by Lynne Graham
Yes, Raffaele might have stated that he also wanted a child now more than he had at the outset of their marriage, but she had been the one to fling herself brazenly at him in public, spelling out that he could have anything he wanted if he would only stay with her long enough to grant her that one burning wish. The heat in her face climbed even higher as she looked back over the past weeks.
Sex was the lowest common denominator in a relationship, and she had certainly made use of it, she acknowledged in growing mortification. She had spent those weeks engaged in frantically, feverishly swarming over Raffaele every chance she got, like some sort of sex fiend on a roll. And Raffaele had liked that, had revelled in that, of course he had. But at the end of the day, it didn’t make her one bit more special than any other casual lover he had taken to his bed. And he would have been downright shocked, she suspected, had he realised that she had lied when she’d approached him in that club.
She had said she wanted only a baby, but that was the biggest, most barefaced lie she had ever told. In truth, she wanted him because she loved him, and she wanted him for ever. So, she had only herself to blame for the consequences of her behaviour. Raffaele was already envisaging their separation, putting into place the supportive family framework he believed she needed for that future event, not seeming to realise that absolutely nobody in her family was likely to have the power to glue back together the pieces of her broken heart and fix her...
CHAPTER TEN
‘CONGRATULATIONS,’ THE URBANE private obstetrician told Raffaele and Maya the next morning, when the nurse reappeared with the result and a smile of confirmation.
Maya shivered, suddenly chilled, as Raffaele’s hand on her shoulder urged her down into the seat awaiting her. As she had performed a test for herself before leaving the apartment, they had already known that she had conceived again. It had taken all of Raffaele’s considerable argumentative skill to persuade her that she also needed to speak to a consultant to deal with the secret fears she had not shared with anyone. Only her fears were apparently not as secret as she had assumed when Raffaele was so readily aware of their existence. It was true, sadly, this time around she was not as innocent, and she couldn’t feel joy as yet and couldn’t luxuriate in the result as she had before because she was far too afraid that something might go wrong again.
Dr Carruthers spoke at length with ease, determined to allay her very real concerns. A very early miscarriage, such as she had experienced, was extremely common. Indeed, he told her, it often happened before women even realised that they had conceived, so any statistics he quoted her were almost certainly inaccurate. She had no grounds to suspect that there was anything else amiss with her and should approach this new pregnancy without undue concern or stress. At present, he saw no reason for her to take any additional precautions. He was very reassuring and Maya left his smart consulting rooms on Harley Street with a renewed sense of confidence.
‘Are you planning to tell your twin?’ Raffaele pressed.
‘Yes. Not about before but about this, yes.’ Maya’s glorious smile lit her beautiful face to radiance. ‘I can share this.’
Raffaele slotted her back into the limousine and, without even thinking about the intimacy of the gesture, she reached for his hand. ‘We’re pregnant!’ she said foolishly and then flushed with embarrassment.
‘Guess that means I’m unlikely to get lucky tonight,’ Raffaele teased, dark golden eyes gleaming with amusement.
‘Oh, don’t you believe that you get off that easily.’ Maya laughed. ‘My hormones are going crazy right now!’
‘I bet you anything that tonight you’ll sit up gossiping with Izzy until the early hours of tomorrow morning and forget that I exist. You have so much to catch up on and once your parents and grandparents get together with you tomorrow, you won’t have much privacy,’ he pointed out.
And that was when she tugged her fingers hurriedly free of his. What on earth was she doing? Clinging to him? Behaving as though they were still a normal couple? Why was she behaving that way when the instant that pregnancy test had shown a positive result their marriage, as such, had become redundant? How had she managed to forget that reality even for a few minutes?
She scanned his teasing, charismatic smile. He was pleased, undeniably he was pleased that she was pregnant again. Naturally, he was because that put his freedom back within view again. Now he was more concerned with getting her settled into a house he had no intention of sharing with her and ensuring that she was once again fully integrated into her family circle. That was to be her solace for his absence, his departure from her life. All of a sudden, Maya felt hollow, the temporary lift of joy in being pregnant again draining away when she was forced to face the prospect of losing the man she loved.
Raffaele was buying Grey Gables for her and he had offered a premium if the owners were willing to vacate the premises quickly. Earlier she had been over the moon that he was as impressed as she was with the property, or, at least, sufficiently impressed to overlook the disadvantages he had outlined. She had nourished foolish dreams about them sharing the house as a new family, dreams utterly removed from reality for that had never been on the cards for them, had it been? And in truth, once Raffaele left the picture, she wasn’t so sure that she wanted to move out of London and be at a less convenient distance from her family.
‘Where are we going?’ Maya asked as she realised the limo had pulled up on a busy street.
‘I wanted to mark the occasion. I ordered it weeks ago,’ Raffaele admitted confusingly. ‘I want you to be wearing it when your sister arrives.’
Her brow furrowed as she glanced up at the logo of the world-famous jeweller’s showroom before she was ushered inside, across a quiet shop floor into a private room where she sank down on a chair.
‘The occasion,’ she prompted, registering that he was giving her another surprise and reflecting on just how much Raffaele enjoyed surprising her, treating her, spoiling her with spontaneous unexpected presents. It occurred to her that she would soon be surprising him with the purchase she had already made on his behalf in honour of his twenty-ninth birthday in just over two weeks’ time. A little chill tickled at her spine as she recalled the gift that had seemed like such an absolutely brilliant idea at the time she had come up with it, but now she found herself wondering if she had got it right for him or if, in fact, she had actually got it very, very wrong. Maybe her gift would be too personal and unwelcome? An unhappy reminder of an experience he preferred to forget? Or a new beginning? Well, there was no point agonising over her decision, she conceded ruefully, because she had already booked and paid for the two puppies, which were being kept until the big day.
The jeweller attending them with the utmost discretion produced an emerald ring for their perusal, waxing with enthusiasm about its perfection, its cut, the simple design of the platinum and diamond setting. It was a magnificent ring. She watched numbly while Raffaele threaded the jewel onto the same finger as her wedding band. ‘What do you think?’ he asked.
‘It’s breathtaking...’ It was also utterly enormous and she listened intently while Raffaele told her how he had tracked down the stone in a private collection where it had resided for a couple of centuries and how, after persuading the collector to sell it, he had designed the setting. ‘It matches your eyes.’
‘If I truly had eyes that colour, they’d be in somebody’s collection too,’ she mumbled in a daze, flexing her finger under that new weight, wondering if she would ever, ever understand Raffaele Manzini because he gave her so many mixed messages.
A ring was such a particular gift, literally laden with meaning to most people, and she stared down at the ring, which he had been so careful to place next to her wedding band. ‘It...it looks like an engagement ring,’ she framed hoarsely when she could finally unglue her tongue from the roof of her mouth.
‘It’s pretty. It suits you,’ Raffaele informed her al
most brusquely. ‘And since you went with the love-at-first-sight story when you told your sister about our marriage, it will be more normal for you to have a ring.’
‘So, this is like a prop to make us look more like a convincing couple?’ Maya questioned, her delight in her gorgeous ring ebbing a little.
Raffaele frowned. ‘Madonna mia...of course not. We’re way beyond that stage now, aren’t we?’
Were they? Here she was waiting to hear when he was planning to leave her now that she was pregnant again and he was busy buying her a truly spectacular ring and putting it on her engagement finger and telling her that it matched her eyes. Raffaele definitely moved to the beat of a different drummer and, while she loved that impulsive, unconventional ability he had to utterly confound and fascinate her, sometimes that exotic individuality was just a little exhausting and unnerving.
‘Could we go and...er...look at baby stuff now?’ Maya asked in a discomfited, apologetic undertone only loud enough for him to hear as they returned to the car, her emerald ring glittering on her finger.
‘Baby stuff?’ Raffaele repeated in seeming consternation.
Maya cringed inwardly and outwardly and went pink. ‘I just sort of...er...wanted to look—’
‘Of course we can go and buy stuff if that’s what you want,’ Raffaele told her smoothly.
‘No...no, we’re not going to buy anything,’ Maya contradicted with an edge of urgency. ‘That would be unlucky. No, we’re only going to window-shop.’
‘I’m not much of a fan and don’t have much practice of window-shopping,’ Raffaele confided gently.
‘Well, then, you can just drop me off to browse. That’s all I want to do...it’s my treat for me,’ she admitted tautly.
‘I wouldn’t dream of allowing you to treat yourself alone, bellezza mia,’ Raffaele retorted.
In an opulent department store, Maya almost touched an admiring finger to a tiny pair of cobweb-fine bootees and her eyes stung, excitement flaring through her.
‘Come on...let’s buy stuff,’ Raffaele urged with enthusiasm even while he fully understood her reluctance.
Maya swallowed the thickness in her throat. ‘No, not yet...we’re just looking,’ she repeated, examining a delicate lace shawl with brimming eyes of wonder.
‘It’s going to be OK this time,’ Raffaele told her confidently.
‘Why do you think that?’ she whispered, closing a hand over his to pull him away from the display.
‘Gut instinct and the reality that lightning rarely strikes twice in the same place,’ he murmured bracingly, disturbed by the anxiety she couldn’t hide. ‘We’re going to be parents.’
Ridiculously cheered by that confidence that came so naturally to him, Maya laced her fingers into his and they returned to the penthouse. Maya had a dozen things to do. Raffaele might have organised preparations for her family’s arrival behind her back but there were all sorts of little touches she could add to make her relatives feel welcome, like Izzy’s favourite magazines in the bedroom, flowers for her grandmother, who adored white roses, and tissues everywhere for her mother because Lucia would probably be crying a lot at being reunited with her parents. Although the two women and her grandfather had been talking on the phone in recent weeks, there had been a certain constraint and nothing could take the place of a face-to-face meeting and a frank conversation.
Raffaele strolled into the bedroom and watched Maya get dressed. She was no longer self-conscious around him, which he enjoyed. The vision of her willowy figure as she donned fine lingerie held him fast. She was still wearing the ring and he supposed that was something to be grateful for. He couldn’t concentrate, he acknowledged. He had put everything into place just as they had planned, just as they had agreed, and yet nothing felt right. How could it when he was accustomed to having Maya in his life? Accustomed for the first time ever to sharing everything with another person? That was a huge change in outlook for him. Familiarity did not always breed contempt, as he had once thought it unerringly did with him and women. Disturbingly aware of the teeming turmoil he had been suppressing deep in his mind for weeks, Raffaele turned his brain to a more current topic.
‘Has it occurred to you that Izzy’s husband could have settled your family’s financial problems for you?’
Much struck by the concept, Maya rested wide eyes on him. ‘Seriously?’
‘Oil-rich, future King of Zenara?’ Raffaele prompted gently. ‘If you had turned to Izzy for assistance you would never have met me and never have married me.’
‘But I didn’t know about Rafiq then, who he was, how rich he was or that they were getting married,’ Maya pointed out prosaically, but she was involuntarily shocked at the picture he had drawn. ‘I had no idea that she might ever be in a position to help. That possibility never even crossed my mind.’
At the same time the very suggestion that she might never have married Raffaele shook her rigid. He had shaken up her and her life, but she couldn’t have unwished him, couldn’t bear the possibility that she might never have known him. She tugged another pair of cropped jeans from a drawer and teamed them with a casual sleeveless top, sliding her feet into comfortable mules.
Before Izzy arrived, Maya questioned whether she should admit to being pregnant, lest something go wrong again. And then she scolded herself for that pessimistic thought and reminded herself that she could not live her life that way, always expecting the very worst things to happen to her. After all, Raffaele had happened and, while losing him would be bad, she could not regret learning to love him, could not regret anything they had shared and, least of all, the child they had conceived.
Izzy arrived in a welter of buzzing chatter. Maya barely got time to meet her brother-in-law, Rafiq, before Raffaele bore him off into his home office to give Maya and her twin some privacy. Izzy hugged her and bounced around the room, full of energy, the proud curve of her pregnant stomach already obvious.
‘Twins,’ Maya remarked in awe.
‘I know. I still can’t believe it!’ Izzy exclaimed with a grin. ‘Rafiq thinks I’m a living miracle, which is rather nice.’
‘I’m pregnant too,’ Maya whispered before she could lose her nerve again.
Izzy’s eyes rounded in surprise and delight and then she closed her arms around her taller sibling with unashamed affection. ‘Wow...that’s clever timing. I wasn’t expecting that news! My goodness, now we’ll be able to share stories every step of the way.’
‘I’m only just pregnant,’ Maya confided.
‘Rafiq told me that you and Raffaele had been having problems,’ Izzy murmured very quietly, her gaze troubled.
‘Oh, that’s in the past. Teething troubles,’ Maya hastened to assure her twin. ‘We probably rushed into getting married too quickly.’
‘It was very sudden but, let’s face it, when the connection is special, you know pretty soon,’ Izzy burbled, her obvious anxiety ebbing at Maya’s light tone and smile. ‘I thought something was wrong and I was losing you.’
‘You’re never going to lose me,’ Maya assured her fondly. ‘I was thoughtless, trying to put up a front, that’s all.’
And the evening ebbed away, almost without Maya noticing as she and her sister caught up on all the news. Rafiq and Raffaele joined them for dinner but had to make their own conversation. It was indeed the early hours before Maya finally crept into bed, sliding in beside Raffaele and hooking an arm round him, although there was really no need for her to move that close in the huge bed.
‘Feeling happier?’ Raffaele asked, startling her because she had assumed he was already asleep and wouldn’t have slung that statement possessive arm round him had she known he was still awake.
‘Yes,’ Maya admitted freely. ‘Much happier.’
Her parents arrived early. Her mother, Lucia, was very nervous, and Maya tried to calm the older woman down about her approaching reunion wit
h her once-disapproving parents. Her grandparents arrived an hour later and the surprise they brought with them was her grandfather’s niece, Aurora, a stunning blonde model, who had hitched a ride in their private jet because she had an assignment later that day in London.
‘I’m so sorry for intruding but I’ll only be staying for an hour or so. I did so want to take the opportunity to get to know your side of the family,’ Aurora told Maya, easing past her rather as if she weren’t there to concentrate her full attention on Raffaele. ‘Hi... I’m the marriageable Parisi female possibility whom, sadly, you never even got the chance to meet.’
Stunned to overhear that low-voiced, teasing self-introduction, Maya turned her head to catch Raffaele’s flashing smile of amusement. He liked bold, he liked brazen, he liked confident. A shaft of fierce jealousy pierced Maya and it was an effort to concentrate on her grandmother’s sobbing reconciliation with her daughter and step in with the occasional soothing sentence and reassuring hugs.
While that was taking place, Raffaele stood across the room chatting to Aurora, a tall, leggy figure clad in a white dress that was the perfect frame for her even more perfect figure.
‘She’s flirting with him,’ Izzy remarked in disbelief. ‘What’s she even doing here?’
‘Apparently she’s here to get to know us,’ Maya said drily, relieved that her sibling hadn’t overheard Aurora’s opening sally to Raffaele because Izzy would’ve sought an explanation and the carefully drawn story of Maya’s marriage would have fallen apart.
‘Not making much effort, then, is she?’ Izzy commented. ‘Go over there and act like a wife. Warn her off.’
‘I trust Raffaele,’ Maya fielded stiffly.
