THE UNCOMPROMISING ITALIAN

by Cathy Williams

  ‘What did you mean when you said that it was a little too late for me?’ The remark had been playing at the back of her mind and she knew that she needed him to spell it out in words of one syllable.

  ‘If you think that you can walk back into my life because you had a bit of trouble locating Mr Right, then it’s not going to happen.’

  Pride. But then, what the hell was wrong with pride? He certainly had no intention of telling her the truth, which was that he was finding it hard to rid his system of her, even though she should have been no more than a blurry memory by now.

  He was a man who moved on when it came to women. Always had been—never mind when it came to moving on from a woman who had dumped him!

  Just thinking about that made his teeth snap together in rage.

  ‘I don’t intend walking back into your life,’ Lesley replied coolly. So, now she knew where she stood. Was she still happy that she had come here? Frankly, she could still turn around and walk right back through that door but, yes, she was happy she was here, whatever the outcome.

  Alessio’s eyes narrowed. He noticed what he had failed to notice before—the rigid way she was sitting, as though every nerve in her body was on red-hot alert; the way she was fiddling with her fingers; the determined tilt of her chin.

  ‘Then why are you here?’ His voice was brusque and dismissive. Having lingered on the pleasant scenario of her pleading to be a part of his life once again, he was irrationally annoyed that he had misread whatever signals she had been giving off.

  ‘I’m here because I’m pregnant.’

  There. She had said it. The enormous thing that had been absorbing every minute of every day of her life since she had done that home pregnancy test over three days ago was finally out in the open.

  She had skipped a period. It hadn’t even occurred to her that she could be pregnant; she had forgotten all about that torn condom. She had had far too much on her mind for that little detail to surface. It was only as she’d tallied the missed period with tender breasts that she remembered the very first time they had made love...and the outcome of that had been very clear to see in the bright blue line on that little plastic stick.

  She hadn’t bothered to buy more, to repeat the test. Why would she do that, when in her heart she knew that the result was accurate?

  She had had a couple of days to get used to the idea, to move from feeling as though she was falling into a bottomless hole to gradually accepting that, whatever the landing, she would have to deal with it; that the hole wouldn’t be bottomless.

  She had had time to engage her brain in beginning trying to work out how her life would change, because there was no way that she would be getting rid of this baby. And, as her brain had engaged, her emotions had followed suit and a flutter of excitement and curiosity had begun to work their way into the equation.

  She was going to be a mum. She hadn’t banked on that happening, and she knew that it would bring a host of problems, but she couldn’t snuff out that little flutter of excitement.

  Boy or girl? What would it look like? A miniature Alessio? Certainly, a permanent reminder of the only man she knew she would ever love.

  And should she tell him? If she loved him, would she ruin his life by telling him that he was going to be a father—again? Another unplanned and unwanted pregnancy. Would he think that she was trapping him, just like Bianca had, into marriage for all the wrong reasons?

  Wouldn’t the kindest thing be to keep silent, to let him carry on with his life? It was hardly as though he had made any attempt at all to contact her after she had left Italy! She had been a bit of fun and he had been happy enough to watch her walk away. Wouldn’t the best solution be to let him remember her as a bit of fun rather than detonate a bomb that would have far-reaching and permanent ramifications he would not want?

  In the end, she just couldn’t bring herself to deny him the opportunity of knowing that he was going to be a father. The baby was half his and he had his rights, whatever the outcome might be.

  But it was still a bomb she’d detonated, and she could see that in the way his expression changed from total puzzlement to dawning comprehension and then to shock and horror.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a clear, high voice. ‘I know this is probably the last thing you were expecting.’

  Alessio was finding it almost impossible to join his thoughts up. Pregnant. She was pregnant. For once he couldn’t find the right words to deal with what was going through his head, to express himself. In fact, he actually couldn’t find any words at all.

  ‘It was that first time,’ Lesley continued into the lengthening silence. ‘Do you remember?’

  ‘The condom split.’

  ‘It was a one in a thousand chance.’

  ‘The condom split and now you’re pregnant.’ He leant forward and raked his fingers through his hair, keeping his head lowered.

  ‘It was no one’s fault,’ Lesley said, chewing her lower lip and looking at his reaction, the way he couldn’t even look at her. Right now he hated her; that was clear. He was listening to the sound of his life being derailed and, whether down to a burst condom or not, he was somehow blaming her.

  ‘I wasn’t going to come here...’

  That brought his head up, snapping to attention, and he looked at her in utter disbelief. ‘What, you were just going to disappear with my baby inside you and not tell me about it?’

  ‘Can you blame me?’ Lesley muttered defensively. ‘I know the story about how you were trapped into a loveless marriage by your last wife; I know what the consequences of that were.’

  ‘Those consequences being...?’ When Bianca had smiled smugly and told him that he was going to be a father, he had been utterly devastated. Now, strangely, the thought that this woman might have spared him devastation second time round didn’t sit right. In fact, he was furious that the thought might even have crossed her mind although, in some rational part of himself, he could fully understand why. He also knew the answer to his own stupid question, although he waited for her to speak while his thoughts continued to spin and spin, as though they were in a washing machine with the speed turned high.

  ‘No commitment,’ Lesley said without bothering to dress it up. ‘No one ever allowed to get too close. No woman ever thinking that she could get her foot through the door, because you were always ready to bang that door firmly shut the minute you smelled any unwanted advances in that direction. And please don’t look at me as though I’m talking rubbish, Alessio. We both know I’m not. So excuse me for thinking that it might have been an idea to spare you the nightmare of...of this...’

  ‘So you would have just disappeared?’ He held onto that tangible, unappealing thought and allowed his anger to build up. ‘Walked away? And then what—in sixteen years’ time I would have found out that I’d fathered a child when he or she came knocking on my door asking to meet me?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought that far into the future.’ She shot him a mutinous look from under her lashes. ‘I looked into a future a few months away and what I saw was a man who would resent finding himself trapped again.’

  ‘You can’t speculate on what my reactions might or might not have been.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t matter. I’m here now. I’ve told you. And there’s something else—I want you to know straight off that I’m not asking you for anything. You know the situation and that’s my duty done.’ She began standing up and found that she was trembling. Alessio stared at her with open-mouthed incredulity.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

  ‘I’m leaving.’ She hesitated. This was the right time to leave. She had done what she had come to do. There was no way that she intended to put any pressure on him to do anything but carry on with his precious, loveless existence, free from the responsibility of a clinging woman and an unwanted baby.

  Yet his presence continued to pull her towards him like a powerful magnet.

  ‘You’re kidding!’ Alessio’s voice crac
ked with the harshness of a whip. ‘You breeze in here, tell me that you’re carrying my child, and then announce that you’re on your way!’

  ‘I told you, I don’t want anything from you.’

  ‘What you want is by the by.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘It’s impossible having this sort of conversation here. We need to get out, go somewhere else. My place.’

  Lesley stared at him in utter horror. Was he mad? The last thing she wanted was to be cooped up with him on his turf. It was bad enough that she was in his office. Besides, where else was the conversation going to go?

  Financial contributions; of course. He was a wealthy man and in possession of a muddy conscience; he would salve it by flinging money at it.

  ‘I realise you might want to help out on the money front,’ she said stiltedly. ‘But, believe it or not, that’s not why I came here. I can manage perfectly well on my own. I can take maternity leave and anyway, with what I do, I should be able to work from home.’

  ‘You don’t seem to be hearing me.’ He stood up and noticed how she fell back.

  She might want him out of her life but it wasn’t going to happen. Too bad if her joyful hunt for the right guy had crashed and burned; she was having his baby and he was going to be part of her life whether she liked it or not.

  The thought was not as unwelcome as he might have expected. In fact, he was proud of how easily he was beginning to take the whole thing on board.

  It made sense, of course. He was older and wiser. He had mellowed over time. Now that sick feeling of having an abyss yawn open at his feet was absent.

  ‘If you want to discuss the financial side of things, then we can do that at a later date. Right now, I’ll give you time to digest everything.’

  ‘I’ve digested it. Now, sit back down.’ This was not where he wanted to be. An office couldn’t contain him. He felt restless, in need of moving. He wanted the space of his apartment. But there was no way she would go there with him; he was astute enough to decipher that from her dismayed reaction to the suggestion. And he wasn’t going to push it.

  It crossed his mind that this might have come as a bolt from the blue for him, turning his life on its axis and sending it spiralling off in directions he could never have predicted, but it would likewise have been the same for her. Yet here she was, apparently in full control. But then, hadn’t he always known that there was a thread of absolute bravery and determination running through her?

  And when she said that she didn’t want anything from him, he knew that she meant it. This situation could not have been more different from the one in which he had found himself all those years ago.

  Not that that made any difference. He was still going to be a presence in her life now whether she liked it or not.

  Lesley had reluctantly sat back down and was now looking at him with a sullen lack of enthusiasm. She had expected more of an explosion of rage, in the middle of which she could have sneaked off, leaving him to calm down. He seemed to be handling the whole thing a great deal more calmly than she had expected.

  ‘This isn’t just about me contributing to the mother and baby fund,’ he said, in case she had got it into her head that it might be. ‘You’re having my baby and I intend to be involved in this every single step of the way.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Do you really take me for a man who walks away from responsibility?’

  ‘I’m not your ex-wife!’ Lesley said tightly, fists clenched on her lap. ‘I haven’t come here looking for anything and you certainly don’t owe me or this baby anything!’

  ‘I’m not going to be a part-time father,’ Alessio gritted. ‘I was a part-time father once, not of my own choosing, and it won’t happen again.’

  Not once had Lesley seen the situation from that angle. Not once had she considered that he would want actual, active involvement, yet it made perfect sense. ‘What are you suggesting?’ she asked, bewildered and on the back foot.

  ‘What else is there to suggest but marriage?’

  For a few frozen seconds, Lesley thought that she might have misheard him, but when she looked at him his face was set, composed and unyielding.

  She released a hysterical laugh that fizzled out very quickly. ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this. Are you mad? Get married?’

  ‘Why so shocked?’

  ‘Because...’ Because you don’t love me. You probably don’t even like me very much right now. ‘Because having a baby isn’t the right reason for two people to get married,’ she said in as controlled a voice as she could muster. ‘You of all people should know that! Your marriage ended in tears because you went into it for all the wrong reasons.’

  ‘Any marriage involving my ex-wife would have ended in tears.’ Alessio was finding it hard to grapple with the notion that she had laughed at his suggestion of marriage. Was she that intent on finding Mr Right that she couldn’t bear the thought of being hitched to him? It was downright offensive! ‘You’re not Bianca, and you need to look at the bigger picture.’ Was that overly aggressive? He didn’t think so but he saw the way she stiffened and he tempered what he was going to say with a milder, more conciliatory voice. ‘By which I mean that this isn’t about us as individuals but about a child that didn’t ask to be brought into the world. To do the best for him or her is to provide a united family.’

  ‘To do the best for him or her is to provide two loving parents who live separately instead of two resentful ones joined in a union where there’s no love lost.’ Just saying those words out loud made her feel ill because what she should really have said was that there was no worse union than one in which love was given but not returned. What she could have told him was that she could predict any future where they were married, and what she could see was him eventually loathing her for being the other half of a marriage he might have initiated but which had eventually become his prison cell.

  There was a lot she could have told him but instead all she said was, ‘There’s no way I would ever marry you.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE PAIN STARTED just after midnight. Five months before her due date. Lesley awoke, at first disorientated, then terrified when, on inspection, she realised that she was bleeding.

  What did that mean? She had read something about that in one of the many books Alessio had bought for her. Right now, however, her brain had ceased to function normally. All she could think of doing was getting on her mobile phone and calling him.

  She had knocked him back, had told him repeatedly that she wasn’t going to marry him, yet he had continued to defy her low expectations by stealthily becoming a rock she could lean on. He was with her most evenings, totally disregarding what she had said to him about pregnancy not being an illness. He had attended the antenatal appointments with her. He had cunningly incorporated Rachel into the picture, bringing his daughter along with him many of the times he’d visited her, talking as though the future held the prospect of them all being a family, even though Lesley had been careful to steer clear of agreeing to any such sweeping statements.

  What was he hoping to achieve? She didn’t know. He didn’t love her and not once had he claimed to.

  But, bit by bit, she knew that she was beginning to rely on him—and it was never so strongly proved as now, when the sound of his deep voice over the end of the phone had the immediate effect of calming her panicked nerves.

  ‘I should have stayed the night,’ was the first thing he told her, having made it over to her house in record time.

  ‘It wasn’t necessary.’ Lesley leaned back and closed her eyes. The pain had diminished but she was still in a state of shock at thinking that something might be wrong. That she might lose the baby. Tears threatened close to the surface but she pushed them away, focusing on a good outcome, despite the fact that she knew she was still bleeding.

  And then something else occurred to her, a wayward thought that needled its way into her brain and took root, refusing
to budge. ‘I shouldn’t have called you,’ she said more sharply than she had intended. ‘I wouldn’t have if I’d thought that you were going to fret and worry.’ But she hadn’t thought of doing anything but picking up that phone to him. To a man who had suddenly become indispensable despite the fact that she was not the love of his life; despite the fact that he wouldn’t be in this car here with her now if she had never visited him in his office.

  She had never foreseen the way he had managed to become so ingrained into the fabric of her daily life. He brought food for her. He stocked her up with pregnancy books. He insisted they eat in when he was around because it was less hassle than going out. He had taken care of that persistent leak in the bathroom which had suddenly decided to act up.

  And not once had she sat back and thought of where all this was leading.

  ‘Of course you should have called me,’ Alessio said softly. ‘Why wouldn’t you? This baby is mine as well. I share all the responsibilities with you.’

  And share them he had, backing away from trying to foist his marriage solution onto her, even though he had been baffled at her stubborn persistence that there was no way that she was going to marry him.

  Why not? He just didn’t get it. They were good together. They were having a baby. Hell, he had made sure not to lay a finger on her, but he still burned to have her in his bed, and the memory of the sex they had shared still made him lose concentration in meetings. And, yes, so maybe he had mentioned once or twice that he had learnt bitter lessons from being trapped into marriage by the wrong woman for the wrong reasons, but hadn’t that made his proposal even more sincere—the fact that he was willing to sidestep those unfortunate lessons and re-tread the same ground?