Happy Mother’s Day!: Accidentally Pregnant, Conveniently Wed / Claiming His Pregnant Wife / Meant-To-Be Mother
‘I’m actually about ten minutes’ walk from the river and it’s only a one-bedroomed apartment—but I love it. I’ve been trading up ever since I got a foothold on the property market.’
‘And when was that?’
‘As soon as I could afford to. I saved up like mad for a deposit. I hadn’t really …’
Her words tailed off and he pounced on the rare chink in her armour. ‘Hadn’t really what?’
Surely if she made herself sound vulnerable, then she would make herself seem vulnerable? And what would he understand about savings, and deposits? Gianlucawasn’t just rich, he had been born rich—everyone knew that. How could a man like that possibly relate to her story? ‘I’d never lived anywhere that wasn’t rented before,’ she said reluctantly.
He raised his dark brows. ‘Not even as a child?’
How few people had experienced it in the world she now occupied, she thought wryly. These days, in the UK, home ownership was seen as a right rather than a privilege, and Aisling gave a brittle smile. ‘No, not even then,’ she agreed, glad that the waiter chose that moment to bring a basket of bread, and hoping that Gianluca might let it go.
But he didn’t.
‘That’s unusual for this country,’ he said slowly.
‘Not that unusual,’ she contradicted. ‘It’s just that a lot of people never get out of the poverty trap and I was lucky that I did.’
‘What happened?’
She hesitated. ‘My mother was a single parent, without a proper career of her own.’ ‘And your father?’
‘I never knew my father. He left before I was born.’ He frowned. ‘So no stable male influence when you were growing up?’
‘No.’
He filed the fact away. Was that why she didn’t flirt and dress up like most women—because she didn’t trust men, or she just didn’t know how they operated? ‘You never felt the need to trace him?’
‘Never. I couldn’t see the point. There.’ She looked at him defiantly. ‘End of subject.’
‘That must have been hard for you,’ he observed slowly.
But shewasn’t asking for his sympathy. ‘Put it this way—a few knocks on the way didn’t do me any harm. It’s what fed my ambition and my determination to be self-sufficient. And it’s made me what I am. An independent woman.’
He affected a look of horror yet inside he felt an admiration for how she had coped, more than coped—succeeded—in a tough world by making a go of her own business. ‘Don’t you know how terrifying a man finds it when a woman describes herself as independent, cara?’ he murmured.
‘I can see it might bother a certain type of man.’
‘What type?’
‘Mr Macho,’ she said flippantly.
He laughed. ‘You can be outrageous,’ he murmured.
And so could he. Her blue eyes challenged him. ‘Look, Gianluca, fascinating as it is to discuss my life story, I thought you’d brought me up here to talk about business.’
Was she being deliberately naïve about his intentions, he wondered—or just playing a game? ‘And maybe I’ve changed my mind. In truth, I’m a little distracted by the mass of contradictions you seem to be, Aisling. Maybe I want to get to know you a little better.’
She attempted an air of perplexity, but inside her heart was pounding. ‘I can’t see why.’
‘Can’t you? You have no curiosity beyond the physical act, is that it?’ His voice roughened as he watched her face, enjoying the way her eyes darkened. ‘We had a night of the most unexpectedly mind-blowing sex and yet you don’t seem interested in a repeat performance.’ His black eyes narrowed. ‘And I can’t for the life of me work out why.’
Maybe it was his use of the word ‘performance’ which rankled, or maybe it was just his arrogant assumption that any woman, having tasted the pleasures of his body, wouldn’t be able to keep from coming for more—no matter the wear and tear it might inflict on a susceptible heart. ‘Oh, can’t you? Is that because your damned ego is so big?’
He was laughing now. ‘Not my ego, cara, no.’
She felt the flame which flared over her cheeks and dropped her voice to a furious whisper. ‘Do you want me to get up and walk out of this room right now?’
‘Yes,’ he retorted, his gaze imprisoning hers. ‘If it means you’ll come up to my suite and let me make love to you and damned well rid my blood of the fire you’ve lit within it.’
She stared at him in shock and the beating of her heart accelerated. ‘Gianluca! What kind of a proposition is that?’
‘One night,’ he said flatly. ‘Just one night. We finish off what was started in Italy. And that’s it.’
‘I can’t believe what I’m hearing,’ she breathed.
‘No? Then I implore you to be honest with yourself, cara. The thought of you is driving me wild—and don’t tell me you don’t feel the same way, because I won’t believe you. I can see it in your eyes, too—though you replace it with that icy coolness when you sense that I’m looking at you. But it’s there, and you can’t hide it. The hunger. The need—gnawing away inside you.’
‘You make it sound like an … appetite.’
‘Because that’s exactly what it is.’ He leaned forward, his expression intent, realising that this was at least one good thing about making a proposition to Aisling. At least she saw things in black and white and not dressed up in idealistic shades of make-believe. To a woman with such a good head for business—she would consider this a viable proposition.
‘A hunger which can be fed and then forgotten,’ he continued. ‘We’re colleagues. Neither of us want all the complications of a long-distance relationship—so why not draw a line under the whole affair in the most delightful way possible? We put it to bed, so to speak—and then forget it ever happened.’
Aisling stared into his beautiful face while her heart warred with her head, because it was never going to be up there with one of the Great Romantic Declarations, was it? And yet it was honest.
Some women might have found it insulting—so why didn’t she? Was it because he hadn’t made it out to be something it wasn’t? He’d spoken nothing but the stark, unvarnished truth—and didn’t that count for much more than the kind of empty promises which had seen her mother disappointed over and over again?
There had been no coyness between the two of them that night in Umbria—and that had been the most amazing night of her life. He was treating her as the independent woman she claimed to be. Speaking to her as an equal. Two grown-ups who both wanted each other. He had spoken of ridding himself of a fire in his blood—might she not do the same with this one night?
But what if she couldn’t forget him?
In the flicker of the candlelight his eyes gleamed like jet and her heart turned over with longing. What if one night with this man wasn’t enough? Didn’t women operate differently from men and wasn’t she running the risk of putting herself in the type of terrible emotional danger which she had always sought to avoid?
Yet what was the alternative? An unresolved desire which ran the risk of dominating her world and her life?
The waiter put two plates in front of them, but she barely noticed them.
‘And if I agree—what about … afterwards?’
He gave an odd sort of smile. ‘It will be gone. Finito. Remembered occasionally, no doubt—taken