Chapter Seven
THERE WERE GOLDEN crackers and sparkling tinsel and age-old carols playing on the tinny radio.
The King had just finished his speech and a succulent turkey was glistening on the table, just waiting to be carved, and since Amy’s fiancé was a surgeon, Flora didn’t doubt for a moment that he would make a brilliant job of it.
Sitting back in her chair, she tried to appreciate the cosy scene which lay before her, thinking it was about as Christmassy as anyone could ask for.
Who cared that the tiny tree in the corner was about a tenth of the size of the one which had dominated the snowy lodge in Scotland, or that the windows of the Ealing flat badly needed replacing and the wind was whistling in through the odd crack?
Amy and Brett had organised absolutely everything and when she’d arrived back from Scotland, she hadn’t had to lift a finger.
So why wasn’t she feeling a bit more gratitude?
Why was she feeling so weird?
Because she was missing Vito like mad, despite all her best intentions to put him out of her mind?
How stupid was that?
Their departure from Scotland had gone as smoothly as clockwork.
Refusing to get into a sulk about her boss’s chauvinistic allocation of chores, Flora had cleaned the lodge so that it sparkled.
She’d even gone out and picked some sprigs of holly to display in a brass bowl on the kitchen table—and the last thing she’d heard was that the Laird’s niece and her children were en route, in time for the big day.
At least that was something to cheer her heart.
She had even taken a big bite out of the stale mince pie from the plate in front of the fireplace, to make it look as if Santa had made good his promise to come down the chimney.
A helicopter had been dispatched to take her and Vito to the airport and there they had parted company—the billionaire leaving on his private jet to Gstaad, while Flora had taken a scheduled flight to Heathrow.
She had lifted her face to his—more in hope than in expectation—but there had been no longed-for kiss, only a brief touch of his leather-gloved hand to her cheek and a murmured entreaty to take care of herself.
‘I’m sure you’ll get on with your new boss,’ he had added, and for a moment she had blinked at him in surprise, suspicious about what he meant by that.
Surely he wasn’t suggesting that she was one of those secretaries who put out for everyone she worked for?
Refusing to allow herself to fall down the neurotic rabbit hole of worrying about other people’s expectations, Flora had managed to produce a cool and non-committal smile in response.
‘Oh, I’m sure I will,’ she had agreed airily.
He had given her a brief nod and walked away and she had quickly turned her back, refusing to watch him leave for fear she might reveal her ridiculous sense of sadness.
Flora didn’t know who had arranged her journey back to London, only that she had been upgraded to the front of the plane.
But the flight was too short to make the most of the freebies on offer and for some reason her stomach had lurched when the stewardess offered her champagne.
Even the bright Christmassy lights of the capital had failed to lift her flagging spirits and neither had the brass band playing lustily outside Ealing Broadway station, as she had stuffed a crumpled note into their collection tin.
And now she was mechanically working her way through a turkey dinner she would rather have avoided but didn’t dare refuse, for fear it would arouse her sister’s suspicion. Heaven only knew but Amy was being suspicious enough already and she hadn’t eased up on her interrogation.
‘So, you’re telling me you spent the night alone in some remote lodge place with the hot billionaire?’
‘There’s no need to make it sound like that,’ said Flora crossly, sawing her way through a Brussels sprout.
‘Like what?’ questioned Amy, all faux innocence. ‘You can’t blame me for being interested when you came back looking like…’
Flora put her fork down as her sister’s words tailed off. ‘Looking like what?’
Too late she realised she had strayed into a carefully constructed trap.
‘Different!’ exclaimed Amy. ‘Dreamy. And yet you were definitely…upset. Yes, upset,’ she added, her dramatic expression giving way to a worried look. ‘What’s happened, Flo? Or rather, did something happen between you and Signor Moneybags?’
‘Will you please stop calling him that!’ howled Flora.
‘Just leave it, Amy,’ said Brett sternly. ‘It’s none of our business.’
With a monumental effort Flora managed to snap out of her gloomy mood to dutifully play her part in the upcoming festivities.
She put in a brief appearance at the New Year’s party being held by one of Amy’s doctor colleagues near the hospital where Amy and Brett had worked, and the following day she attended their small but exquisite wedding.
And somehow she didn’t cry.
Even when clouds of confetti fluttered into the icy air in a blur of dried rose petals, not a single tear had leaked from her eye.
She’d even managed to keep a cheerful countenance when she returned to Heathrow Airport to wave the newly-weds off on their new life together, though once the massive airbus had taken to the skies, she had broken down completely—gulping convulsively into a paper hankie as she stood beside the vast, plate glass windows.
‘You okay, love?’
Glancing up at the concerned face of a security guard, Flora had nodded. ‘I’m fine!’ she trilled, before noisily blowing her nose.
Except that she wasn’t. She wasn’t fine at all, not by anyone’s measure, though it took a while before she was prepared to admit it.
At first she was too busy to think much about it, welcoming Dante Antonelli into the office as the new CEO and making sure that everything ran smoothly.
If anything, the former racing car driver was even better looking than Vito, but, unlike every other woman in the building, Flora barely noticed him.
She started keeping her head down, just like in the old days.
She had vowed to seek out a different career path in the New Year and find something which suited her better, but suddenly she didn’t have the energy.
What had happened to her energy levels? Why had the lightest shower of rain started deterring her from cycling in to work, so that she would slouch onto the bus instead?
She knew why, no matter how much she tried to deny it.
She tried telling herself that even if she was pregnant—even if she was—then no way could she have known about it so early on.
But the truth was that she’d felt completely different from day one.
Would it be fanciful to conclude that she’d felt a tiny burst of something bright and fierce, just after Vito had made love to her—as if he had put brand new life in her?
Maybe it would, but then she started feeling exceptionally tired in the afternoons and—controversially—she had gone right off lime marmalade.
In fact, she couldn’t face breakfast at all and it was usually her favourite meal of the day.
Eventually she was forced to face the incontrovertible evidence of two positive pregnancy tests done in quick succession in the cramped bathroom of her Ealing flat.
Sitting back on her heels on the chilly lino, Flora stared in horror at the two blue lines which appeared on the tester.
She thought back to the very last time they’d made love, all early morning sleepiness and fumbling fingers…
had they failed to ensure the condom was properly in place before they started having sex?
Her heart was pounding and her mouth was dry.
She was going to have a baby.
The thought raced round and round inside her head, like a cyclist in a velodrome.
She was going to be a mother.
More than that, Vito Monticello was going to be a father.
A father.
It was worse than she could have thought possible. The Italian billionaire didn’t want children. He’d told her that. Quite coldly and clearly.
Flora’s fingers were shaking so much that she had to put the test down.
If only she could have wound the clock back and behaved differently on that snowy night.
She wouldn’t have told Vito she fancied him—she would have kept that nugget of useless information to herself.
She would have remained cool and aloof and ignored all the hot sexual chemistry which had been pulsing between them.
And then he wouldn’t have softly challenged her.
Nor pushed her down on the rug and taken her panties off so that her thighs had parted eagerly, greedy for his thrust. He would have chivalrously slept on the sofa as he’d offered, while she would have been alone in that big brass bed.
The worst thing that would have happened would have been having to endure a long and sleepless night while she thought longingly about the man downstairs.
And wouldn’t that have been for the best?
It might have kept her dreams manageable, which currently they were not.
Because she couldn’t deny a splinter of hope which had lodged itself in her foolish heart as she’d wondered whether Vito would change his mind about never wanting to see her again.
Whether he would have second thoughts and ring her up, even if it was to carelessly enquire how she was doing.
Or send a casual email, mentioning he was planning a trip to London and then maybe the conversation would have naturally worked its way to a suggested meet-up.
At least she could have told him about the baby in a civilised way, if he invited her out to dinner.
But he hadn’t. There hadn’t been a whisper from him and Flora had made herself accept the bitter truth.
Not only did Vito Monticello not want any children, it seemed he didn’t want a girlfriend either. Or at least, he didn’t want her.
Had she really thought he would?