their marriage and make as if it had never happened.
He was acting as if they had never created a baby together. As if that brief little life had never existed.
Her heart contracted with pain and suddenly Nicole knew that she couldn’t carry on not knowing. Maybe that was why this whole relationship felt so...unfinished. She recognised now that she must shoulder some of the blame, because she had run away rather than face up to their issues. But she was here now, wasn’t she? Maybe it needed to be resolved once and for all before either of them could have true peace. Was it that which gave her the courage to come right out and say it? The sense that she would never get the answers she sought unless she pushed for them, no matter how painful that might be?
She removed her dark glasses and looked at him. ‘Okay,’ she said, sitting back in the chair. ‘We’ve both accused the other of never discussing our true feelings—’
‘I don’t remember putting it exactly like that,’ he said.
‘You called me an enigma,’ she pointed out. ‘So why don’t we agree to ask each other a question and then answer it truthfully? No excuses—and no getting out of it.’
‘You’re proposing some kind of party game?’
‘Don’t deliberately misunderstand me, Rocco. That’s not what it’s about.’
His flattened lips indicated a lack of enthusiasm which bordered on contempt. ‘No? And the purpose of this interrogation is...what?’
It was a bad sign he even had to ask but Nicole wasn’t going to back down now. She leaned across the table towards him. ‘Couldn’t you just do it, Rocco? Just this once. Just to humour me?’
‘Very well.’ He gave an impatient sigh. ‘As long as you are prepared to ask first.’
How typical of him to say that! Nicole took a deep breath and started to speak and the words came rushing out before she had a chance to question the wisdom of saying them. ‘You only married me because I was pregnant, didn’t you?’
There was a pause. ‘Yes,’ he said at last.
She felt her heart twist as if someone were turning a corkscrew in her chest. She’d known that all along—so why did it hurt so much? Did hearing him say it mean she could no longer pretend that her brief marriage had been anything more than a sham?
She was tempted to abandon the conversation but forced herself to continue. After all, they’d come this far—which was further than they’d ever come before. Why stop now? ‘Now you,’ she said, praying for him to address the subject they’d both shied away from for so long. She’d given him a lead by talking about her pregnancy—all he had to do was take it from there and confront the dark space which linked them both. ‘Your turn.’
He took a sip of coffee before turning the full brilliance of his sapphire gaze on her. ‘That’s easy.’ His voice dipped into a seductive caress. ‘Did you enjoy last night?’
Nicole blinked and stared at him in dismay, unable to believe he’d come out with something so...so...superficial. Was that the only thing which mattered to him? Sex? She swallowed. Maybe it was. Sex had been the thing which had brought them together and remained the only thing which united them.
‘You mean, was I satisfied?’ she demanded, her temper suddenly flaring. ‘Yes, of course I was. You’re very good at satisfying a woman, Rocco—but you don’t need me to tell you that.’
It had been a mockery of a question and she suspected he’d asked it simply to even the score. To make him an equal player in this ‘game’—or maybe warn her against ever trying to do something like this in future. But his attitude infuriated her. Couldn’t he have done the bigger thing and asked her about something which mattered? No, of course he couldn’t—because Rocco Barberi didn’t do feelings. He acted like a machine and expected everyone else to do the same. And suddenly she knew she couldn’t let this opportunity go. She was going to say it, no matter how much it angered him, or how much it brought back the pain. Because she needed to say it.
‘You never talk about our child, Rocco.’
She saw a shadow briefly cloud his face but if she’d been expecting heartache, or anger, or pain, or longing, or any of the dark stream of emotions which had dragged her down into the depths of despair so many times, then she was about to be disappointed. Because Rocco was putting his cup down on the saucer as calmly as if she’d just asked him how often it rained in Monaco, his rugged features as impassive as she’d ever seen them, his blue eyes their habitual shade of cold.
‘What is there to talk about?’ he questioned tonelessly. ‘It happened and there’s nothing we can do to change it. We both wish it hadn’t, but there you go.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t think there’s anything more I can add to that and neither do I intend to.’
She wanted to shake him. To rail at him. To accuse him of being unfeeling and heartless—but how could she do that when he’d never pretended to be otherwise? Everything she’d ever wanted from Rocco Barberi, he was incapable of giving her. She had been determined to somehow win his love if only she tried hard enough. But love wasn’t a competition you could win, she realised—and even if it was, surely having a winner would imply there had to be a loser.
And she didn’t want to be that loser.
She didn’t want to be anchored by the past. She wanted to be free of heartache and regret. Of him.
Briefly she thought about getting up from the table and telling Rocco she was going back to England and if he wanted to make her wait for her divorce, then she would just have to suck it up. But she had run away once before and where had that got her? It had left her with an underlying feeling of failure, no matter how many modest achievements she’d managed to chalk up along the way. Wasn’t facing up to the truth like this—in a way they had never done in their marriage—a therapy of some kind, even if it hurt like hell?
But Rocco didn’t hurt, did he? Rocco didn’t give anything away. Not then and certainly not now.
Pushing back her chair, she rose to her feet and flung her napkin over her uneaten toast. ‘Oh, what’s the point of trying to talk to you?’ she said. ‘So why don’t I make it easy for you, Rocco? Let’s just spend the day apart and I’ll join you for your cocktail party later. That way neither of us will have to endure a second more of each other’s company than we need to. I’ll be there for you in public and that’s what matters. That was the deal, wasn’t it?’
Rocco’s eyes narrowed. He was aware that he had hurt her and wondered if that had been deliberate. Part of him had suspected that his blunt answers to her unwanted questions would have her running for the hills again—and wouldn’t that have been simpler? Things were certainly less complicated when Nicole wasn’t around, because she was turning into a constant stream of surprises. For a start, she wasn’t intimidated by him. Not any more. She had the courage to ask him stuff and had been surprisingly calm when he’d given her the brutal truth.
At times during that uncomfortable conversation, she had clearly been trying to hold back her own feelings. There had been anger on her face and bitterness, too. And pain, of course—plenty of that. But no tears. He found himself wondering if it was a struggle for her to maintain that politely enquiring expression and from somewhere he felt the unfamiliar stab of his conscience. Had he been unnecessarily harsh with her?
‘Yes, that was the deal,’ he
