby she quickly changed the subject.
She looked up as he walked along the gravel path towards her, and he noticed that her laptop computer was open.
He frowned. ‘I thought one of the junior secretaries was dealing with any work that Giatrakos sends through from Greece?’
‘Jessie is covering for me, but she can’t continue to act as Christos’s PA indefinitely—after all, she works for Lucilla. There’s no reason why I can’t return to work, especially now that I’m no longer suffering from morning sickness. I’ve been lucky. Some women experience nausea for months during their pregnancy.’
Sophie saw Nicolo glance at her laptop screen. ‘I’m looking on estate agents’ websites,’ she explained. ‘I’ll need to live close to London for my job, but rents are cheaper in the suburbs and I should be able to find a two-bedroom flat for roughly the same rent as I’m paying now.’
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