Happy Mother's Day! (24 page)

If all else failed, use emotional blackmail—and why not? she thought bleakly. It had worked.

It was obvious to Erin that once she went back to Italy with him Francesco would resist using every resource, which in his case were pretty much limitless, any attempt she made to remove their child from the country. And the thing was she loved him and wanted to be with him so much that part of her just wanted to go with the flow and stop resisting even though she knew that he didn’t love her.

And that being the case there was every chance that one day he would fall in love with someone else.

She spent most of the afternoon wondering if she was being totally insane for returning to Italy with him. Finally with a spinning head she picked up a book, in the vain hope of distracting herself from thoughts of her personal life.

It was around four and she was staring blankly at the same page she had been for the past ten minutes when there was a tentative knock on the door.

The man who walked in was a little above medium height. He had a beard, slightly receding hair and wore glasses.

She had never seen him before.

‘Mrs Romanelli …’ He approached the bed beaming with his hand outstretched.

A bemused Erin gave him her hand. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t—?’

‘Stupid of me, I should have introduced myself. Peter Heyer.’

Clearly he expected it to mean something to her. Erin shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I—’

‘Sorry, I assumed that Francesco would have explained things to you.’

‘Are you a lawyer?’

He looked startled by the suggestion and a little offended. ‘No, Mrs Romanelli, I own the Heyer Gallery—London, New York and Barcelona …’

‘I’ve heard of that.’

‘You know, then, about our upcoming exhibition?’ ‘Not really.’

‘I’m getting the feeling that you don’t know that your husband brought your portfolio to us.’

Erin responded with a noncommittal smile. It was news to her that she had a … what had he said?
Portfolio?

‘Well, obviously normally we do not consider work by someone who just walks in through the door, but your husband, he …’

‘Doesn’t take no for an answer?’

‘Forceful.’

More a force of nature, Erin thought, wondering what Francesco had done to make this man look as though he were recalling a fight with a grizzly with toothache.

‘Your husband is also a very difficult man to negotiate with—I’d say you are very lucky to have him as your agent.’

I have an agent?

‘He’s one of a kind,’ she agreed cautiously.

‘Mr Romanelli mentioned you were here and I was passing so I just dropped by to tell you how
excited
we are by your work.
Really excited!
That’s all I wanted to say. I hope you feel better soon.’

‘Thank you.’

It was two hours later when Francesco arrived. Two hours during which Erin had totally failed to unravel the riddle of the man with the beard.

‘I hear they are releasing you in the morning.’

‘Finally. I had a visitor this afternoon. A Peter Heyer.’

In the act of shrugging off his jacket, Francesco paused.

‘He is very excited, apparently.’

‘He is, it seemed to me, quite an excitable sort of man.’

‘I didn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about. I have an agent … a portfolio …?’ She folded her arms across her chest. ‘Do you mind telling me what is going on?’

‘When I was at your studio—’

Erin, her eyes wide with amazement, cut across him. ‘You were at my studio. Why would you be?’

‘I was getting some things you asked for from your flat when I came across this very nice lady. She wanted the photos you did of her daughter’s wedding. She was, incidentally, most pleased with the results.

‘While I was there I came across some of your work … not the photographs which people pay you to take, not that they are not very competent.’

Erin knew he was talking about the boxes stacked from floor to ceiling in a cupboard.

‘They’re just for me. I’ve been snapping things since I was in my teens. I know it’s digital age and everything, but I—’

‘It is a criminal waste to hide away such works of art in a cupboard,’ he reproached her. ‘They are quite remarkable, Erin.’

‘You think so?’ His admiration gave her a warm feeling.

‘I do and I am not the only one. I was aware that Heyers have an upcoming exhibition at the end of the year showcasing new female talent right across the art spectrum. I took a selection of your work.’

‘I would never have had the guts to do that.’

‘I would never have had the talent to compose a picture that sets it apart. That makes it the one that people look at in a room of twenty others. And please resist the temptation to say something self-deprecating and humble,’ he continued. ‘You are good and it isn’t just my opinion. You heard what the man said … they are very excited. They clearly think that you are going to be the star of the show.’

Erin regarded him with a shaken fascination. ‘You really did that? For me?’ She couldn’t recall another time in her life when anyone had shown such faith in her ability, or for that matter as much interest!

At home her habit of walking around with a camera slung around her neck had been considered mildly eccentric. Her decision to make it her living had not gone down well at all. Her parents had not given up hope she would one day get a proper job.

One more suited to a woman.

‘All I did was show it to the right people.’ He dismissed his contribution with a shrug. ‘Your work deserves to be seen,’ he said as he walked over to the chessboard that had been set out on a table.

‘And don’t forget as agent I get ten per cent of everything you make so it is in my best interests to make sure you become a success.’

‘You really think people will buy my pictures?’ The idea still seemed vaguely surreal to Erin.

‘In their hordes, I shouldn’t wonder.’ He paused. ‘I was speaking to your doctor earlier …’

Her hand went to her stomach. ‘What about? There’s nothing wrong, is there?’

‘Quite the opposite. He’s extremely pleased with your
progress and he sees no reason for us to delay our flight to Italy. We could go directly there tomorrow after they discharge you.’

She swallowed. ‘I didn’t expect that,’ she admitted. ‘Well, the alternative would seem to be for you to stay with your mother and I somehow can’t see her in the role of nurse.’ ‘I don’t need a nurse.’

‘No, but you need someone who will restrain your impulses to overexert yourself. I was thinking when we interview for the nanny maybe it would be an idea to make some enquiries about a maternity nurse at the same time. I understand that they move in for the last weeks of the pregnancy, as well, obviously, as afterwards.’

‘Will she have the baby for me, too?’

Baffled by the sarcasm in her voice and the annoyance in the eyes raised to his, Francesco shook his head. ‘Is there a problem?’

‘When did I say I wanted a nanny?’

‘Well, obviously I assumed—’

She lifted her chin. ‘Well, you assumed wrong. I don’t want a nanny and as for a maternity nurse—it’s a stupid idea.’ ‘You’re being totally irrational.’

‘If you even
whisper
the word hormone I’ll strangle you,’ she promised. ‘There is nothing irrational about not wanting to farm your kid off to someone else.’

‘A nanny isn’t there to replace you, she’s there to free up your time so that you can do other things.’

‘What—like pander to your needs? Millions of other women cope without a nanny and so will I.’

‘What if you’re too exhausted by being awake nights to enjoy your baby?’ He read the total intransigence in her face
and threw up his hands in a very Latin gesture of exasperation. ‘You’ll change your mind in the end.’

She swallowed her irritation at the smug prediction. She didn’t want to argue. A few days ago she had feared she was going to lose their baby—it seemed ridiculous to be squabbling now about something that, in the great scheme of things, was not terribly important.

‘Maybe you’re right—maybe I will change my mind,’ she said, thinking,
In a pig’s eye!
While she was prepared to stand her ground there was no point being confrontational now.

Francesco, not knowing that her
maybe
was of the when-hell-freezes-over variety, nodded his head in approval. ‘Well, it’s early days.’

‘Yes, it is,’ she agreed.

‘My parents are very anxious to finally meet you.’ ‘How is your mother?’

‘She spends a lot of time at Rafe’s grave. It’s hard,’ he admitted, ‘to know whether that is a good thing or not.’

‘The flowers she sent were beautiful and the phone call was very sweet. She must be anxious to see you.’

She looked at her belly. It was difficult to imagine that one day her baby would grow up and leave her.

‘Over the moon since she heard the news about the baby. As for seeing me, I think there is a little of the double-edged sword about that.’

Erin gave a baffled frown. ‘How do you mean?’

‘She cannot see me without being reminded of Rafe.’

Just as he was every time he caught sight of himself in a mirror! Not that Erin imagined for a second that he needed any reminder. She suspected that he would feel the loss of his twin for the rest of his life.

‘It’s strange. If Rafe hadn’t died, you wouldn’t be sitting
here with me now. And—’ she looked down and gently massaged the gentle mound of her belly, which over the past week had become too pronounced to be hidden by loose clothes, ‘—there would be no baby.’

‘We might have met anyway,’ he suggested.

‘Possibly,’ she conceded. ‘But we’d never have married. The circumstances would have been different.’

You would have been different,
she thought, looking at him.
You wouldn’t have had a gaping big hole to fill.

‘A bit like that film … have you seen it? I forget the name. It’s all about one pivotal decision. You take one path and it’s happy ever after. You take the other and.’ She mimed a slashing motion across her throat.

As happy-ever-after paths did not usually include divorce and emergency surgery, Francesco assumed she considered she thought she had taken the latter.

‘Well, we are not living in a film,
cara.
We are living in the real world, a world where you are married to me, and I am the father of your child.’

The severity of his clipped delivery caused her smooth brow to furrow in bewilderment.

‘So you will just have to put your personal feelings about me to one side.’

This suggestion drew a shaky laugh from her. ‘God, but I wish it was that easy.’ That easy to stop loving him so much it hurt.

When Erin glanced up from her brooding contemplation of her interlocked fingers she was startled by the suppressed pain in his face.

She didn’t have the faintest idea what she could have done or said to put it there, though she had no doubt if it hadn’t been for her invalid status he would have quickly told her!

Francesco stayed for a little longer and explained about the
travel arrangements for the following day, but the easy intimacy of earlier had vanished. When he left he didn’t kiss her.

For the first time she was actually grateful that she was on bedrest because it meant that there was no chance of her acting on her compulsion to run after him. An act she would undoubtedly have regretted later.

E
RIN
woke, her body bathed in sweat.

She lay there waiting for her heart rate to slow, the images from the repetitive nightmare still vivid in her mind. She turned her head and glanced at the clock. It was just after one.

With a groan she lifted herself on her elbow and punched the pillow.

Clutching it to her chest, she turned over. ‘It’ll be better when I’m out of here,’ she told herself.

‘Hospital beds are notoriously uncomfortable.’

A small fractured cry left her lips as the shadowy figure in the chair rose.

‘What are you doing here? It’s the middle of the night.’ Erin experienced the confusing rush of emotions that she always did when she saw him.

If a nurse came to take her pulse at that moment Erin knew her chances of going home the next day would be nil! It was far more likely that she would find herself rushed to Intensive Care and put on life support!

His long lashes fell in a screen against the angle of his cheekbones as he stretched and dragged both hands through his hair. ‘I was passing.’

He did not mention that he had been passing last night, too.
What the night staff made of a man who came to watch his wife sleep he could not imagine!

‘Passing …?’
She reached for the light cord above her head and blinked as the beam of the reading lamp fell directly on her face.

‘I didn’t mean to wake you.’

‘Look, I know what this is about.’

Francesco went very still, colour seeping into his face consolidating into two dark bands of colour along the slashing angle of his cheekbones.

Frowning, she absently toyed with the shoestring strap of her nightgown and gave a shamed sigh.

‘I’m not stupid, Francesco. I mean, you’ve been haunting the place. It’s obvious you think that I’m going to do something stupid the moment your back is turned. Though quite what you think I’m going to do in a hospital bed, I don’t know.

‘But don’t worry, I’ve learnt my lesson. From now on,’ she promised him, curving a protective hand over her stomach, ‘I will always put the baby first. I will treat every stair with caution.’

She saw some of the tension slip from his shoulders and assumed that she had succeeded in reassuring him.

‘Have you finished?’

‘I don’t blame you for thinking me an unfit mother—I do myself.’

Francesco cursed softly in his own tongue.

Startled by the outrage in his expression, Erin sat passively as he strode across the room and framed her heart-shaped face between his big hands.

Her skin prickled with heat at his touch.

He studied her upturned features, the pallor only relieved by a light flush across the crests of her smooth cheekbones.

Francesco found himself longing to erase the haunted shadows from her lovely eyes. ‘You are not an unfit mother!’

Francesco closed his eyes and cursed. ‘What happened was not your fault. The sooner the better you are out of this place. Part of the problem is you have far too much time to think.’

‘You make it sound like thinking is a bad thing.’

Perhaps there was something in what he said? It was difficult to keep things in proportion when you woke in the middle of the night sure that your baby was dead.

‘You were the one who said that I needed someone to restrain my impulses!’ she reminded him.

Francesco, who couldn’t recall saying anything similar, dredged his memory. ‘What I actually said was restrain your impulses to overexert yourself, which was my way of saying you needed looking after without you going feral on me, which you are prone to do at the merest
hint
that you might not be totally self-sufficient.’

He traced the curve of her cheek with his thumb.

‘You have to let go of your fear,’ he said softly. ‘If our baby had died it would have been a tragedy, but he didn’t and it wasn’t.’

‘But you blame me …’

‘I blame me!’ he blurted out.

A look of total bewilderment crossed her face. ‘You?’ she echoed. ‘Why should you feel blame?’

‘Why?’ He stared down at her incredulously. ‘How can you ask that? If I had not put you in a position where you felt you had to run away from me the accident would never have happened. If you or the baby had been harmed it would have been my fault.’

‘That’s the craziest logic I’ve ever heard. It was an accident. I tripped …’ She suddenly laughed as the irony hit. ‘My God,
I’ve been lying here thinking you’re blaming me and you’ve been blaming yourself … You know, it’s actually quite funny when you think about it.’

Francesco’s expression did not suggest he saw the funny side. ‘I don’t seem to be able to stop the people I care for getting hurt.’

People …?
Things suddenly slipped into place.
So that was

it!

‘I fell, Francesco. You didn’t push me, the same way you didn’t make Rafe take his life.’

Erin heard the sibilant hiss of his sharp intake of breath. His head came up and his dark eyes locked with hers.

‘Some things in life even
you
don’t have any control over,’ she told him softly. ‘I know that’s pretty hard for a control freak like yourself to accept,’ she teased gently, ‘but.’

‘You think you know me so well.’

The smile faded from her face. ‘Sometimes I don’t think I know you at all,’ she admitted huskily as she looked at the enigma who was her husband.

‘I’m an open book.’

This claim made Erin laugh. ‘You’re the most complicated, contradictory man I’ve ever met.’

‘After twenty years of marriage you’ll find me boring and predictable.’

‘Do you think we’ll still be together in twenty years?’

Her unthinking exclamation shattered the intimacy of the moment. ‘You are thinking in the short term?’

‘Well, it seems a good idea to take things one day at a time.’

His expression was remote and forbidding; it was clear her response was not one he liked. Francesco picked up his jacket from the back of a chair and nodded in her general direction.

‘You need your sleep.’

She was suddenly loath to see him walk out of the door.
What if he never comes back?
The irrational thought just popped into her head and she said the first thing that came into her head—unfortunately it concerned milky drinks.

‘I could ask the nurse to get us a drink of cocoa, or something else if you prefer.’

‘Cocoa?’

The mortified colour rushed to her cheeks.

She had never felt more ridiculous in her life. Francesco could hardly be unfamiliar with women who offered him inducements to stay around, but she would have bet none of them had ever tried to entice him with a cup of cocoa!

‘Good night, Erin.’

Erin had arrived at the hospital in an ambulance. She left in a helicopter.

They flew straight to the airport where they waited in the VIP lounge.

Erin did not have much time to avail herself of the facilities before it was time for them to board the Romanelli private jet.

It all felt surreal to Erin. She suspected she ought to be feeling more outrage at the extravagance. She actually had a sneaking suspicion it would be disturbingly easy to get used to this sort of luxury.

‘I feel like royalty or a Hollywood star or something,’ she said, pushing her leather seat into full recline position and spinning around.

Francesco watched her with an indulgent smile. ‘You’ll make yourself dizzy.’

Erin, who was already dizzy, stopped spinning. It occurred to her that he must be contrasting her childish antic unfavourably with those of his worldly friends.

‘I wonder if I’ll ever be able to do a convincing sophisticated?’

‘If by sophisticated you mean artificial, I sincerely hope not.’ She leaned forward and planted her elbows on the table that was between them. ‘I suppose I mean elegant.’

‘Elegance is good, but then so is spontaneity and enthusiasm.’ She levelled a finger at her chest. ‘Me?’ ‘Definitely you.’

‘I’d prefer to look like Audrey Hepburn.’ Francesco laughed.

‘It probably makes me very shallow, but having sampled it I’ve decided this is the only way to travel,’ she confessed guiltily.

‘Have I said … you look very beautiful today?’

She slid a not quite steady hand down the bodice of her sleeveless dress. The deceptively modest rounded neckline was cut low enough to reveal the upper curves of her breasts, which was probably why it had sat in her wardrobe unworn. The biascut skirt of soft voile fitted nicely over her small bump and flared around her calves clinging to her legs as she moved.

The duck-blue colour did good things for her eyes and made her skin look translucently pale. Against the bare skin of her shoulders her hair stood out like a flame. The effect was dramatic and feminine.

‘It isn’t what I would have chosen,’ she admitted.

But she hadn’t chosen it, Francesco had. Considering the things that were packed in her case, she wondered if he had even looked at the list she had given him!

Wearing this dress was like hanging a sign around her neck saying ‘I’m available,’ with a subheading of ‘Take me please!’

‘You are inclined to hide your light,
cara.
What do they say? If you have it, flaunt it?’

‘I just don’t think that it is necessary to wave it in their faces and jump up and down saying look at me, as well.’

At that moment the young attendant, casually dressed,
like the rest of the crew, in jeans and a shirt, made her fortuitous arrival.

Erin declined food but said she would love a cup of tea. Francesco overruled her with a display of high-handedness that was typical of him and said she would have something light, scrambled egg with a little smoked salmon perhaps?

Despite Erin’s insistence that she couldn’t eat a thing, the light dish was actually so delicious she polished off the lot and had a second cup of tea.

They were half an hour into their journey, and Francesco, who had been to talk to the pilot, had again taken the seat opposite her when she finally mentioned the previous night.

‘At the risk of breaking the mood, about last night …’ Erin skimmed a slightly nervous look at him through the filigree mesh of her lashes.

‘You discovered I have no liking for cocoa.’

‘I didn’t want you to go.’

It was an admission a short time ago she would not have made, but some time over the past days her defences had lowered. It was about trust. Without even realising what was happening she had started to trust him … trust her own judgement. Startled by this discovery, she felt her throat thicken with emotional tears.

Francesco, who had stilled at the husky admission, released a long sibilant sigh. ‘I didn’t particularly want to go myself.’

Her startled eyes flew to his. ‘You didn’t?’

He shook his head. ‘But you were exhausted and—’

‘I don’t like falling asleep. Since the accident I have been having these nightmares … I wake up convinced that the baby has died.’

Francesco gave a horrified exclamation in Italian. Out of his seat in a heartbeat, he dropped on his knees beside her seat
and took her small hands between his. ‘Your hands are cold,’ he said, drawing them to his mouth and kissing each palm before enfolding them once more in his warm strong grip. ‘Why didn’t you say something about the nightmares?’ he reproached thickly.

Shoulders hunched, she gave a jerky little shrug. ‘I was being stupid, I know that. It was just a dream … the same one each time.’ She swallowed. ‘About the baby, and I know it’s stupid because even
you
can’t do much about dreams, but if I’d known you were there I wouldn’t have felt so afraid of falling asleep. I suppose I feel safe with you around.’

Francesco sucked in a deep breath; the strong angles of his lean face seemed carved of stone as he stared at her.

Lost in his eyes, Erin hardly noticed that the silence between them had stretched into minutes.

When he did speak Francesco’s accent was perceptibly thicker than normal. ‘You don’t have to be afraid of falling asleep again because I will be there.’ With a slow smile that made her stomach flip, he leaned across and cupped her chin in his hand. ‘And I will be there when you wake up, too.’

Beneath the sweep of his lashes she could see the dark liquid glow of his eyes as they moved across her face. He was so close she could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek. In her chest her heart started to thud slow and hard, banging as if it were making an escape attempt against her ribcage.

‘I would really like to kiss you,’ he said thickly.

The heat in his liquid eyes as they lingered on her mouth made her dizzy. She was drowning in a warm, languid lethargy that made her throat dry and her limbs heavy and that was drawing her thoughts dangerously towards the idea of dropping her defences completely and telling him how she really felt.

When his lips, warm and firm, touched her own a deep sigh
that was almost relief shuddered through her body. Under the skilful pressure of his mouth her lips parted.

When Francesco lifted his head she gave a soft, throaty murmur of protest.

He ran a brown finger slowly along the soft curve of her cheek and closed his eyes before pressing a long, languid kiss on her parted lips. ‘I love your mouth,’ he slurred.

And I love you,
she thought, and felt the salty moisture leak out from under her sealed eyelids.

‘I think …’ she said, trying to ease herself away from him even though every fibre in her body was reluctant to break the contact. ‘I think we should.’

‘Of course.’

The speed and apparent ease with which he disentangled himself on a physical and mental level astonished Erin, whose body was still humming with desire.

She felt the stirrings of resentment as he returned to his seat. He searched her face, the groove above his masterful nose deepening.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I was just wishing that I could turn it on and off the way you apparently can.’

She saw a look of comprehension spread across his face. ‘You did ask me to stop.’

‘I know … I know I’m being unreasonable, but you could have pretended it was difficult.’