The Italian's One-Night Love-Child

by Cathy Williams

  He returned a few minutes later and unceremoniously lifted her from the bed, ignoring her angry protests and carried her into the bathroom.

  She liked big bathrooms. It was a legacy, she had told him in passing, from having to grow up sharing a bathroom with her sisters which had always seemed to be occupied whenever she had needed it. He had accordingly got her an apartment that had a ridiculously big bathroom, big enough to house a deep padded chair on which he proceeded to sit her down.

  ‘Your fever’s going and your colour’s returned,’ he said approvingly. ‘But I still don’t trust you to make it to the bath without falling over.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Bethany, still smarting from his appropriation of the decision-making process and his snide reminder that she couldn’t possibly hate him because they were lovers, eyed him with resentment. He ignored it.

  Her head was beginning to spin. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut as he began to undo the buttons of her voluminous nightie, one of two she possessed which still fit her comfortably. She could smell the fragrance of the lavender bubble bath but she wasn’t going to admit that yes, she really did want a long soak in the bath.

  She also told herself that it was crazy to start being coy about her body when he was so intimately acquainted with it. Who would she be kidding? Nevertheless, as he helped her to the bath with a gentleness that was incongruous in a man as big and powerful as he was, she was acutely conscious of the weight of her breasts and the sensitivity of her nipples.

  She slid into the beautifully warm water with her eyes still shut and was aware of him pulling the chair across so that he could sit alongside her.

  ‘I’m fine now,’ Bethany informed him.

  ‘Thanks, but I’m not willing to take the chance.’ Furthermore, Cristiano was enjoying her acquiescence. With no options on the table, she had been backed into a corner and he felt absolutely no guilt about that because, as far as he was concerned, he was just doing what had to be done.

  Her stomach protruded above the level of the water, wet and shiny and unimaginably sexy, and so did the pouting peaks of her nipples, although he was pretty sure that she wasn’t aware of that, with her eyes stubbornly closed and her mouth pursed into a tight line.

  She might exude all the outward signs of frosty disapproval and maidenly outrage, but that, he knew, was only skin-deep. He would bet his vast fortune that if he bent over and took one of those tempting pink crests into his mouth she would melt faster than a candle over an open fire.

  ‘How does that feel?’ he asked, reining in his wayward thoughts when he felt his body hardening at the delectable sight of her in the bath. She did, after all, have a cold.

  ‘I’m not going to be staying with you at your place once I’m back on my feet,’ Bethany was constrained to point out and, as she opened her eyes and looked at him, he gave an elegant shrug that signified precisely nothing.

  ‘Let me soap you. My driver will be here in a minute.’

  ‘I’d rather not.’

  ‘Why? Because you don’t like being told what to do? Even though it’s for your own good? Sit up.’

  Bethany looked at him with flashing, angry eyes and he raised his eyebrows in mild amusement and reached for the soap. ‘Enjoy the experience,’ he drawled as she dutifully and sulkily sat up, ‘because the next time I soap you it’ll just be a prelude to taking you.’ Did he have time for a cold shower? Probably not, but he would damn well have to have one the minute he got back to his place.

  He began soaping her, taking his time as his hands slid over her shoulders and around and under her breasts.

  ‘That’s the most arrogant thing I’ve…I’ve ever heard in my life…’ Her nostrils flared as his tactile fingers brushed against her nipples, which hardened in immediate response, thereby making a nonsense of her insult.

  ‘Is it?’ Cristiano murmured, reluctantly surrendering the soap back to its rightful place and standing up so that he could reach for a towel. ‘Don’t you like being taken care of?’ His voice, as he began drying her, was like oozing, melted honey, tempting her senses and turning her brain to mush. ‘I may be a dinosaur but isn’t that most women’s dream?’

  ‘I don’t know about most women’s dream. I just know about my own and this isn’t it.’ She reached for the large fluffy towel which he had put by the side of the bath and wrapped it securely and protectively around herself, still keeping her eyes firmly away from him.

  Was she being greedy in wanting the dream of being loved for herself? Was that asking too much? She felt that if she released that dream then she would have nothing. Yes, he would be a responsible husband and a diligent father but, for her, it would be a sham. She didn’t want a marriage based on duty or a man who would sooner or later see her as a burden.

  ‘I refuse to rise to the bait, Bethany.’ Cristiano called upon all his reserves of restraint and reminded himself that she was not feeling well, that her thoughts were probably all over the place. Yet he could feel the frustrated anger rising inside him, wanting to find a way out.

  ‘Whatever.’ She allowed herself to be helped out of the bath, which was daily becoming more of a chore for her.

  ‘You,’ he said through even, gritted teeth, ‘can be the most infuriating woman on the face of the earth. I have been accommodating to the point of insanity with you, and yet you insist on throwing it back in my face.’

  Bethany felt a twinge of guilt but overriding that was the thought that she didn’t want an accommodating guy; she wanted a doting, adoring guy who would climb the highest mountains and forge the deepest canyons for her.

  But arguing would get neither of them anywhere and she didn’t want to fight with him so she kept her thoughts to herself.

  ‘Why do you want to marry me if I’m that infuriating?’ she pointed out with, Cristiano thought, an utterly feminine lack of logic. He watched in simmering silence as she dressed with her back to him and then turned and faced him with a defiant expression on her face. ‘Well?’ she pressed, hating herself for persisting in this and yet not wanting to let it go just yet.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘You haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘And I don’t intend to.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it doesn’t deserve an answer.’ He picked up her suitcase as though it weighed little more than a feather and walked towards the front door. Then he waited for her and gently held her by the arm as they headed down to his waiting driver.

  ‘Doesn’t it bother you that you’re not my dream come true?’ Bethany felt the sting of tears at the back of her eyes. It was a pointless exercise but she wanted to hurt him the way he was, without even knowing it, hurting her.

  ‘Call me prosaic, but getting hyped up and emotional over romantic dreams has never been my thing.’ He ushered her along to where his car was parked on a double yellow line outside her apartment block. ‘We are faced with situations in life and we deal with them. End of story.’ So who the hell was her dream guy? he wondered viciously. He was finding it hard to credit the depth of rage her wholly unjustified criticisms were arousing in him.

  And he had dealt with this particular one with grace and consideration, Bethany grudgingly conceded.

  ‘I’m beginning to feel tired.’ She could feel herself wilting in the back seat of his car, drained of all her reservoirs of energy, which she had uselessly poured into arguing with him.

  ‘My shoulder is right here,’ Cristiano said gruffly. ‘Lean on it.’

  She did. Closing her eyes and then falling into another of her light dozes. Her brain felt muddled and tired. He wanted her to lean on him and she so badly wanted to do just that and for a few confused moments, before she drifted off, she wondered why she was bothering to fight him every inch of the way.

  Was her way any more valuable than his when it came to dealing with their situation? He was offering her two parents for their baby and a stable arrangement. As he had reminded her on more than one oc
casion, they were brilliant in bed. How long that would last, she had no idea but wasn’t it better to have a slice of bread rather than shout and scream because the whole loaf wasn’t on offer?

  The confused thoughts were still with her when the car finally came to a stop and she was lightly shaken out of her uncomfortable sleep.

  She blinked sleepily and gazed up into his unswerving gaze. For a few seconds, she felt her breath catch in her throat and she straightened up and looked around her with a stifled yawn.

  ‘You were mumbling in your sleep,’ Cristiano told her. ‘Care to tell me what that was all about?’

  Bethany went beetroot-red but remained silent as the door was opened for her and she was helped out of the car by Cristiano’s attentive driver.

  All the questions which she had been asking herself when she had finally drifted to sleep were still there, nagging away at her convictions. Alongside them now, arranged like an uninvited supporting cast, was the thought of her parents, who would be over the moon if she just gave in and married the man they had welcomed and accepted like their own son…the thought of his mother who, she knew from what he had told her, would be likewise in the queue of happy people…to be joined by both her sisters, who had met and been charmed by Cristiano and flatly disparaging about her decision to wait in hope rather than marry a man who might not be the perfect guy for her…

  ‘We need to talk,’ she whispered uncertainly.

  ‘The four least welcome words in the English vocabulary,’ Cristiano remarked grimly. His hand was still around her as they rode the lift to his penthouse at the top.

  ‘I’m thinking you won’t find this talk too bad…’

  Chapter Nine

  ‘NO TALKING until you’re in bed,’ Cristiano told her, preceding her into his penthouse, which made her own sizeable apartment look like a doll’s house in comparison.

  The cool, imported Italian tiles, which ran through the entire floor, were liberally interrupted by the warm, vibrant colours of luxuriously expensive rugs. With virtually no doors to break the clean sweep of the sprawling apartment, the illusion of acres of space was breathtaking.

  Even feeling as miserable as she was, Bethany paused, as she always did, to absorb the impact of his place.

  She had never failed to marvel at the casual way with which he accepted this level of opulence. He could very well have been blind to the excruciatingly expensive originals hanging on the walls, all of which were independently worth more than most people could hope to make in a lifetime of hard graft.

  He wasn’t snobbish. His fabulous wealth was just an accepted fact of his privileged background and a powerful learning curve for her in understanding why he had always chosen to protect himself by knowing the pedigrees of the women he had dated. Until she had come along and blown his well thought out control measures to smithereens.

  His bedroom was as impressive as the rest of the penthouse. Dark wooden shutters kept the rest of the world at bay and dominating the room was his bed, handmade because he had wanted something larger than a normal king-size. Every stitch of linen was tailored specifically to fit and the creams and chocolates imbued the space with an utterly masculine stamp.

  As she obediently slid under the duvet, she noticed that the little bunch of flowers which she had impulsively bought him three days previously as a tongue-in-cheek present because his penthouse, she had told him, was just a little too relentlessly alpha male, had found their way to his bedroom and were in the process of wilting in a vase on his chest of drawers.

  The sight of the flowers focused her mind and brought her tangle of thoughts together.

  She had fought long and hard for her independence. She had stoutly refused to be browbeaten into marrying him because his traditionalism demanded it and she had actually thought that she had made headway because he had stopped mentioning it, but now she was tired and doubtful as to the validity of her arguments.

  She had missed him when he had been away, even though she would have died rather than admit it. She had also missed his reassuring presence when she had started feeling unwell, missed the way he took control and made her feel safe. It was a joke, really, when safe should have been the last thing she felt around him. She had scoffed at his pig-headed insistence that marriage was the only way of dealing with their circumstances but, in truth, when she thought about him agreeing to her terms and backing out of her life, she was assaulted by a sense of driving blind panic.

  The flowers gave her hope that if he didn’t love her then he might just have it in him to care enough to treat her with respect when the novelty of their sexual relationship petered out for him. She held on to this fragile hope as he left, to return a couple of minutes later with a glass of water because dehydration, he informed her, was the last thing she needed. The truth was, and she couldn’t make herself stifle it, maybe, just maybe, there was a chance that he could grow to feel some kind of love for her. Surely that happened! But, if it didn’t happen for them, then the banquet which should have been her married life would be a plate of crumbs and she would learn to deal with it.

  ‘So…’ Cristiano sat on the bed next to her and braced himself for one of those conversations which would have him gritting his teeth in frustration and clamping down on his inclination to shout at her until she saw things his way ‘…you said you wanted to talk.’

  ‘You kept my flowers.’

  Cristiano followed her eyes to the chest of drawers and he flushed. ‘I can’t remember any woman ever buying me flowers,’ he said with a shrug.

  ‘But I bet you’ve bought dozens of roses for women in the past.’

  ‘Was this what you wanted to talk to me about? Because, if it is, then it can definitely wait.’

  ‘I…I wanted to thank you for…looking after me. If I seemed ungrateful then…’

  ‘You’re deeply sorry? Apology accepted.’

  He realised how unusual it was for her to apologise. Of course, she had in the past, when he had first shown up on her doorstep and exposed her deceit, but even then her apology had bordered on challenging. Right now, she sounded sincere. He liked it. In fact, he liked it so much that he decided to work the conversation to his benefit. Ever the opportunist, he considered it a crime were he to fail to.

  ‘It’s tough always having to stand on your own,’ he murmured persuasively, taking one of her limp hands in his and distractedly playing with her fingers while he tried to mentally work out how to turn this brief moment in time, when her defences were well and truly down, to his advantage.

  ‘Let’s take tonight,’ he continued softly, his dark, sexy voice rolling over her like waves lapping on sand. ‘You were unwell and yes, I admit that calling a doctor might not have been strictly necessary, but isn’t it reassuring to know that I care enough to do so?’

  ‘I’m not dependent on you…’

  ‘Of course you’re not! And I would never ask you to be…’ The idea, however, was an alluring one but one not to be mentioned at this juncture. ‘Which isn’t to say that accepting a helping hand is a sign of weakness.’ The conversation seemed to be meandering and Cristiano decided to take the reins a little more firmly. No way was he going to be getting back to the value of friends rubbish she had been fond of spouting. ‘We’ve been down this road before, Beth, but I really think it’s time for you to acknowledge that it’s just a hell of a lot easier dealing with this as a couple.’

  He was encouraged by her lack of fighting talk. This, he thought, was more like it. He swept aside the discomforting thought that he, a man who was used to having the world at his fingertips, needed to use every trick in the book to get this woman down the aisle.

  How severely he had underestimated the impact impending fatherhood would have on him!

  ‘And think about our child.’ His voice was grave. ‘Should we not be man and wife, what would he think if he found out that he had been denied the privilege of both his parents because you wanted no part of it?’

  Bethany frowned. ‘I c
an’t speculate that far into the future.’

  ‘You don’t have to. I can.’

  She had the unnerving sensation of being under siege when, after ten minutes, he had managed to paint a picture from which she emerged as inconsiderate, thoughtless and selfish. This time round, however, she was not inclined to fight the tacit accusations, delivered by his honeyed tongue.

  ‘Nothing to say?’ Cristiano asked into the silence.

  ‘I’m tired.’

  ‘You should be resting,’ he said immediately. He was sharp enough to know when to leave well alone. He had planted the seed and this time it appeared to have fallen on slightly more fertile ground. In due course, he would water it and he was pretty sure that it would reap its harvest eventually. Indeed, sooner rather than later. ‘I’ll have some food ordered in. What do you fancy?’

  ‘Is this your way of reminding me how necessary it is to have you around, Cristiano?’

  He looked suitably affronted and stood up. ‘I’m only trying to do what’s best and, anyway, I’m hungry if you’re not. Even if you’re not,’ he was obliged to point out, ‘you have to eat. You’ve probably had a lousy diet while I’ve been away. So what do you want? Chinese? Indian? I could get my driver to bring something from the Savoy Grill. In fact, I’ll do that. You don’t need greasy food. Soup and some fresh bread sound okay?’

  ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘Don’t have to what?’ Cristiano stilled, something in her voice making him feel uneasy.

  ‘Send out for food. I’m fine with whatever you have in your fridge.’

  ‘I’ve been away for two days and, before that, have only touched base with this place. I wouldn’t want to compromise your health by attempting to feed you with the contents of my fridge.’

  There he went again, she thought sadly—all about the baby.

  ‘Actually, what I meant, what I mean…is that you’re right and you don’t have to pander to my needs to get the point across. I’ve got it. Getting married is the sensible thing to do, so if your offer still stands, then…’