Happy Mother’s Day!: Accidentally Pregnant, Conveniently Wed / Claiming His Pregnant Wife / Meant-To-Be Mother
‘Gianluca!’
A woman’s voice shattered the air like a stone being hurled through a window, but Aisling was grateful for the interruption. Her heart was hammering and she felt positively weak. How could a few meaningless words seem so … so significant?
Because you want them to be significant. Because he’s experienced and you’re not, that’s why. And if you allow him to flirt with you, then you’re playing with fire.
‘Gianluca!’ said the voice again and Aisling found herself elbowed out of the way by a blonde with astonishingly green eyes and gravity-defying breasts.
She needed to get away from him—because she didn’t want to stand there, companionably sharing similar views on cocktail parties and air-travel. Soon she would start thinking that they were compatible—and they weren’t. She took a step back. ‘Look, I mustn’t monopolise you any more, Gianluca. You will excuse me, won’t you?’
With something approaching shock, Gianluca realised that she was actually walking away. In fact, she was smiling at a couple of people en route and had begun making her way towards the wall of glass at the other side of the room, which overlooked the view of the river Thames. Leaving him with the kind of woman he could see was going to display all the staying power of a leech.
‘I went to Italy once and absolutely fell in love with it!’
His eyes narrowed as he realised that the blonde was talking to him, but he’d barely heard a word she’d been saying. He stared at her, as if she had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Didn’t she realise that if a woman thrust her breasts into your face it was like being offered a meal when you had just eaten?
Abruptly, he excused himself, but then bumped into a visiting Italian opera star he hadn’t seen for years and was then introduced to a Minister of State. Every time he tried to break free, another VIP was foisted upon him, and all the time he was watching Aisling out of the corner of his eye, noticing the way she was networking.
What was it about her that made him unable to tear his eyes away from her tonight? Was it simply because she was frustrating the hell out of him?
The party was beginning to fold by the time he walked towards her pink-clad back, wondering if he should shake off this sense of persistence and put the whole thing down to experience. If he left now—would he really care? If he never had sex with her again, surely it wouldn’t matter. Wouldn’t the next woman wash her from his memory?
Yet his eyes were drawn to her neck, its long, slim column exposed by the severe chignon, and he found himself wanting to whisper his lips all the way down it. To bite the soft lobe of one of those perfect ears and whisper into it that he wanted her.
‘You seem to make a habit of turning your back on me,’ he observed acidly. ‘Why didn’t you stay?’
Aisling kept her expression bland as she faced him. ‘By your side?’ Her eyes travelled over his shoulder to where the blonde was staring rather disconsolately in his direction. ‘You looked like you were fully occupied.’
‘That isn’t the point,’ he said softly. ‘You’re supposed to be here tonight, working for me.’
‘And that’s exactly what I have been doing! If you really want me to give you my opinion of how I think the hotel is being run these days, then I can certainly accomplish it better by working the room on my own. Rather than being constantly watched by the spectators,’ she added, glancing across the room to where the blonde had been joined by a popular soap actress, ‘who seem to be following your every move.’
Gianluca smiled. ‘Jealous?’
‘Don’t flatter yourself.’
‘The irony is that I don’t usually need to,’ he said coolly. ‘But I take your point, cara—and you must have seen enough by now. So let’s go and have dinner. I’ve booked the Starlight.’
He saw her lips part but he shook his head. ‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘Because the more you fight me, the more determined I become to get my own way.’ He let his gaze drift over her flushed face. ‘If it was anyone else but me, then you’d agree to dinner straight away—because that’s the sort of business you operate in. You can’t make exceptions just because it’s me, cara. And you really shouldn’t sleep with your clients if you feel that it is going to compromise your ability to do your job properly.’
‘That’s a bastard thing to say,’ she whispered.
He felt a heady thrill at her reaction. ‘And I don’t think calling your boss names in public is setting a very good example, do you?’
‘Whereas issuing veiled threats is textbook behaviour, I suppose?’ she retaliated.
Better and better! ‘If it’s the only way of getting what I want, cara, then I’ll do it. So be nice.’ He reached out and touched his finger to the tip of her nose, seeing her blue eyes grow startled.
But just what did he want? Aisling wondered dazedly as they left the ballroom and headed towards the lift. She felt he was playing games with her—as a cruel kind of sport, perhaps? And the trouble was that she didn’t know how to respond to them because the boundaries between them of work and play had become so blurred.
The Starlight restaurant was aptly named—an awardwinning circular room of windows at the very top of the hotel. Outside, the crescent moon looked close enough to pluck from the night sky and below them lay the goldenbathed Houses of Parliament and the glittering snake of the river as it wound its way through the capital.
It was one of the most breathtaking views in London and Aisling stood for a moment, just staring down at it.
‘Ever been here before?’ he asked.
‘Once. A long time ago.’
But back then she had been excited and impressed by the magical setting of the twinkling stars and the chance of spotting someone famous. Tonight was different. With Gianluca sitting opposite her, it was difficult to concentrate on anything and the richly romantic setting seemed to mock the curious nature of her brief affair with him. How did other women cope in such situations? she wondered. Did they instinctively know what to do—or, deep down, were they all flailing wildly and making up the rules as they went along?
Gianluca watched her studying the menu-card as if it were an examination paper, flickering his eyes over her bent head with a slight ache of amusement—realising that this was the first time in a long, long time that he had been forced to endure a dinner for the sake of propriety. ‘What would you like?’
‘Oh, I don’t know—whatever it’s best known for. Isn’t there some kind of signature dish?’
He spoke to the waiter in French, ordered them both some fish and wine and waited while their drinks were poured. Then he leaned back in his chair and studied her. ‘You do realise that you’re still a complete mystery to me? That I’ve known you for almost two years, we’ve had sex together and yet I don’t even know where you live?’
‘Gianluca!’
‘Doesn’t that strike you as strange?’ he questioned, ignoring her protest.
‘There’s never been a reason for you to know,’ she said. ‘There isn’t really one now.’
He watched as she picked up her glass of water with a hand which wasn’t quite steady. ‘Being evasive won’t work,’ he said evenly. ‘I’m curious.’
‘Do you always interrogate when you’re out on a date, Gianluca?’
‘Is this a date, then, cara?’
Oh, but he managed to twist everything she said!
In the circumstances, it seemed bizarre to give him a potted life history—it seemed the wrong way round, really. They’d done the bed bit, without any of the getting-toknow-you