But he didn’t do love and he was never going to do love and yet love, he sensed, was what she would want from him. Did she even grasp that love wasn’t something he could pull out of a hat and flourish like a white rabbit? He didn’t have that capacity any more. That ability had died in him. He had loved his parents when he was very young. He had loved nannies who’d departed without even saying goodbye. And with the single exception of his brother, Cristiano, he had taught himself not to become emotionally invested in anything or anybody because loving always, always led to betrayal or bitter disillusionment.
* * *
The following morning, Belle awaited her father’s arrival, full of nervous tension.
‘So, what do I say to him if he asks about us?’ she pressed Dante uncertainly over the breakfast table. ‘I mean, he’s almost certain to ask. How do I describe us? What do I tell him?’
Black hair gleaming in the sunshine, Dante gave one of his fatalistic shrugs, a flawless fluid movement. ‘There isn’t a label, a definitive word. Whirlwind romance? Casual? That you’ll be back in London and easily able to see more of him soon enough?’ he suggested lazily.
Belle dropped her attention to the pristine tablecloth, her complexion slowly turning the same shade of white. Her stomach lurched with nausea. In a handful of words, he had crushed her expectations and she felt as though he had removed an entire layer of skin from her shrinking body. Casual? Even after he had said that they would be exploring where their relationship took them? Evidently, it wasn’t going to take them very far.
He saw her returning to London, exiting his home and his life much faster than she had naïvely envisaged. He saw no sort of a future for them. She had seriously misinterpreted his words the night before, had read into them so much more than he intended. Her heart sank.
DANTE PACED THE elegant waiting room like a caged tiger while Belle averted her attention from him. It didn’t help that he looked hauntingly beautiful, even in a blue shirt and jeans, smooth and sleek and sexy enough to attract the eye of every woman they came into contact with, from passers-by on the street to the receptionist who greeted them, to the nurse who dealt with them.
She was praying that the test would come back negative and that she would not be pregnant. When her life felt as though it was on the edge of falling apart, what else could she hope for? Certainly, she didn’t feel she had the right to want to be carrying Dante’s child when he so obviously didn’t want her to be.
Her period was only two days late, she reminded herself, but she knew the basic symptoms of pregnancy and her breasts were unusually tender and swollen. She linked her hands tightly together on her lap, wishing that Dante would quell his apprehension and sit down.
A week had passed since her father had visited her at the palazzo. Father and daughter had got on very well, but Alastair Stevenson had admitted his concern that she was living in an uncommitted relationship. His questions had made it impossible to avoid telling him the truth. He had also agreed that she was an adult and that it was really none of his business, but it had been obvious that his conviction that she was likely to be hurt had overcome his tact. He had said nothing to her, however, that Belle had not already said to herself.
Belle was painfully aware that when it came to Dante, she had been naïve, impulsive and far too keen to believe what she wanted to believe. Over the past seven days, however, she had coped simply by ignoring the situation. Dante had made his intentions clear and she had to handle that as best she could. It was ironic that he had been incredibly considerate and attentive since he had demolished the ground beneath her feet. Of course, he was probably practising the couple pretence for his guests, Eddie and Krystal, due to arrive that very evening for dinner. Belle was dreading their arrival because she would have to monitor her every word and action in their presence.
The nurse returned with a smile to show them back in to see the English-speaking doctor Dante had sought out to do the pregnancy test. Belle swallowed hard as she took her seat.
‘Congratulations,’ the middle-aged doctor told them with a beaming smile.
Belle dared not look in Dante’s direction and was disconcerted when he reached for the fingers she had raised to her lips and kept her hand in his. For the remainder of the appointment she felt as though she were trapped inside a bubble, detached from the real world. It was shock, she knew that because, even though she had had her suspicions, confirmation and being told the date that she could expect to give birth hit her with the force of a sledgehammer.
‘That was interesting,’ Dante commented, tucking her back into the powerful sports car he had driven her out in.
Belle blinked, baffled by that as a first comment.
‘At least we can still have sex,’ Dante added, plunging her deeper into confusion.
‘But I won’t be here for you to have sex with,’ Belle said waspishly. ‘I’ll be back in London.’
‘That’s not going to work,’ Dante intoned flatly.
Seriously? His first reaction to her accidental pregnancy was ‘We can still have sex’?
Dante shot a glance at Belle’s pale, stiff profile. She hadn’t even giggled, and she usually had a terrific sense of humour. But then she had shown all the animation of a zombie from the moment the doctor had congratulated them. She might as well have been told that she had only six weeks left to live. Maybe she really, really didn’t like children, he reflected, wishing he had raised that thorny subject instead of carefully avoiding potential obstacles throughout the week. Maybe she was simply appalled at the prospect of motherhood and the changes it would bring.
Dante had spent the entire appointment worrying about Belle’s weird response to the news that they would be parents in a few months. He hadn’t had the time or space to be shocked on his own behalf. It had crossed his mind that his own parents would be triumphant at the continuation of their precious family line, but that was merely an irritant. Dante had swiftly moved on from regretting the vasectomy he had never had and the promises he had once made to himself in the heat of youthful rebellion and an understandable desire for revenge. He was twenty-eight years old, way past the stage of needing to spite his unpleasant parents to score empty points. After all, nothing could bring Cristiano back and nothing could change his parents into decent people.
How did he feel about the news they had received? he asked himself. Apprehensive about the challenges that lay ahead, he acknowledged, for nothing in his own childhood had taught him how a decent father should behave. But he could learn and, in the short term, there was a tiny spark of excitement growing inside him because Belle was carrying his baby. Not only did that increase his possessive attitude towards her, it was also sending images of what their child might look like crashing through his brain. Shock was doing that to him, he reasoned.
‘I think that we should leave this whole matter on a back burner until after our guests have departed on Sunday,’ Dante breathed tautly. ‘It’s an emotive subject and we don’t want to get into it now.’
Belle stared out fixedly at the beautiful Tuscan countryside as the opulent car crested another hill and swept down the other side, that swooping sensation making her tummy lurch with nausea. He didn’t even want to talk about the baby. Or was it simply that he didn’t want to risk her getting upset before Eddie and Krystal arrived? And why his use of that word emotive? Dear heaven, was he planning to ask her to consider a termination? She broke out in a cold sweat.
At least we can still have sex. Was there any mood