CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SIX
V INCENZO SAT AT his desk in his office in Milan. He should be working, but he wasn’t. He was brooding. That was the only word for it. His expression was a study—a darkened one—and his hands were resting tightly on the arms of his custom-made leather chair. His eyes were seemingly fixed on a focal point that did not actually exist in the spacious, beautifully appointed and ferociously expensively decorated executive office, with its modernistic grey leather sofas facing each other across a low chrome and glass coffee table, backed by the floor-length plate glass window looking out over the city skyline.
In his head was circling the memory of visiting Siena two days ago. Baleful and benighted. What had it achieved? Nothing. It had only sunk them further into the impossibility of their situation. A situation neither of them wanted.
His mouth thinned.
Shackled to each other—that was what she’d said. And that was the blunt truth of it, all right. This baby, that neither of them wanted, was handcuffing them to each other. He could resent the fact that it was so all he liked—but it changed nothing.
Nothing could change the situation.
His hands tightened over the leather arms of his chair. He was trying, damn it. Trying to take the necessary responsibility, to make the necessary plans for the future. What else could he do? And for his pains she was stonewalling him totally. How did he get past that? How did he get her to drop her relentless hostility towards him? Because somehow he had to...
Resolve steeled in him. Anger, as he had said to her face, was her predominant emotion towards him—well, he had to defuse it. Bring down that wall of implacable hostility. Do whatever it took to do so.
He reached forward, lifted his desk phone, and spoke to his PA in the outer office. He told her to cancel the week’s appointments and book him a flight to London tomorrow morning.
He was going back. Whether Siena Westbrook liked it or not, wanted him or not, he was going back.
Not for him, and not for her, but for the one person who was overweeningly more important than anything he or she might want—who deserved better than a pair of angry, hostile, irresponsible adults throwing their resentment at each other.
The baby she carried.
The only thing that mattered in all this sorry mess.
Siena was kneeling on the floor, leafing through her portfolio, her spirits sinking as she did so. So short a time ago her future had been bright, finally taking off. And now it had crashed and burned. She had given up on her future once before—and now she was doing it again. Instead of looking forward to starting a new term she was scouring the Internet for affordable rental properties in places—anywhere at all—where she might want to live as a single mother of the baby that was on the way.
With a sigh she leant the portfolio back against the wall of her bedroom, then leaned back herself as well, stretching out her legs. Her hands went to her midriff. Already there was a change in her body—a rounding discernible to her, even if her clothes still hardly showed it. Within her body a hapless little baby was forming, day by day, its tiny body taking shape, limbs and organs and tissues and heartbeat...so desperately tiny, so desperately vulnerable...
So entirely and totally dependent on me.
A wave of fierce protectiveness went through her, and her fingers splayed out like a net to keep safe the tiny soul inside her.
Poor little mite... None of this is your fault, yet you are going to be the one who suffers—born to two irresponsible, selfish people who thought their own fleeting sexual pleasure so important...
She looked out across the room, but she did not see it at all. Her face was a mask of self-condemnation. Yes, she wished with all her being that she had never conceived that wretched night, but it had happened, and now she must do whatever it took not to blight the totally innocent life within her.
I’ve got to protect you...make it better for you, little one. I’ve got to! Make the best I can out of the mess that this is. I’ve got to at least try. I owe you that...
And if that meant coping—somehow—without getting so angry, so upset, so destructively emotional with Vincenzo...well, she would have to.
Because only one person mattered now. And it wasn’t her, and it certainly wasn’t Vincenzo Giansante.
Her hands pressed protectively again.
It’s you, little one—only you...
Vincenzo’s fingers hovered over the text message he was composing. Siena had walked out on him twice now—in the restaurant and in the park. He had to get past that. Get past the wall of her hostility.
Would what he intended achieve that? Well, he would find out soon enough.
He reread the message, then hit ‘send’.
I am back in London. I would like to come and see you again. I have something to say that needs to be said.
The reply came briefly.
What is it?
He tapped back.
In person. This evening? I will come to the apartment for eight.
Her reply took longer. But it came, and at least that was something.
You’re paying the rent. I can’t stop you.
His mouth tightened. Would she even be there?
Siena was pacing up and down. It was seven fifty-seven, and she was on edge. She didn’t want to see Vincenzo again. And at the same time she knew she must.
I can’t just pretend he doesn’t exist. I might want to, but I can’t. And whatever it is that he says he wants to say to me, I need to know it.
He was, as she knew, a man perfectly prepared to be ruthless. Ruthless enough to not even stick around for breakfast with her that morning after the night before. Ruthless enough to say to her what he had when she’d told him she was pregnant. Ruthless enough to throw her out of his office. Ruthless enough to threaten her with the law when she refused to co-operate on a paternity test. Ruthless enough to rent this flat and then commandeering Megan into manipulating her into moving in to it.
Ruthless all round.
A sudden longing to pour herself a glass of wine and knock it back assailed her. Going without alcohol was hard when it came to moments like this. She wondered whether to make herself a cup of tea, and see if that helped at all, but she didn’t have time to drink it. He would be punctual, she knew.
He was. She heard the front door open and turned around, facing the door into the hall.
Vincenzo walked in.
She felt tension bite inside her—or something bite, at any rate. Every time she saw him she felt his impact.
No wonder I fell for him—fell into bed with him...
No, there was no point thinking that, or remembering it. It was, after all, what caused her to be standing here now, nerves on edge, in an apartment whose rent she couldn’t have afforded for a week, let alone a month, and pregnant by the man now walking into the room.
He was wearing a business suit, pale grey, perfectly tailored with Italian flair to his lean, tall frame. His shirt was white, his tie pale grey, his hair clipped short. His features possessed whatever chemistry it was that made her—and doubtless every other female—gulp openly.
Not that she did—but she could feel the impulse to do so all the same.
She crushed it down. Vincenzo had turned up to talk to her—he had something to say, he’d said. She had to brace herself for it.
And I won’t let myself be upset by it—whatever it is. I won’t—I can’t! I have to think not about myself, only about my baby.
That was the resolve she’d made, sitting by the now useless portfolio that had won her a place at art school she could no longer take up. Letting Vincenzo upset her wasn’t good for her—let alone the baby. Vincenzo himself had told her that—and, gall her though it did, he was right.
I have to stay calm—not let my emotions boil over. Whatever he throws at me.
His eyes—dark, long-lashed and quite unreadable, so no change there, she thought resignedly—were resting on her.
‘How are you?’ he asked, his voice cool and accented.
‘The baby,’ replied Siena pointedly, because the question was not about her, and she knew that perfectly well, ‘is fine.’
A frown flashed briefly, as though her answer, and the pointedness with which she’d made it, displeased him.
‘And yourself?’ he pursued.
She gave half a shrug. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I’m having, it seems, a very healthy pregnancy.’
She took a breath, wanting to cut to the chase, not wanting to let her fragile, flammable emotions flare up when she was trying so hard to stay cool and calm—the way he was being. For now, at least.
‘Your text said you had something to say to me.’
Tension had entered her voice. She could hear it. So, it seemed, could he. Because he made a slight gesture with his head, as if to negate her reaction.
‘Yes, but not right now.’ His voice was clipped. His stance changed, and so did his tone. ‘Tell me, have you eaten?’
Siena shook her head. Was she supposed to provide dinner for him?
‘In which case,’ he went on, ‘there’s a restaurant nearby on Holland Park Avenue that appears tolerable.’
‘OK...’ she said guardedly.
Eating out was preferable to eating in—and, whatever it was that Vincenzo wanted to say, doing so in public might be preferable too.
She glanced at him. ‘I had better change first,’ she said.
She was wearing cotton pedal pushers and a long-sleeved tee shirt—not good enough for a swanky restaurant. Memory darted, of how she’d deliberately not dressed up the previous time. But that had been to make a point. A point she didn’t need to make a second time.
‘I’ll be two minutes,’ she said.
She kept to it, too, having simply swapped what she’d been wearing to a pair of smarter, dark blue trousers and a blue striped shirt, worn loose. She didn’t think her pregnancy showed much, but it definitely wouldn’t in the shirt. She didn’t bother with make-up, simply brushed her hair, drawing it back with a barrette. Then, staring at her reflection, she grabbed some lip gloss after all and touched it to her lips. Then she stared again.
Memory intruded suddenly—of how Megan had dolled her up that fateful evening, for that swanky party at the Falcone. Squeezing her into that tight dress, doing her make-up— over doing it, by Siena’s standards—leaving her hair loose and tumbling down her back, seeing her legs lengthened by the high heels she’d persuaded her to wear.
She’d looked totally vamped. Sex on legs...
It wasn’t me.
It hadn’t been her. The reflection that had gazed back at her that evening, with its deep eyes, lavishly lashed, scarlet mouth, wanton hair and skin-tight dress. Dressed to kill.
No wonder he thought I was up for it...
She swallowed. She had been up for it, hadn’t she? She could hardly deny it.
She shut her eyes to block out the memory of what she’d looked like that evening. Then opened them again.
Now she looked nothing like that.
Thankfully...
She grabbed a cardigan, threw it around her shoulders, slipped her feet into flat pumps, and went back out. She didn’t know what Vincenzo wanted to say to her, but she knew she had to be ready for it. She nerved herself accordingly.
He was by the sitting room window, looking out, his face in profile to her. He looked severe, but as she came in he turned. Whatever he was thinking, she didn’t have a clue.
He nodded, in lieu of saying anything, and crossed to the door, holding it open for her. She walked through into the entrance hall, opening the front door, picking up the handbag lying on a pier table next to it. They didn’t speak as they went down to the lobby, nor as they went out onto the pavement. The sun had gone and it was very slightly chilly. She was glad of the cardigan.
He still didn’t speak, and neither did she, as they paced beside each other heading for Holland Park Avenue.
The restaurant, looking swish enough for Vincenzo, was on their side of the busy road, and this early in the week was not full at this hour. She took her place at the table they were shown to, and then the business of presenting menus and ordering drinks took place, so it was some minutes before they were left alone.
Vincenzo glanced at the closed menu, but did not open it. Instead, he looked across at her. His face still had that reserved expression on it, now even more pronounced, and Siena felt a sudden shaft of apprehension. Whatever it was he’d come back to London to tell her, it was not going to be good. Nothing he ever said to her was good...
As she braced herself, Vincenzo’s inexpressive gaze rested on her, quite unreadable. Then he spoke.
‘I owe you an apology,’ he said.
Vincenzo saw Siena’s eyes widen. Whatever she’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that. But then, he thought sardonically, that was hardly surprising. Had he not resolved to say it, he wouldn’t have expected it himself.
‘I owe you an apology,’ he said again. He kept his gaze levelled on her. ‘It has been owing to you,’ he said, ‘for some time.’
He paused, as if he might be waiting for her to say What for? But that look of surprise was still paramount in her widened eyes.
‘I have behaved badly to you, for which I apologise.’
He took the slightest of breaths and kept going. This had to be done.
‘My reception of the news you came to tell me in my office was not acceptable. I apologise for it completely. Unreservedly.’
There was silence. Complete silence.
Then Siena said slowly, ‘You came to England to tell me this?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
The slightest frown creased her brow. ‘Why?’
‘Because,’ he said, ‘my apology has, as I say, been owing for some time.’
The frown did not lighten. ‘Why now?’ she said.
His right index finger smoothed along the length of the knife at his place-setting. He was trying to find the words—first in Italian, then in English—that would answer her question. They did not come easily. But they came all the same. Feeling his way with every one of them.
‘Because...’ He spoke carefully, feeling his way with every word, conscious of the tension in his voice, his jaw, his throat—his expression. His eyes were levelled, by an act of explicit will, on her closed and shuttered face. ‘Because it was holding things back—holding us apart. Because...’
He made himself go on in the same tight and guarded tone, saying what had to be said, what needed to be said, what was necessary for the future that only the words he was saying now could create. A future that had to exist. Because it was the only one that would do any justice to the reason she and he were yoked together as they were.
‘Because without it, it will be impossible for us to have any kind of...acceptable relationship within the situation in which we both find ourselves.’
A glint was suddenly in her eye. A steely one.
‘Do you mean it?’ she asked. ‘That apology?’
He would have had to have been deaf and stupid not to hear the edge in her voice—and he was neither. And he would have had to have been stupid indeed not to know that only one answer was permissible.
Whether or not I believe it myself does not matter. All that matters is the fact that it is the only means to the end I have to achieve.
‘Yes,’ he said. He paused, his eyes still levelled on her. ‘Do you accept my apology?’
For a moment her face was unreadable, her eyes masked now. Then she spoke.
‘Yes,’ she said.
Siena heard herself say it, but she wasn’t sure it was real—had she really said it?
But she had, and she knew why.
For the same reason he had brought himself to apologise to her. To make an apology she had never, for a moment, thought to hear.
But he’d made it all the same.
And I have to bring myself to accept that apology.
Because if she didn’t...
Everything that had passed between them since the moment she’d walked into his London office to tell him she was pregnant flashed before her eyes. Every ugly, vicious, biting, hostile expression of enmity and anger. Of bitterness and resentment and loathing.
It was draining from her every residue of the energy she still possessed. Draining her and destroying her...
I can’t go on like that—I just can’t.
However justified her reaction to him...
I have to let it go—I have to.
It was the same sense of deeply unwilling resolve that had gone through her as she had sat by her portfolio, hunkered down on the carpet, her hands cradling the tiny, innocent life within her. It, alone of all involved in the situation, deserved to be their priority.
We’ve got to do this—Vincenzo and I. We don’t want to—we wish each other to perdition. But we can’t go there, either of us. Because it isn’t just ourselves we’d be there...
She heard him speaking now, this man who was the other half of the tiny life growing inside her, depending on her so absolutely.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
The waiter was returning with their drinks. Vincenzo hadn’t bothered with a cocktail—he would drink wine with the meal—and for now matched Siena with her obligatory soft drink. Iced water was placed on the table as well, along with rolls and butter.
‘Shall we order?’ Vincenzo said, opening his menu.
Siena did likewise.
It was a strange moment...a strange atmosphere. So little had been said verbally—but he knew it was more than that. He felt as if he’d gone through a barrier that had not been visible, only tangible. Tension was still making his shoulders stiff, his expression severe, but now it came not from knowing that he had to say what he’d just said, but from not knowing how she would be with him now.
He busied himself scanning the menu options, giving her time to do likewise. Then, seeing her place hers flat on the table, closed his.
‘Chosen?’ he asked.
Memory suddenly hit him. That was exactly what he’d asked her when they’d removed themselves from that party to have dinner at the Falcone restaurant. When both of them had been radiating a force field neither could resist—nor had any wish to resist—and that searing sexual desire had flared between them.
For a second it almost overwhelmed him, the vividness of that memory, and of what it had led to when they’d been alone in his room, desire flaring...blazing to white-hot flame...
He slammed it down. Slammed down the memory as if to crush it out of existence.
Except its echo mocked him. The very fact that memory existed was the very reason he was here now...
With a start, he realised she was speaking.
‘Yes, I’ll have the sole Veronique,’ she was saying.
He nodded, deciding almost at random on the lamb. Then he turned his attention to the wine list. A glass or two would suffice...no need to order a bottle.
‘What will you drink?’ he heard himself asking.
‘Just another of these.’ She indicated the glass she’d been sipping from.
‘When will you be allowed alcohol again?’ he asked.
This total ban seemed alien and unnecessary to him. Did pregnant women in Italy deprive themselves so? He had no idea—he did not socialise with pregnant women either in Italy or here, or anywhere. They were an unknown species to him.
‘When I stop breastfeeding,’ came the answer.
He looked across at her. ‘You intend to breastfeed?’ he asked.
He strove to keep the question neutral, not wanting her to pick up any criticism, implied or not, in any answer she might give. This entire purpose of the evening was his attempt—finally, wearily, resignedly—to get them beyond the warfare that raged between them.
Warfare that was as wearying as it was pointless.
In his head, memory stabbed again—not of the fateful night that had led to this moment, but of her words, hurled at him repeatedly, telling him that he should leave her and go back to Italy, get on with his life, have nothing more to do with her...
Or the child she carried.
His child.
Does she really want me to do that?
She was speaking again, and he made himself pay attention to her and not to his turbid thoughts.
‘Yes, unless there’s some kind of problem. It’s nature’s way, after all...breastfeeding. It helps the baby’s immune system develop. And anyway—’ she made a face ‘—from what I’ve read so far it seems to be a lot easier than faffing about with sterilising bottles all the time.’
‘Does it not tie you to the baby?’ Vincenzo heard himself ask.
She levelled a look at him. ‘Since I don’t have anything else planned except looking after my baby, that isn’t exactly a problem,’ she said.
He frowned. ‘You mentioned previously that you’d inherited some money, so could afford to support a child.’
Whatever the sum was, judging from her clothes, it clearly did not run to anything lavish.
‘Yes,’ she acknowledged.
She added nothing more. He tried to draw her out.
‘You never did tell me what your line of work is—other than temping at your friend’s office.’
‘No, I didn’t,’ she answered shortly.
He looked across at her, trying to recall their conversation that first night over dinner at the Falcone. But there had been nothing about her life in England. They’d talked about Italy in general, and the city she was named after but had never visited. She’d been interested, and made conversation, and had not been unintelligent in her questions to him.
The waiter was there, hovering, ready to take their orders, and it was a timely distraction. As the man departed, Vincenzo drew breath. He needed to keep going with this new, tenuous neutrality between them.
‘So, what did you do before—?’ he started, and then realised the only way to finish the sentence was by saying before you found yourself pregnant by me .
But he didn’t have to say it. She said it for him.
‘Before I found myself in this unholy mess?’ she said.
She hadn’t said it angrily, or accusingly. But there was a bleakness in her voice that he could not help but hear. He could feel it reaching him, settling around them like a thickening mesh, winding around them, binding them.
Another spike of memory came, from that episode in the park—her saying, so vehemently and so bitterly, that they were handcuffed together...shackled...
Rejection flared in him. He wasn’t going back to that. He’d come here tonight specifically to get beyond that. Whatever it took.
‘Does it have to be a mess?’
He heard the words fall from him.