Kelly shook her head and stared straight ahead. So he looked a bit haggard—not surprising, the way he worked—and played. The last two nights they had made love with a desperation on Kelly’s part she was not proud of. Still, they did not have the kind of relationship that allowed her to show concern for him. Anyway, she had enough problems of her own. The biggest one having arisen two days ago—when she had collected Annalou’s dress from Verona she had also visited Dr Credo, and discovered she was pregnant again. At first she had been delighted, until she’d remembered Gianfranco’s telling Olivia he wanted no more children.
The bride was beautiful, the service, the photos, the reception…everything was perfect, but Kelly went through the whole thing worried sick.
‘It was the bestest wedding ever,’ Annalou said later that evening, standing in the nursery, washed and ready for bed, having finally been persuaded to take off her bridesmaid’s dress. ‘Anna was beautiful; my wedding will be like that. Was yours, Mummy?’
Kelly chuckled. ‘Something like that,’ and, glancing across at Gianfranco, she was surprised to see what looked like a flicker of pain in his dark eyes. He had just been laughing and telling Annalou she was a little princess.
‘Into bed.’ Kelly watched as Annalou climbed on the bed, and then, bending over her, she tucked her in and kissed her.
‘You looked lovely as well, Mummy,’ Annalou murmured sleepily. Kelly swallowed the lump in her throat, touched by her child’s words.
‘Thank you, sweetheart. Now go to sleep.’ Straightening up, she smoothed her hands down her hips, straightening the skirt of her dress. It was a designer gown in heavy silk, French navy trimmed with cream, with a low-cut square neck that revealed the slight curve of her breasts, and short sleeves. It followed the line of her shapely body to perfection. But not for much longer, she thought wryly.
‘I don’t think I told you how beautiful you looked today.’ Gianfranco’s husky drawl impinged on her musings, and suddenly he was beside her, his hand on her arm. ‘My daughter reminded me.’
‘You don’t look so bad yourself,’ Kelly murmured, her gaze resting lightly on his large, lithe body as he led her from the room.
‘Thank you.’ Gianfranco grinned. ‘But I think our little princess took the prize, don’t you?’
‘Yes. Of course,’ Kelly agreed and glanced speculatively up at him as they entered the sitting room of their suite. The wedding and Annalou seemed to have put him in a good mood, but then he usually was relaxed around Annalou. Maybe this was her chance to do some fishing and find out how he really felt about another child.
‘She is growing up fast,’ Kelly ventured, sinking down onto the sofa and kicking off her shoes; her heart was racing but she battled to remain cool.
‘Yes, she is a darling child, and she looked a picture in that dress,’ Gianfranco responded, walking across to the bar and pouring a good measure of whisky into a crystal glass. ‘Want one?’ He raised his glass.
Kelly shook her head. ‘No,’ and for a second wondered what he would say if she just came out with it. Sorry, I can’t—I’m pregnant. But she wasn’t prepared to take the chance. Instead she continued, ‘But I sometimes wonder if maybe Annalou is a bit lonely with only adults for company,’ she suggested. ‘Maybe we should consider having another child—a brother or a sister for her.’ She waited with bated breath for his response.
Gianfranco almost choked on the whisky and, draining the glass, he put it down, his dark brows drawing together in a frown. Had she taken leave of her senses? He crossed to where she sat, looking perfectly relaxed, and stared down at her. A tentative smile played around her luscious mouth, but her gorgeous eyes were oddly serious. He knew what she was like for leaping into things. Her latest idea had to be nipped in the bud immediately.
‘No. Annalou is perfectly happy, and she has friends at pre-school. Another child is out of the question,’ he told her bluntly. A nerve ticked in Gianfranco’s temple, and he laid his hand on her shoulder, kneading her collarbone to emphasise the point. ‘Forget it, Kelly. I don’t want any more children.’
She trembled at the warmth of his hand on her flesh, but her blue eyes locked onto the implacable darkness of Gianfranco’s and she had her answer. He was deadly serious and it hurt like hell. Deep down inside she had nursed the hope that perhaps her Italian had not been so good three years ago, that she had misinterpreted what Gianfranco had said. Now that hope was gone.
‘Tough,’ she said, shrugging off his hand and rising to her feet. ‘Because I’m already pregnant.’ She didn’t wait to hear his response, but headed for the door.
‘No—no.’ Gianfranco grabbed her arm and whirled her around to face him. ‘Tell me it isn’t true,’ he demanded through clenched teeth.
His fingers bit into the flesh of her arm and a surge of anger coloured Kelly’s cheeks, but she forced herself to remain calm; this was their unborn child they were discussing and anger would get them nowhere. ‘It’s true; get used to it,’ she snapped, and watched as he closed his eyes for a moment. Perhaps now it was a fait accompli he might like the idea. But any hopes in that direction were squashed once and for all when he opened his eyes.
His face hardened into an impenetrable mask. ‘Has the pregnancy been confirmed by a doctor?’ he demanded, and his cold, clipped voice chilled her to the bone.
‘Dr Credo. Two days ago.’
‘Is it mine?’
A harsh, humourless laugh escaped her. That was the one question she had not expected, but she should have done, given he thought she had slept with Tom and was too dodgy to touch without a condom. ‘Oh, yes. I am nine weeks pregnant—work it out for yourself. History repeating itself,’ she drawled with bitter sarcasm. ‘The tumble on the floor in Cornwall.’
His black eyes narrowed to mere slits in the harshness of his face. ‘You were on the Pill.’
‘No. You said I was on the Pill, because you told me to take it three years ago and Dr Credo told you I had done so,’ Kelly said sweetly, but inside she was raging. Her husband, Count Gianfranco Maldini, was a very wealthy, very powerful man, one of an almost extinct breed of dinosaurs that believed once they had demanded a course of action it would be pursued ad infinitum. The conceit was colossal.
Gianfranco’s dark eyes grazed over her slender but voluptuous body, and fear such as he had never imagined possible was staring him in the face. He frowned down at her. ‘No matter, Kelly. Much as it goes against my belief, in this case it is not too late. A termination is in order.’
She shivered, closing her eyes against the pain. He had it all cut and dried.
‘I will have a word with Dr Credo.’ He was still talking, and Kelly saw red.
Her fingers curled into fists and her free hand swung though the air. She punched him straight on the nose. ‘Take that, you no-good scum of the earth,’ she yelled; it had hurt her hand but it was worth it, as Gianfranco reeled back, letting go of her arm in the process.
‘I have had enough of you to last me a bloody lifetime.’
They hadn’t spent as much as a year together as man and wife, and in that time Kelly had suffered every emotion known to man and then some, all because of Gianfranco. But his latest betrayal was the worst, the absolute pits. She glared at him with wild eyes; he had straightened up and was holding his nose, blood seeping through his elegant fingers. Serves the bastard right, she thought furiously. And all the hurt, the anger she had kept in check for so long, came spewing out.
‘All you ever wanted from me was sex, from the first time we met. I was never good enough to be your wife or the mother of your child. You would never have married me, except you found out I was pregnant and your precious flaming Olivia wanted a baby. The pair of you decided to have mine. Olivia told me herself: the civil marriage in England meant nothing, but was just a means to get my baby. You could still marry her in church.’
She didn’t hear Gianfranco’s horrified, ‘Dio, no.’ Her fury, unleashed, flowed like vitriol over his proud head.
‘I saw you both in the study when I came back from the doctor’s, wrapped in each other’s arms. And you—you…’ she shrieked. ‘Telling her that we would certainly not have any more children. Caressing her while she said she loved my baby and would take care of her.’
Kelly didn’t notice Gianfranco’s sudden stiffening, his dark eyes fixed intently on her furious red face as he listened to her wild outburst while she was too bound up in her own emotional blood-letting…
‘Well, I am glad I foiled the pair of you, and I am glad Olivia left you. My only regret is that you found me again. You don’t deserve a daughter like Annalou. And to think I actually thought I loved you.’ Kelly shook her head, her blonde hair falling from its precarious chignon to tumble around her shoulders. ‘Even today I tried to convince myself—perhaps I had not understood the Italian language so well, maybe you had not said what I thought. More fool me!’ Tears blinded her eyes. ‘You soon put me right; I must have been mad.’
Kelly had never felt such complete and utter desolation in her life. But she squared her shoulders, steely determination in every line of her slender body. Her moist blue eyes glistened in her drawn face as she looked up at Gianfranco. ‘Murder my baby, would you?’ she grated in a raw voice. ‘Over my dead body.’
His head jerked back as though she had punched him again, and every vestige of colour fled his hard face, leaving him looking grey and haggard, and his sensuous mouth was a taut, cruel line as he said through his clenched teeth one word, ‘Exactly.’
To have him admit everything she had feared was true with one word was like a knife skewering her heart. All the blood drained from her face and she drew a deep, unsteady breath, her blue eyes curiously blank. ‘The truth at last.’ Unconsciously rubbing her sore knuckles, she added in a voice devoid of all emotion, ‘I will see you in hell before I let you near me again.’ His large hand reached out to her and she batted it away. ‘Don’t touch me. Don’t you dare touch me.’
His strong features were torn by some intolerable emotion. ‘No, Kelly, no, you’ve got it wrong.’ And before she could move he hauled her hard against his long body, his dark gaze moving over her anguished face. ‘I know about your mother.’
Through the mist of her despair she looked into his eyes, and the anguish she saw there more than matched her own. ‘My mother—you know she and Tom were lovers?’ Why on earth was he harking back to what was ancient history?
‘No, I didn’t know that,’ he said in a toneless voice. ‘But I do know she died in childbirth, and the same could happen to you. When I said exactly, I was responding quite literally to your comment “over my dead body”. Don’t you see?’
She stared at him in complete confusion, then slowly, through the utter despair enfolding her, Kelly felt the first glimmer of something like hope. The pain, the passion as his dark gaze swept over her, was plain to see. He was worried about her, and she was so astonished she made no demur when he lowered her down onto the sofa and sat beside her.
‘If I have to choose between you and another child…’ He didn’t look at her as he began to speak, his head bent, his hands clasped between his spread knees, the knuckles white with strain. ‘I don’t care if I condemn my immortal soul to hell. It has to be you. I can’t bear to lose you again.’
Stunned blue eyes widening as the import of his words sank in, Kelly turned towards him and placed a hand on his arm. ‘You’re frightened?’ she whispered.
He nodded and, sitting up, his head lifting to look at her, he gave her a somber, almost angry glance. ‘Terrified,’ he admitted, and Kelly instinctively knew his anger was not directed against her, but himself.
He agitatedly ran his fingers through his hair before continuing. ‘The day I saw you in the hospital bed after giving birth to Annalou Dr Credo told me you had haemorrhaged, and then he told me your mother died in childbirth, but you didn’t like to talk about it. But…’
He hesitated for so long Kelly thought he couldn’t finish. ‘So?’ she prompted.
‘In that moment, when I realised you could have died having my child when I wasn’t even there, I recognised something I had never really thought existed: I love you quite desperately.’
‘So you didn’t love me when we married,’ she murmured sadly to herself, but Gianfranco heard.
‘I didn’t know what love was,’ Gianfranco said urgently and, grasping her slender shoulders, he made her face him. ‘You want the truth?’ His dark eyes blazed with a determined light. ‘You shall have it. I met you, a bright, beautiful girl, and I wanted you. Then, because of a stupid masquerade about my name, I lost you. In my pride, my arrogance, I vowed I would not chase after you when you stood me up. So I did not. I saw other women, but it was no good, I suffered torment through months of celibacy.’ He glanced at her. ‘It had never happened to me before.’
Kelly amazed herself by smiling at his arrogance. ‘Poor you.’ But his words gave her the first glimmer of hope.
‘Yes, well.’ He grimaced with a wry twist of his lips. ‘Even when I discovered you were pregnant and searched for you I still never thought of marriage. But the minute I saw you again I heard myself proposing marriage. I was as astounded as you were then; I justified it by telling myself it was the sensible thing to do. My mother was hinting I should marry and provide an heir, so why not?’
‘I don’t think I want to know this,’ Kelly cut in
‘You wanted the truth and you are getting it,’ Gianfranco prompted bluntly, his mouth twisted and hard. ‘It crossed my mind you might be a gold-digger, and Olivia certainly thought so, but I didn’t care. Perhaps I loved you then but could not admit it, or didn’t need to…’ he offered with unconscious masculine conceit. ‘All I knew was that I wanted you and the baby. I moved you into my home and my bed, and my life went on much the same as before.’
He shrugged as though he was ashamed of his lack of insight. ‘I can remember wondering why my married male friends complained about the confines of married life. I felt no such constraint. I did not alter my lifestyle one iota, and I had the added bonus of having you in my bed at night. Then you complained about Olivia and I was hit by divided loyalties.’
‘Was she your lover?’ Kelly asked painfully. He had said he loved her, but not until after she had given birth to Annalou, and she did not know how that made her feel.
‘No, never.’ His hands tightened on her shoulders. ‘You have to understand about Olivia. I was sailing with Alfredo the day of the accident. He died and I was saved, and I have carried the guilt with me ever since. I always thought it should have been the other way around.’
Her response was a long sigh. ‘Oh, no.’
‘Yes,’ he admitted, his expression bleak. ‘With hindsight I know I over-compensated. I dismissed your fears about Olivia because of my own feelings of guilt and because, if I am honest, it made for an easier life to blame your hormones. Hell, what did I know about pregnant women? When I should have supported you I failed miserably. I put up with more from that woman than you can imagine. But the last day, when you said you saw us in each other’s arms plotting against you, I swear on our daughter’s life it was not like that.’
Kelly drew in a sharp breath—to vow on Annalou’s life, he had to be telling the truth. ‘Then what was it like?’ Kelly pressed him. She needed to know before she could let the tiny flame of hope in her heart blaze free.
‘She knew you had gone to the doctor’s, she knew I was planning to take you on holiday, and she flung herself at me ranting about how much she loved me, and when we could marry. I was horrified—I had never, ever thought of her in that way. It was then I finally realised she was very ill. I tried to calm her down, but she declared we would have to wait until you produced a boy before we could marry. I guess what you saw was me restraining her by the arms, after having told her she was talking rubbish and I was certainly having no more children.’
Kelly opened her mouth to speak, but Gianfranco went on in a harsh voice, ‘She was back in the mental hospital two weeks after you left. She recovered, and the man she’s married is a widower with three children. She got what she wanted. But it was too late for me; because of my own blind insensitivity and pride I had lost you and our child. Which brings me back to the present.’ As if compelled, he bent his dark head and kissed her, hard and brief, before rearing back slightly, a dull red flush staining his high cheekbones. ‘I love you too much, Kelly,’ he grated in a tortured voice. ‘I cannot let you take the risk of having another child. I couldn’t live without you.’
She stared at him, and what she saw in his dark eyes, the love, the torment, made her heart expand in her chest until she thought it would burst with incredulous joy. There was no doubting his sincerity: Gianfranco did love her.
Suddenly the world was a marvellous place to Kelly, and hope and happiness surged through her. Blue eyes glowing, she said, ‘I love you too, but you are crazy, Gianfranco.’
‘Crazy!’ he exclaimed and, pulling her onto his lap, he added, ‘Crazy in love. But as your husband I have to protect you from yourself,’ he said seriously. ‘No more children.’
Kelly curled up on his lap and linked one arm around his broad shoulders. She knew he needed to be convinced his very real fear was groundless. ‘You can’t stop me.’ She lifted her finger and put it over his lips for a moment as he would have objected. ‘And you’re wrong; there is no risk, or none that every pregnant woman in the world does not face.’ Her hand dropped from his face and she grasped his arm to emphasise her point. ‘I am not my mother—she died from complications and, to be blunt, because, although she was forty-two and considered at risk, she insisted on having the child at home. The baby was delivered with the cord around his neck, dead. The midwife did her best, but when my mother haemorrhaged it was another two hours before she made it to the hospital.’
‘Your father must have been mad to let her stay at home,’ Gianfranco commented in typical autocratic macho fashion.
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