other changes were taking place within that gorgeous form...?
A stark image came into his mind of the perfection of her breasts, the way they seemed to have been made to fit his hands... If he closed his eyes he could still taste them, taste her...
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked abruptly, forcing thoughts of her naked body from his mind as he sat on the cold stone beside her.
‘About as well as can be expected,’ she replied after a long pause.
‘I never asked last night how you’re coping with the pregnancy—physically, I mean.’
Another pause. ‘So far I’ve been lucky. No morning sickness or anything.’
‘I’ve made a few calls and rearranged my schedule so I can stay in Milan for a few days. First thing tomorrow morning, we’re going to see your doctor.’
‘I’ve got a shoot to do.’ She cast sharp eyes at him. ‘And, before you accuse me of being selfish again, I’d like to point out that for me to cancel the shoot would mean a good dozen people’s schedules being thrown. We can see the doctor in the afternoon.’
At least she was willing to see a doctor with him. That was a start.
‘Does this mean you are in agreement to us marrying?’
She fell silent for a few moments, tucking a strand of hair behind an ear. ‘If we marry, we both automatically become our child’s legal guardian.’
‘I am aware of that.’ It was one of the things he wanted—his paternity to be recognised by law. Marriage might be destructive and capable of ruining people but it was the only way he could ensure his child had his protection. For that reason alone he was prepared to do it. For their child’s sake, it was no sacrifice.
She stared at him. ‘If anything happens to me, you have sole responsibility.’
He felt his blood chill at the sudden solemnity in her tone. ‘Why are you talking like this?’
‘Do you know how my mother died?’ she asked in that same thoughtful tone.
‘Rocco never liked to talk about her other than to say she’d died when he was seven.’ Alessandra would have been a baby, he realised, doing the maths for the first time.
Her gaze didn’t falter. ‘She died having me.’
Theos...
‘Rocco never said.’ He shook his head, trying to digest her words.
‘Rocco suffered the most out of all of us.’ A faraway look formed in her eyes before she blinked it away and cleared her throat.
‘What happened to her?’ he asked, rubbing his chin, trying to imagine the Mondelli siblings as they’d been then: Rocco a child of seven, and Alessandra, so fresh and new-born she’d barely taken her first breath before her mother had been taken away from her forever.
He racked his pounding brain, trying to remember the age Rocco had been when he’d gone to live with Giovanni Mondelli, their grandfather. Eight, if he was recollecting correctly, which meant Alessandra had been a year at the most.
She’d never known the love of either a mother or a father.
At least his own mother had been there. For all her faults, she’d never abandoned him or reneged on her responsibility as a mother.
‘She suffered from severe pre-eclampsia,’ Alessandra said, her husky voice soft.
Red-hot anger flooded through him, pushing away the ache that had formed in his chest at learning of the tragic circumstances of her birth. ‘Why the hell haven’t you seen a doctor yet?’
‘It doesn’t affect women until the later stages of pregnancy. For the time being, I’m fine. My mother didn’t know what she was dealing with—she’d already given birth to a healthy child without any complications. Medicine has advanced a lot since then and we can prepare for it. The odds of anything happening to me are remote. But—and this is why I’m saying this now, before I agree to anything—if the worst happens then I need to know that you will rise to your legal and moral duty and raise our child.’
‘I would never abandon our child,’ he said harshly. ‘I’ve lived without a father; I know what it’s like to wonder where you’re from. I will never let our child wonder who I am.’
‘My father said that to my mother. He promised he would love and care for us but he broke it—he broke the promise he made to a dying woman. He abandoned me. He abandoned Rocco.’
‘I am not your father. What he did was despicable. After the way my own father abandoned me, I would never give up my own flesh and blood.’
‘I have to trust that you won’t be like either of our fathers but I find trusting people, especially men, very hard. If I stay single, then I can nominate the guardian of my choosing.’
If fire could have shot from eyes then what burned from Christian’s would have had her in flames.
‘I will never allow that,’ he ground out. ‘I would fight for our child through every court in every land.’
The tension that had been cramping Alessandra’s belly throughout the conversation loosened a touch.
She believed him.
Their child would have a father. A proper father.
She just had to hope her trust in this respect wasn’t misplaced. For her child’s sake, she had to try.
‘I’m sorry for being melodramatic. I just need to be sure. We both need to be sure. If we marry then that’s it—we’re married. For better or worse. And, if I agree, I want you to promise that you will be discreet in your affairs.’
His head twisted at her abrupt change of direction. ‘My affairs?’
‘I’m not stupid,’ she said with what she hoped sounded like nonchalance. If she was going to marry him, she would do it with her eyes open.
Christian was an attractive man—oh, to hell with such an insipid description, he was utterly gorgeous. He had the most beautiful eyes she’d ever seen in a man, a real crystal-blue that made her think of calm, sunlit oceans. When he fixed them on her, though, her internal reaction was turbulent; a crescendo of emotions she struggled to understand.
The way he’d made her feel that night...
He was used to women throwing themselves at him. She wasn’t so naïve as to believe marriage would tame him. Theirs was not a love match. ‘Our loyalty will be primarily to our child but I do not want the humiliation of your liaisons being paraded on the front pages of the tabloids. All I ask is that from now on you choose your lovers wisely.’
He inhaled sharply before expelling the air slowly. If his jaw became any more rigid she feared it would snap. ‘Anything else?’ he asked icily.
She refused to drop her gaze. ‘Only that if we marry I won’t be taking your name.’
Now
