Having shamelessly manoeuvred for just this occurrence, Cristiano was reduced to a few seconds of complete and utter shock.
‘In other words…’ Bethany shrugged, making sure he didn’t miss her concession ‘…you win.’
Considering he was the victor, Cristiano found that he didn’t care for her phraseology, although he didn’t pause to question why that might be.
‘I’m glad.’ In fact, ridiculously so and that was perfectly understandable, bearing in mind that he was a man who didn’t like any situation that frayed at the edges. He strolled back towards her, smiling. ‘In fact, I’m more than glad.’
‘I’m surprised you haven’t said something along the lines of knowing that I’d come to my senses in the end.’
‘I knew you’d come to your senses in the end.’ For someone who had been wrapped up in a million and one emotional, illogical reasons as to why she couldn’t possibly commit to marriage with him, Cristiano was oddly disconcerted by her sudden change of mind. He knew that it was a conversation best left alone but he found himself sitting on the bed next to her, frowning as he tried to harness his thoughts.
‘What brought about this change of heart?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Possibly not, but why don’t you satisfy my curiosity?’
Bethany shrugged. Now was her opportunity to show him that she could be as level-headed and downright cold as he was when addressing the delicate situation between them.
‘Maybe I realised when I got ill that I’m more vulnerable than I like to think. Maybe I’ve just reached the point when it’s time to put crazy notions aside. This is my life. I’m pregnant, for better or for worse. You’ve done the honourable thing by proposing marriage to me. It’s the most sensible course of action, so…’
She was repeating everything he had said to her in the past, virtually word for word, but Cristiano felt unsettled and disproportionately angry at her resigned acquiescence.
‘All true.’ His voice was clipped and matter-of-fact. ‘I just wonder what happened to all the romantic notions of not wanting to be tied down with the wrong guy.’ The wrong guy. Never had three words left a more bitter taste in his mouth.
He also couldn’t work out why he wasn’t more upbeat about this. He had spent long enough canvassing for such a result, after all. Yet, in possession of the spoils, he now perversely thought that the least she could do was show a bit more enthusiasm. He’d spent weeks bending over backwards to accommodate her and yet none of that appeared to have been taken into account.
Bethany worried her lower lip. Cristiano, whose strong, aggressive personality had been predictable in one area only, and that was in his desire to have her firmly wedded to his side to fulfil his prehistoric notions of conventionality, was now responding in a way that brought her out in a fine film of nervous perspiration. He had told her that he was glad, that he was more than glad. But he wasn’t looking very glad.
The thought that he might have changed his mind, that he might, actually, have come round to her way of thinking, despite everything he had said in the past, made her feel sick. Had he just been going through the motions of presenting the marriage option as the one and only solution to what he saw as a shared problem, in the vague expectation that she would continue rejecting his offer, giving him the chance to claim the pious moral high ground in the years to come? He had insisted on her moving in with him. Maybe he saw that as a necessary step at a time in her pregnancy when she needed to have him around. Maybe, without even realising it, he had already accepted that the move would be temporary, until the baby was born, at which point he would, of course, remain a dutiful and generous presence in the life of his child and probably to her as well, but perhaps her insistence on maintaining their respective freedom had begun its gentle process of eroding his convictions that a child required both parents on site.
She wanted to backtrack, to tell him that if he’d changed his mind then that was perfectly all right.
Instead, she said coolly, ‘I wasn’t thinking in a practical way. If you’re still interested in marriage, then I’m willing to submit but with a few provisions of my own.’
Willing to submit? Provisions? Anyone would think that he had threatened torture instead of a lifetime of having anything she could possibly want!
‘And what, exactly, might these provisions be?’ Cristiano asked blandly.
‘I realise that it’ll be a marriage of convenience, but…but…’ She fiddled with the duvet and then stared down fixedly at her fingers while she tried to catch her breath and sound as normal as possible. Two adults being sensible. ‘I don’t expect you to…start playing the field the second you get tired of playing Happy Families…’
Cristiano’s eyes iced over. He walked over to the window, buying himself a bit more time so that he could control the volcanic fury rising in him. ‘What sort of person do you think I am?’ he asked in a voice as smooth and as sharp as a razor blade. ‘How sleazy do you think I am?’
‘I don’t think you’re sleazy.’ Bethany stuck her chin up and glared at him. ‘I think you’re a man who has…needs…and, when you get bored with me, then you might be tempted to stray…’
‘Then you’ll have to make sure that life never gets boring, won’t you?’ It was a pretty sleazy remark, considering he had professed outrage at the description, but Cristiano wasn’t ashamed of himself. This wasn’t what he had expected when he had envisaged his plans for them both finally coming to fruition.
‘Is that a threat?’ Bethany asked tautly. ‘Do whatever you want or else you find someone else?’
‘You’re putting words into my mouth and I don’t appreciate it.’
‘Well, excuse me for just trying to lay down some boundaries here, in so far as they’ll affect my life!’
‘You’re not laying down boundaries. You’re bracing yourself for failure.’
‘That’s not the way I see it and if you won’t agree to this small thing then it’s probably better that we do the best we can with a custody arrangement.’
Cristiano wondered how it was that she had such a knack of saying precisely what he didn’t want to hear. Just the words custody arrangement ratcheted up his outrage, bringing to mind as it did visions of her with another man. He made a Herculean effort to control his temper. She had agreed to marry him, albeit gracelessly, and he would work with that.
‘We marry,’ Cristiano stated flatly. ‘I won’t fool around and neither will you. Moreover, you will throw everything you have into making our marriage work. I will not tolerate anything that reeks of being a sham.’
Bethany took that to read that, as far as the outside world was concerned, they would present the image of the perfect couple. She knew that it was now or never. Agree and her fate was sealed. Object and he would no longer bother trying to convince her to walk down that road with him. He would see her through the pregnancy and then he would step back. Not from his child, but from her.
It angered her to finally admit to herself that she didn’t want him to be with any other woman. She couldn’t bear the thought of him looking at anyone else, speculating about what it might be like to have sex with them.
Bethany nodded and didn’t say anything. When she next sneaked a look at him, he appeared more relaxed. He pulled out his mobile phone, dialled into it and handed it over to her.
‘Your parents. Time to break the good news to them. I will then let my mother know.’
‘Already?’ Her voice was high-pitched and nervous but she could feel a treacherous thread of excitement fluttering through her. Her hands were shaking as she took the phone from him.
Fifteen minutes later, she returned the phone to him. He had remained in the bedroom, standing with his legs slightly apart, his arms folded and giving the impression that he was making sure that she didn’t chicken out at the last minute.
‘Your turn.’
Cristiano scowled. She had complied with his wishes but there was a tension between them that had b
een absent since she had moved back to London. He felt as though she had given in, accepted the unacceptable and the mere fact of it now stuck in her throat. Thanks to him, she had been forced to relinquish her romantic dreams and bow to practicality. The notion that they might actually be happy did not seem to figure anywhere on her horizon, never mind that they had been perfectly happy before, in bed and out of it, for that matter.
‘I will call later. And there’s no need to look so miserable about the prospect of marrying me. I’m going to be giving you all the security you could possibly hope for.’ He looked at her with brooding frustration.
‘I know.’ Security! When marriage should have been a joyful exchange of love, he offered her security. She hated herself for loving him so much that she was willing to compromise the principles she held dear. She hated herself for knowing that, however inadequate any marriage to Cristiano might be, it would still be better than living apart from him, seeing him on appointed days, watching from the sidelines while he inevitably hooked up with another woman, maybe one who he went on to fall in love with. And she hated the unpalatable truth that if she didn’t marry him he would get bored with her sooner or later, at which point she would have no hold whatsoever over him and, without him in her life, she would be rudderless.
She would always be faithful to him because she had no choice. She was a prisoner of her own ungovernable emotions. He, on the other hand, whilst professing to be insulted that she would even think of confining him to a life of fidelity, would have no such emotional ties. She would be condemned to a life of never really trusting that he wouldn’t stray. How many men, with a libido as powerful as his and the sort of sexy, magnetic pull that had women swinging round for a second look, would embrace monogamy once the novelty of a wife who had been forced on him began to fade? He wanted her now, he found her pregnancy sexy now but, when it came to calendars, now was over in the blink of an eye.
And there he was, frowning at her and ordering her to look happy!
Worse than that, she wanted to smooth the frown from his face and she had to fight against the temptation to beat herself up for putting it there.
‘You were happy.’ Cristiano issued that as a statement of fact.
Bethany flushed because yes, she had been. Happy in the little bubble they had created since their return from Ireland. She had had the one hundred per cent attention of a very devoted Cristiano. Now she felt oddly confused instead of at peace with her decision.
‘What’s changed?’ he asked. He was finding it difficult to comprehend her new mood. They had good sex, she had accepted his proposal of marriage. So why the hell did she look as though she had found a penny and lost a pound? He raked his fingers through his hair and began pacing the room.
‘Nothing,’ Bethany whispered miserably. She lay back and closed her eyes, shutting him out because it tore her heart in two just to look at him.
After a while, she forced herself to open her eyes and give him a wobbly smile. ‘What about that soup and bread you were talking about?’
Cristiano was oddly reluctant to let go of their conversation although he didn’t know where he expected to get by pursuing it. He had forced her to marry him, of that he was in little doubt, had laid down one or two ground rules of his own, which was important. If he had come across as tyrannical, then it was for her own good, as she would discover in the fullness of time. Of that he was certain. Any thought that he might have behaved differently was not allowed to surface because the more time he had spent with her, the more convinced he had become that he wanted her exclusively to himself. He permitted himself to return her smile because there was no sense in dragging out an uncomfortable situation. He had already got a grudging admission that she had been happy with him. He saw no reason why she wouldn’t be happy again.
‘I will set things in motion,’ he said softly, content to have reasoned himself out of his peculiar mood. ‘A small wedding, I think…Wouldn’t you agree? Although, of course, if you feel strongly about having the whole big traditional thing, then I will be more than happy to oblige.’
‘Dress in white and about to give birth…It doesn’t work, does it?’
‘It would work for me,’ Cristiano said roughly. ‘But then so would pretty much anything else.’
Bethany’s face suffused with colour. The black cloud that had been hanging over him had been shrugged off. He was back to his normal self. Did that mean that he was really happy that they were getting married? He was so much better at concealing his emotions than she was.
‘Now,’ he said, before his eyes began drifting and his body began following suit, which it always seemed to do whenever he was around her. ‘Food and then sleep.’
Bethany sipped her coffee and stared out idly at a scene of London in the throes of Friday lunchtime shoppers and workers making the most of their hour away from the desk. She, herself, with only a couple of weeks left of her pregnancy to go, was far too big to do anything as dramatic as shopping. She was still determined to walk as much as was comfortable, which got her as far as the patisserie in the square just off the King’s Road, and she had developed the pleasant habit of having a cup of coffee and her lunch there. From her vantage point behind glass, she could muse on her impending wedding, due to take place three months after the baby was born, while the rest of the world went about its business.
Cristiano, who preferred to have things done slightly faster than the speed of light, had peremptorily assumed that they would be married just as soon as he could arrange someone to physically marry them, but Bethany had stood firm. She only intended to be married once and she wasn’t going to submit to a rush job even though the marriage might be one of convenience. She wanted to pretend to herself that it was the real deal. Since when was that a crime?
A couple in front of one of the high end shops were arguing with one another and Bethany followed their angry hand gestures while she lost herself in her thoughts.
She had pretty much given up trying to hang on to any defence system with Cristiano. With the single-minded focus that was so much a part of his driven, assertive personality, he had set about proving himself indispensable. He was attentive, he was supportive, he was everything she could have hoped for and if he never, ever, not once told her that he loved her, then it was a telling omission to which she never alluded. In return, she kept her feelings to herself and quietly gave in to the crazy hope that he would, suddenly and miraculously, decide that he was in love with her.
To the outside world, he certainly gave every impression of it. The weekend spent in Ireland with her parents only recently had seen him the very embodiment of the devoted husband-to-be and she was pretty certain that when she met his relatives in two weeks’ time he would project the same image.
Bethany, however, did not want to go down this particular road. The minute she started thinking about the stark reality of their situation she could feel herself begin to flounder and panic and she had become adept at shoving all her uncomfortable thoughts to the back of her mind.
The arguing couple had moved off. Bethany glanced down at her watch, thinking of the wall to wall meetings that Cristiano would be facing today while she loitered with her savoury pastry and her hot chocolate. He would be back late, he had told her, because his schedule was packed tighter than sardines in a tin.
She looked up, half smiling because just thinking of him made her feel like a giddy teenager and, as her eyes focused, she blinked and leaned forward, dropping the pastry back onto the plate.
Her heart began to thud as she recognised Cristiano, so impossibly distinctive in his impeccably tailored Italian suit, one hand thrust into his trouser pocket where he would be idly jangling whatever loose change happened to be there because that was one of his little habits. He was laughing, leaning into the petite blonde woman standing in front of him and he was concentrating on whatever she was saying with every fibre of his being. Because that, too, was just something that he did.
Bethany felt her br
eathing become laboured. Her eyes slid away from him to look at the woman he was with. She had a gamine face, big eyes and her blonde hair was cut close to her head. It was a style she could pull off. She looked like a very pretty tomboy with her saddle style bag slung over one shoulder and her sneakers and combats.
Cristiano was supposed to be at meetings all day. He didn’t have a window, he had told her. Some big deals were on the brink of coming to fruition, he had told her. He had kissed her on her nose and drawled, with lazy amusement because he knew that his remark would be provocative, that she shouldn’t worry her pretty little head about any of it, then he had transferred the kiss to her mouth and told her how tempted he was to ditch the deals and climb back into bed with her.
Clearly whatever deals he had had were wrapped up in attractive little packages, which was a little technicality he had omitted to mention.
She was so focused on the tableau taking place where the couple had earlier argued that she only realised how tightly her fists were clenched when the soft palms of her hands began to hurt from the pressure of her fingernails. She came close to passing out as he took the blonde’s arm with what looked to her as way too much familiarity and then strode off, still smiling, still looking bloody pleased with himself.
The monster that she had become accustomed to thrusting to the back of the cupboard jumped out and grabbed her by her throat. This was what she had feared. Having got her in the position he had wanted from the very beginning, he was already beginning to appreciate that the world was full of women. Did the girl work with him? For him? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he had lied to her and the lie was loaded with significance. What sort of meeting took place close to the chic cafés off the King’s Road? What sort of businesswoman dressed in combats? The secretive sort, it would seem, that he couldn’t tell her about.
She spent the next few hours in a state of emotional meltdown and when, at a little after ten, she heard the sound of the front door opening and slamming shut, her entire body tensed.
The Italian's One-Night Love-Child Page 15