Pregnant with the De Rossi Heir. Maggie Cox

touching her, and it made her shiver with want. But then the full import of his question finally found its way to central control in her brain, and a sense of deep shock rippled through her.

      ‘Are you married, Katherine?’ Luca asked.

      ‘No! I’m not! And why should that be any concern of your client’s?’

      ‘You must have seen how he looked at you?’

      ‘I was busy taking the notes of the meeting!’

      ‘Anyway…it is not my friend’s interest in the answer that I am concerned with. It is my own. So, if you are not married, what about a boyfriend?’

      ‘I have none! Is that what you thought? That I was two-timing someone when I was with you?’

      ‘It did occur to me, not long after I woke up and found you gone, that perhaps too much champagne the night before at the party had made you—possibly a married woman—a little reckless, shall we say? That maybe you were just looking for a good time and when opportunity knocked…you took it. In the morning, discovering what you had done, you were perhaps overcome by guilt and regret and decided to flee before you incriminated yourself further…’

      ‘Well, you’re wrong! It was nothing like that at all!’

      Feeling distressed at the idea that Luca had even considered that she had run out on him because she was married or involved with someone else, Kate crossed her bare arms over the silk bodice of her dress and despairingly tried to straighten her thoughts. How could he think such a thing? she asked herself. Had she imagined the bond they had shared? A bond that she’d firmly believed had transcended the merely physical?

      ‘Then how was it, Katherine? And this time perhaps you will do me the courtesy of telling me the truth of why you ran out on me that morning?’

      The truth. How simple that sounded… And yet the reality was that it wasn’t simple at all. It was a terrible, never to be repeated, embarrassing…mess.