‘What do you want me to say?’ His voice was carefully controlled and somehow that made him seem more forbidding than if he had shouted and stormed at her. She could cope with his anger. But his apparent lack of interest in the child they had created together told her everything she needed to know about their relationship, and the fragile hope she had nurtured withered and died.
* * *
Torre did not know how to deal with the wildness that swept through him, or the knowledge that this would be his life from now on. Out of his control and at the mercy of emotions that he had never sought nor wanted.
What he wanted was his well-ordered life where there were no nasty surprises that inevitably brought hurt and pain. He remembered the ache in his chest like his heart was about to explode when he had touched his mother’s cold hand and realised that this was what death did. His mamma would never smile at him or hold him in her arms ever again.
He had understood the fragility of life when he was six years old and he had learned that love hurt. He’d managed perfectly well without that pernicious emotion since he was a boy, but now events had spun out of his control. Orla was pregnant with his child. He felt something like panic—he refused to call it fear. And he was furious because he had never asked for this, for her.
Ever since Orla had swept into his life he had broken every rule he lived by. He didn’t know how to react to the latest bomb she’d detonated and anger was his only defence against all the other emotions roaring through him.
‘You told me you were on the Pill.’
She flinched, and he saw something flicker across her face that looked like disappointment with him, as if he’d failed her. It wouldn’t be the first time, his conscience whispered.
‘I am on the Pill, but it didn’t work. I had a stomach upset a few days before I came to Amalfi for Giuseppe’s birthday party.’ She hesitated and bit her lip. ‘I should have remembered that a bout of sickness can lessen the Pill’s effectiveness. I can only assume I wasn’t protected when we made lo—had sex on my first night in Amalfi. The test showed that I am approximately six weeks pregnant.’ She lifted her chin and he saw determination and something like a challenge in her eyes. ‘I accept responsibility. It was my mistake. I only told you about the baby because you have a right to know.’
Torre walked back to his desk and lowered himself onto the chair. It was familiar territory for him to be behind a desk, in control. According to Orla, she had only told him about her pregnancy because it was his right to know. Dio. His jaw clenched. Did she think he was going to abandon his child? It was his duty to provide financial security for Orla and the baby. But a child would need more than money, his conscience insisted. Providing money was the easy bit. A child required love—the very thing that Torre had assiduously avoided for most of his life.
Orla had followed him across the room and she stood in front of the desk, watching him with a wary expression that tugged on the huge great thing inside him that was lodged beneath his ribs and made breathing painful. He could not deal with the thing, the swirl of emotions that he didn’t want, that he’d never wanted. Instead he focused on practicalities.
Some of the property details that he had requested from an exclusive estate agency in London were on the desk and he picked them up and held them out to Orla. ‘I had already decided to buy an apartment for you when your temporary role as my assistant finishes,’ he said coolly. ‘You may as well look through the listings and choose a place that you think will be suitable for you and the child.’
Colour flared on her cheeks and then drained away, leaving her looking pale and hurt, Torre noted with a stab of guilt. He wondered if she was feeling well, if the baby was healthy. It wasn’t even a baby at this stage, he reminded himself. It was a collection of cells, yet already he was concerned for the new life that he and Orla had created together.
‘I don’t want a fancy apartment,’ she said stiffly. ‘I would never allow you to pay for me.’
He frowned. Surely she knew that she was his responsibility now? ‘You can hardly bring up a child in the rabbit hutch you currently live in.’
‘I’ll manage.’
‘I don’t want you to have to manage. I am a wealthy man and I can afford to buy you a house and everything that you and the child will need.’
Orla shook her head. ‘Don’t you dare suggest that I want your money.’ She slammed her hands down on the desk. Her eyes flashed with fiery brilliance, and when she pushed her long hair back over her shoulders it practically crackled with fury. She was magnificently angry, and a still-functioning part of Torre’s brain realised it was a sign she trusted him that she was able to give rein to her temper after her ex-husband had destroyed her self-confidence.
‘The only thing I want is for you to tell me how you feel about my pregnancy, and what, if any, involvement you intend to have with your child...’ her voice shook ‘...and with me.’
Torre did not know how to answer her. He stared at her across the desk and the truth hit him like a thunderbolt. He closed his eyes so that Orla would not see what he had denied for so long, what he was afraid of admitting to himself or to her—because he was a coward.
That thought was worse than any other in the tangled mess inside his head. He had a choice, he realised. He could fight to claim Orla, or he could watch her walk away from him and take his child with her. The first option carried the risk of pain as terrible as he’d felt when he was a boy and his mother had died. Life did not come with guarantees. But the second option, to let Orla go, was agonising.
His eyes flew open and he prepared to open his heart. But he was too late. She had gone.
CHAPTER TWELVE
IT OCCURRED TO Orla as she sat on the bus which rumbled along the winding road from Ravello down to Amalfi that she was in some sort of hideous time warp. Eight years ago, when she had fled from Torre after his crushing rejection, she had jumped onto the bus that had stopped on the main road close to the driveway of his house. A few minutes ago she had done exactly the same thing after she had run out of Casa Elisabetta. Luckily she had grabbed her handbag containing her passport and credit card on her way out of the door.
She placed her hand on her stomach, instinctively wanting to protect her baby from the upset and heartbreak that was an inevitable consequence of getting involved with Torre. It wouldn’t happen again, she vowed. She needed to stay angry with him to stop herself from crying, and remembering his offer to buy an apartment in London for her made her seethe. But it made her want to cry too. Clearly he had no plans to be involved with his baby other than to provide financial support.
Her pride refused to accept anything from him. He hadn’t accused her of deliberately falling pregnant to trap him, but he probably thought it, just as he had believed she was a gold-digger when they had first met. She wondered if his offer to buy her somewhere to live had been a test, and the thought made her want to cry even more. All she had ever wanted was a relationship with him where they were both equal and that encompassed respect and friendship—and love.
Across the aisle of the bus, a little boy sitting with a woman who Orla supposed was his mother suddenly pressed his face against the window and pointed excitedly. Orla heard the roar of a car overtaking the bus and guessed that most small boys loved fast cars. She was more interested in the baby in the woman’s arms. The infant was very young, perhaps only a few weeks old, and had a mass of black hair poking out from the shawl in which it was wrapped.
It was likely that her baby would have dark hair like its father, she thought, and quickly pressed her knuckles against her mouth to hold back the sob that rose in her throat. For the baby’s sake she needed to stay strong.
The bus pulled into the main square in Amalfi town beside the harbour. From here, Orla knew she could take another bus to Naples airport and then book onto a flight to London. There was no point indulging in self-pity, she told herself ste
rnly. She had already come through so much, and being a single mother would be another challenge, but she’d cope because she did not have any option.
The reason for the excitement of the boy on the bus soon became clear when Orla looked across the square at the scarlet sports car that had attracted a small crowd of admirers around it. She despised herself for the way her heart leapt at the sight of Torre leaning against his car. He looked relaxed and not at all like he had just been told he was going to be a father, perhaps because he simply did not care, she thought with a flash of bitterness. But if that was the case, why had he followed her here?
Her heart kicked against her ribs when she realised that he was watching her intently. She had to walk past him to reach the ticket office where she could buy a ticket for the Naples bus. As she drew level with him she kept her eyes fixed firmly ahead.
‘Orla.’ His voice was as deep as an ocean. ‘Piccola.’
She spun round to face him. ‘Don’t you dare piccola me! I don’t know why you’re here. I’ve informed you about the baby and you made it clear that you’re not interested. I have nothing more to say to you.’
‘But I have something to say to you,’ he said in an oddly tense voice.
‘I don’t want to hear whatever it is. No doubt it will be some horrible accusation or other.’ She was annoyed with herself when her voice shook.
He put his hand on her arm. It was only a light touch but it felt like it burned through her skin down to her bones. ‘I am not going to accuse you of anything,’ he said quietly. ‘I thought we had moved on from the mistakes I made in the past and I hoped that I had earned your trust.’
The idea that he sounded hurt was ridiculous, Orla told herself. You couldn’t hurt granite.
‘To set the record straight, I never said I am not interested in our child.’ He closed his fingers around her arm and she tried to shrug him off, but she’d heard rough velvet in his voice when he’d said our child and the ice around her heart started to melt.
The crowd that had gathered around the Ferrari were looking at them curiously. ‘Orla.’ The desperation in Torre’s voice startled her. ‘Come home with me. Please. I am fully aware that my reaction when you told me of your pregnancy was not what you might have wished.’
Home had such a lovely sound to it. But Torre had built Casa Elisabetta for the woman he loved, not for her. ‘I suppose I should be grateful that you offered to financially support me and the baby,’ she said flatly, ‘but you really don’t have to worry. I’ll be fine.’ Quite how she would manage to hold down a job and bring up a child she hadn’t yet worked out, but plenty of other women managed it, Orla told herself.
He swore softly. ‘I realise I deserve to grovel on my knees before you could even consider whether you will forgive the crass way I handled your announcement.’ He looked intently at her and there was nothing mocking or cynical in his eyes, which were the dull, dark grey of storm clouds. ‘I’m happy to do my grovelling right here in front of an audience if that’s what it will take for you to hear me out.’
She looked at him helplessly and wished she didn’t love him. He deserved for her to walk away and refuse to allow him anywhere near his child, but of course she would never do that. The baby would need its father just as she had needed hers.
With a faint shrug she walked around to the passenger side of the car and lowered herself onto the leather seat. Torre slid behind the wheel and moments later they were on the road that wound up the mountain to Ravello. Neither of them spoke, and by the time he ushered her into Casa Elisabetta and led her into the sitting room, Orla’s nerves were stretched to snapping point. She sank down onto the sofa before her legs gave way and watched Torre walk over to the window.
He thrust his hands into his pockets and even from a distance she sensed his edginess. ‘You were right when you guessed that the trauma of my mother’s death when I was young affected me badly,’ he said abruptly.
‘I was taken to see her in the chapel before she was buried.’ He gave a grim laugh. ‘To be honest, I was terrified. She was cold and grey and even at six years old I understood the finality of death. Not long after she died, my pet dog was killed. It ran into the road and was hit by a car, and I saw it happen.’
He shrugged. ‘My father said it was just a dog and we could get another one, but I didn’t see the point in loving something else or someone else when there was a risk I could lose them too.’
He turned around to face her, his features as expressionless as his voice. Only the nerve flickering in his cheek indicated that he was under intolerable emotional strain. ‘The lessons I learned as a young boy stayed with me into adulthood. Perhaps if I’d had an opportunity to talk about my mother and grieve for her properly... I don’t know, maybe I would be a different person.’
Orla nodded. ‘After my father died I still went to Ireland every summer to stay with my grandmother. Nanna used tell me about my dad when he was a boy, how he was a dreamer who used to write beautiful poetry. He wrote some poems for me, and when I read them now I feel close to him.’
She hesitated. ‘I understand how the loss of your mother made you wary of forming attachments, but you got engaged and presumably you were in love with Marisa Valetti. You must have been upset when she broke off your engagement?’
‘Marisa didn’t end our relationship, I did. And I was never in love with her. I liked her, and there were some business advantages to linking our families.’
‘Then why did you look so...devastated when you saw the picture in the paper this morning of your ex-fiancée with her husband and baby?’
‘I wasn’t devastated. Rather I felt a mixture of guilt and relief that Marisa had found the happiness she deserves.’ His jaw tightened. ‘I broke up with Marisa when I realised that she had fallen in love with me. I knew I would never return her feelings and it was only fair to end our engagement so that she could meet someone who would love her.’
Orla stared at him. ‘But I thought you built this house for her. You said you had imagined living here with someone, and I assumed you meant Marisa. So who did you picture sharing the house and your life with?’ She swallowed. ‘It’s clear to see that you put a huge amount of thought and attention to every detail into the design and construction of this house. It is a visual expression of love.’
Torre didn’t answer, and Orla told herself she was glad because she did not think she could bear to hear the name of the woman he loved. What a mess, she thought wearily. She loved Torre, but his heart belonged to another woman, and to complicate the situation even more there was going to be a baby.
‘I built the house for you.’
She jerked her head up, certain when she saw his hard, unsmiling face that she had misheard him or misunderstood. He can’t have meant it, yet her heart persisted in thudding so hard she could barely breathe.
‘Let’s not play any more games, Torre. If you think you have to flatter me so that I will give you access to the baby, don’t worry. I would never stop you from seeing your child. Why would you have built this house for me? You despised me.’ Her voice shook.
He gave a jolt as if she had slapped him, and his face was no longer expressionless when he strode over to her, caught hold of her by her upper arms and pulled her to her feet.
‘I never despised you. Dio, don’t cry, piccola,’ he said roughly, brushing away the tears on her cheeks with his thumbs. ‘I’m more sorry than I can say for the way I reacted when you told me about the baby. I was...’ He swallowed convulsively and Orla’s heart stopped when she saw the brilliant sheen in his eyes.
‘Torre?’
‘I was scared,’ he gritted. ‘I am scared.’ He gave her a crooked smile that made her hurt and made her hope. ‘I was a coward, Orla. I never wanted to fall in love. My father was distraught when my mother died. Years later I watched Giuseppe tie himself in knots over your mother and in my stupid arrogance I thoug
ht he was a fool. But then I saw you and every defence I’d built up since I was six years old came crashing down. I had never wanted any woman the way I wanted you, and when I discovered that you were a virgin it felt like fate. It felt like you were mine.’
He sighed heavily. ‘When I found out who you were, it gave me an excuse to send you away, to tell myself that you were the same as your mother. But as hard as I tried to forget you, I couldn’t. One day I was standing on the site of the old farmhouse, which had been demolished, and I saw clearly in my mind the villa I wanted to build.’
He slipped his hand beneath her chin and tilted her face up to meet his fierce gaze. ‘I saw you, us, our children, and I knew that the only person I wanted to share the house and my life with was you.’
She shook her head. It had to be a cruel joke and she would not allow herself to believe him. ‘How can you say these things when you were planning to keep me as your mistress in a London apartment before you knew I was pregnant?’ Of everything he had done, that was the most hurtful. ‘You won’t want me in a few months when I’m heavily pregnant and fat and ugly.’ Some of her old self-doubt returned.
‘I will want you always and for ever.’ His voice was so solemn that Orla almost forgot to breathe. He moved his hands from her arms to her still-slender waist, which, of course, bore no sign yet of the miracle taking place within her. ‘You will always be beautiful, cara mia, but never more so than when you are big with our child growing inside you.’
He ran his fingers lightly down her cheek. ‘Before I knew about your pregnancy I had decided to move my headquarters from Italy to London for a year, partly so that I can be involved in the Docklands project, but mainly because I knew you had applied to go back to university to finish your degree. I’d planned to lease an apartment for us to live in. Incidentally there is no reason why you can’t study for your civil engineering qualifications while you are pregnant.’
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