Darcy felt her head spin and that horrible queasy feeling came washing over her again, in giant waves. This couldn’t be happening. In a minute she would wake up and the nightmare would be over. But it wouldn’t, would it? She was living her nightmare and the proof was right in front of her eyes. In the midst of her confusion and hurt she saw the look of something like satisfaction on Renzo’s face. She remembered him mentioning his parents’ divorce and how bitterly he’d said that women could never be trusted. Was he somehow pleased that his prejudices had been reinforced and he could continue thinking that way? Yes, he was, she realised. He wanted to believe badly of her.
She made one last attempt because wasn’t there still some tiny spark of hope which existed—a part which didn’t want to let him go? ‘None of that—’
‘Save your lying words because I don’t want to hear them. You’re only upset because I came home early and found you out. How were you going to explain the absence of the necklace, Darcy?’ he bit out. ‘A “burglary” while you were out shopping? Shifting the blame onto one of the people who service these apartments?’
‘You think I’d be capable of that?’
‘I don’t know what you’re capable of, do I?’ he said coldly. ‘I just want you to listen to what I’m going to say. I’m going out and by the time I get back I want you out of here. Every last trace of you. I don’t ever want to see your face again. Understand? And for what it’s worth—and I’m sure you realise it’s a lot—you can keep the damned necklace.’
‘You’re not going to go to the police?’
‘And advertise exactly what kind of woman my girlfriend really is and the kind of low-life company she keeps? That wouldn’t exactly do wonders for my reputation, would it? Do whatever you’d planned to do with it all along.’ He paused and his mouth tightened as his black gaze swept down over her body. ‘Think of it as payment for services rendered. A clean-break pay-off, if you like.’
It was the final straw. Nausea engulfed her. She could feel her knees buckling and a strange roaring in her head. Her hand reached out to grab at the nearest chair but she missed and Darcy felt herself sliding helplessly to the ground, until her cheek was resting on the smooth silk of the Persian rug and her eyes were level with his ankles and the handmade Italian shoes which swum in and out of focus.
His voice seemed to come from a long way off. ‘And you can spare me the histrionics, Darcy. They won’t make me change my mind.’
‘Who’s asking you to change your mind?’ she managed, from beneath gritted teeth.
She saw his shadow move as he stepped over her and a minute later she heard the sound of the front door slamming shut.
And after that, thankfully, she passed out.
‘YOU CAN’T GO ON like this, Darcy, you really can’t.’
The midwife sounded both kind and stern and Darcy was finding it difficult keeping her lips from wobbling. Because stern she could handle. Stern was something she was used to. It was the kindness which got to her every time, which made her want to cover her face with her hands and howl like a wounded animal. And she couldn’t afford to break down, because if she did—she might never put herself back together again.
Her hand slipped down to her belly. ‘You’re sure my baby’s okay?’ she questioned for the fourth time.
‘Your baby’s fine. Take a look at the scan and see. A little bit on the small side perhaps, but thriving. Unlike you. You’re wearing yourself out,’ continued the midwife, a frown creasing her plump face. ‘You’re working too hard and not eating properly, by the look of you.’
‘Honestly, I’ll try harder. I’ll...I’ll cut down on my hours at work and start eating more vegetables,’ said Darcy as she rolled up her sleeve. And she would. She would do whatever it took because all she could think about was that her baby was safe. Safe. Relief washed over her in almost tangible waves as the terror she’d experienced during that noisy ambulance ride began to recede. ‘Does that mean I can go home?’
‘I wanted to talk to you about that. I’m not very happy about letting you go anywhere,’ said the midwife. ‘Unless you’ve got somebody who can be there for you.’
Darcy tried not to flinch. She supposed she could pretend she had a caring mother or protective sister or even—ha, ha, ha—a loving husband. But that would be irresponsible. Because it wasn’t just her she was looking out for any more. There was a baby growing inside her. Her throat constricted. Renzo’s baby.
She tried not to tense up as the midwife began to measure her blood pressure. Things hadn’t been easy since Renzo had left her lying on the floor of his Belgravia apartment, accusing her of histrionics before slamming the door behind him. But Darcy’s unexpected faint hadn’t been caused by grief or anger, though it had taken a couple of weeks more to realise why a normally healthy young woman should have passed out for no apparent reason. It was when she’d found herself retching in the bathroom that she’d worked it out for herself. And then, of course, she wondered how she could have been so stupid to have not seen it before. It all added up. But her general queasiness and lack of appetite—even the lateness of her period—had been easy to overlook after Renzo had dumped her.
Of course she’d hoped. Hoped like mad she’d somehow got her dates muddled, but deep down she’d known she hadn’t because the brand-new aching in her breasts had told her so. She’d gone out to buy a pregnancy kit and the result had come as a shock but no great surprise. Heart racing, she’d sat on the floor of her bathroom in Norfolk staring at the blue line, wondering who to tell. But even if she had made some friends in her new home town, she knew there was only one person she could tell. Tears of injustice had stung her eyes. The man who thought she was a thief and a con woman. Who had looked at her with utter contempt in his eyes. But that was irrelevant. Renzo’s opinion of her didn’t really matter—all that mattered was that she let him know he was going to be a father.
If only it had been that easy. Every call she’d made had gone straight through to voicemail and she’d been reluctant to leave him her news in a message. So she’d telephoned his office and been put through to one of his secretaries for another humiliating experience. She’d felt as if the woman was reading from a script as she’d politely told her that Signor Sabatini was unavailable for the foreseeable future. She remembered the beads of sweat which had broken out on her forehead as she’d asked his secretary to have him ring her back. And her lack of surprise when he hadn’t.
‘Why...?’ Her voice faltered as she looked up into the midwife’s lined face. ‘Why do I have to have someone at home with me?’
‘Because twenty-eight weeks is a critical time in a woman’s pregnancy and you need to take extra care. Surely there must be someone you could ask. Who’s the baby’s father, Darcy?’
Briefly, Darcy closed her eyes. So this was it. The point where she really needed to be self-sacrificing and ignore pride and ego and instinct. For the first time in a long time images of Renzo’s darkly rugged face swam into her mind, because she’d been trying her best not to think about him. To forget that chiselled jaw and lean body and the way he used to put on those sexy, dark-rimmed glasses while he was working on plans for one of his buildings. To a large extent she had succeeded in forgetting him, banishing memories of how it used to feel to wake up in his arms, as she concentrated on her new job at the local café.
But now she must appeal for help from the man who had made her feel so worthless—whose final gesture had taken her back to those days when people used to look down their noses at her