Chapter Eleven
‘I’M NOT PREGNANT.’
Alannah’s voice sounded distorted—as if it were coming from a long way away, instead of just the other side of his desk—and Niccolò didn’t say anything—at least, not straight away.
He wondered why his heart had contracted with something which felt like pain.
Whether he’d imagined the cold taste of disappointment which was making his mouth bitter.
He must have done. Because wasn’t this the news he’d been longing for?
The only sane solution to a problem which should never have arisen?
He focused his eyes to where Alannah sat perched on the edge of a chair opposite him and thought how pale she looked.
Paler than the thick white lanes through which they’d walked on Christmas Day, when the snow had trapped them in that false little bubble.
Her blue eyes were ringed with dark shadows, as if she hadn’t been sleeping.
Had she?
Or had she—like he—been lying wide-eyed in the depths of the night, remembering what it had felt like when they’d made love and then fallen asleep with their limbs tangled warmly together?
He flattened the palms of his hands flat on the surface of his desk. ‘You’re sure?’
‘One hundred per cent.’
He wondered why she had chosen to tell him here, and now. Why she had come to his office after successfully negotiating a ten-minute slot in his diary with Kirsty. And Kirsty hadn’t even checked with him first!
‘Couldn’t you have chosen a more suitable time and place to tell me, rather than bursting into my office and getting my assistant to collude with you?’ he questioned impatiently. ‘Or is it just a continuation of your determination to keep me at arm’s length?’
‘I’ve been busy.’
That was usually his excuse. He leaned back in his chair and studied her. ‘You won’t even have dinner with me,’ he observed coolly.
‘I’m sure you’ll get over it,’ she said lightly.
His gaze didn’t waver. ‘I thought you said you’d enjoyed our “experiment” over Christmas—so why not run with it a little longer? Come on, Alannah.’ A smile curved his lips. ‘What harm could it do?’
Alannah stared at him. What harm could it do?
Was he serious? But that was the trouble—he was.
Unemotional, cynical and governed by nothing but sexual hunger—Niccolò obviously saw no reason why they shouldn’t continue with the affair.
Because it meant different things to each of them.
For him, it was clearly just an enjoyable diversion, while for her it felt as if someone had chipped away a little bit of her heart every time she saw him. It was being chipped away right now.
She had chosen his office and a deliberately short appointment in which to tell him her news in order to avoid just this kind of scene.
She’d actually considered telling him by phone but had instinctively felt that such a move would have been counterproductive.
That he might have insisted on coming round to confront her face to face and her defences would have been down.
It was bad enough trying to stay neutral now—even with the safety of his big oak desk between them.
Sitting there in his crisp white shirt and tailored suit, Niccolò’s face was glowing with health and vitality and she just wanted to go and put her arms around him.
She wanted to lean on him and have him tell her that everything was going to be okay.
But he didn’t want a woman like her leaning on him and anyway—she was independent and strong.
She didn’t need a man who could never give her what she wanted, and what she wanted from him was love. Join the queue, she thought bitterly.
‘You haven’t done anything,’ she said. ‘You haven’t made or broken any promises. Everything is how it’s supposed to be, Niccolò. What happened between us was great but it was never intended to last. And it hasn’t.’
‘But what if…?’ He picked up the golden pen which was lying on top of the letters he’d been signing and stared at it as if he had never really seen it before. He lifted his gaze to hers. ‘What if I wanted it to last—at least for a little while longer? What then?’
Alannah tensed as fear and yearning washed over her—yet of the two emotions, the yearning was by far the deadlier.
‘And how long did you have in mind?’ she questioned sweetly. ‘One week? Two? Would it be presumptuous to expect it might even continue for a whole month?’
He slammed the pen down. ‘Does it matter?’ he demanded. ‘Not every relationship between a man and a woman lasts for ever.’
‘But most relationships don’t start out with a discussion about when it’s going to end!
’ She sucked in a breath and prayed she could hold onto her equilibrium for a while longer.
‘Look, nothing has changed. I’m still the same woman I always was—except that I have you to thank for helping me lose some of my inhibitions.
But I still don’t know who my father was and I still have the kind of CV which would make someone with your sensitive social antennae recoil in horror.
Appearances matter to you, Niccolò. You know they do.
So why don’t you just celebrate the fact that you had a lucky escape and that we aren’t going to be forced together by some random act of nature.
’ She rose to her feet. ‘And leave me to finish off Alekto’s apartment in time for his party.
The caterers are arriving tomorrow, and there are still some last-minute touches which need fixing. ’
‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘I haven’t finished yet.’
‘Well, I have. We’ve said everything which needs to be said. It’s over, Niccolò. I’m not so stupid that I want to hang around having sex with a man who despises everything I stand for!’
‘I don’t despise what you stand for. I made a lot of judgements about you and some of them were wrong.’
‘Only some of them?’ she demanded.
‘Why can’t you just accept what I’m offering? Why do you have to want more?’
‘Because I’m worth it.’ She hitched the strap of her handbag over her shoulder. ‘And I’m going now.’
He rose to his feet. ‘I don’t want you to go!’ he gritted out.
‘Tough. I’m out of here. Ciao.’
And to Niccolò’s amazement she picked up her handbag and walked out of his office without a backward glance.
For a moment he stood there, stunned—as the door slammed behind her.
He thought about rushing after her, about pulling her into his arms and kissing her and then seeing whether she was so damned certain their relationship was over.
But that would make it all about sex, wouldn’t it?
And sex had always been the least troublesome part of this equation.
Besides, Kirsty was buzzing through to tell him that his eleven o’clock had arrived, so he was forced to concentrate on listening to what his architect was saying, rather than on a pair of stubborn pink lips he still wanted to crush beneath his own.
By seven o’clock that evening, he decided that Alannah had been right.
Better to end it now, before she got in too deep—because it wouldn’t be fair to break her heart as he had broken so many others.
She would start falling in love with him.
She would want more from him than he was capable of giving.
Better they both recognised his limitations now.
He glanced up at the clock again. Maybe he should start as he meant to go on. Dinner with someone new would surely be the way to go. A civilised dinner with someone who didn’t get under his skin the way she did.
He flicked through his address book, but none of the long list of names excited him enough to pick up the phone.
He had his driver drop him home and worked in his study until way past midnight.
But still he couldn’t sleep. He kept remembering when Alannah had spent the night with him there and, even though the linen had been laundered, he thought he could still detect the unique scent of her skin on his sheets.
He thought about the cottage. About the tree-lights and the snow.
About that unreal sense of quiet satisfaction as he had cooked her Christmas lunch.
The way they had fallen asleep on the sofa after they’d made love.
Hadn’t that been like the closest thing to peace he’d felt in a long, long time?
And that was all make-believe, he told himself fiercely. As insubstantial as Christmas itself.
He lay and watched the luminous numbers on his clock changing slowly and just before his alarm was due to go off a text arrived from Alekto Sarantos.
Don’t be late for my party! Beautiful women and a beautiful apartment—what better way to see in the new year? A
Niccolò stared blankly at the screen of his mobile phone, telling himself that a party was exactly what he needed, and didn’t Alekto throw some of the best parties he’d ever been to?
But just the thought of it left him cold.
Tugging on his running gear, he got ready for the gym and wondered why his eyes looked so shadowed and haunted.
But deep down, he knew exactly why.
‘It is spectacular.’ Alekto Sarantos smiled as he looked around the main reception room, his blue eyes gleaming. ‘You have transformed my apartment, Alannah—and you have worked against the clock to get it done in time for my party. Efkaristo poli. I thank you.’