of steel-hard eyes boring into her, one sable brow elevated in what looked like disbelief, she squirmed inside. Was he asking himself how he had ever managed to make love—amendment, have sex—with such a creature? Lumpen, hair like wet string, clumpy shoes, old school mac out of which loomed a stomach as big as the Millennium Dome!
Fighting the appalling fizzy upsurge of hysteria, she forced herself to calm down, to forget she loathed and despised him, and to explain, slowly and clearly, flattening dangerous emotions out of her voice. ‘Please let the Rosewalls know that Nick and I will collect my van first thing in the morning. All it needs is a new battery.’ Fingers crossed! No way could she pay a big repair bill if there was anything more serious amiss.
Shivering now, wet, cold and intensely weary, she felt desperation claw at her as she took a step forward. ‘May I come in?’
Glancing up at him when he made no move to allow her entry, she felt her heart twist in alarm. His eyes were grim and his beautiful, sexy mouth was set in a cruel slash. The handsome features were taut, throwing those classical cheekbones and the arrogant blade of his nose into harsh relief.
Was he going to tell her to get lost? Force her to walk back?
He moved then. Towards her. Taking an elbow in a grip of steel, turning her. ‘I’ll drive you.’
‘That’s not necessary.’ She couldn’t hide the note of urgency in her voice, dreading the thought of being cooped up in a car with him, him repeating That Question, getting personal. ‘Nick will be more than happy to fetch me.’
His grip tightened. The pace he was setting as he steered her unwilling and yet too exhausted to fight self through the darkness to the far side of the manor house quickened. ‘I’m sure he will,’ he remarked sardonically. ‘However, you need to get out of those wet things and into a hot bath as quickly as possible.’ He tugged her to a halt before she could blunder into the parked Ferrari. ‘You do not have just your own well-being to consider now.’
He meant the baby, Anna conceded guiltily as she shoehorned herself into the passenger seat. And he was right. The whole evening had been disastrous, and she needed to get dry, warm and relaxed for her baby’s sake, but the comparative speed of that operation against the delay of waiting for Nick meant Francesco would have ample opportunity to ask That Question again, and she didn’t know how to answer him.
Her spine rigid with apprehension, she felt hot tears of sheer exhaustion flood her eyes, and she bit into the soft underside of her lower lip to stop them falling.
Tell him it was none of his business? Would he accept that? Absent himself smartly, relieved that she wouldn’t be making a nuisance of herself, demanding financial support, and—heaven forbid—making herself known to his family and causing him huge embarrassment?
It seemed a definite possibility. As a psychological profile of a guy who would trample a poor girl’s heart with as much compunction as he would trample a fallen leaf, it fitted.
Unless she steeled herself to tell a whopping lie and name some other fictional guy as the father? Claim she was just five months pregnant, putting him right out of the frame? But, given the size of her, would he be gormless enough to believe that?
Bracing herself, Anna waited. But the only question he asked was, ‘Do you still live with your parents at Rylands?’ Receiving a breathless affirmative, he said nothing more until he halted the car at the head of the weedy drive. Then he told her grimly, ‘Don’t think I’ve finished. I’ll be here first thing in the morning. And if I’m told you’re not available I’ll wait until you are.’
Driving back at the sort of speed he had earlier carefully controlled in deference to his passenger, Francesco cursed himself for failing to demand to know the identity of the father of her child.
Once set on a course of action he always pursued it with surgical precision, letting nothing stand in his way. He was single-minded, known to be ruthless when the occasion demanded—he’d had to be. Taking over the almost moribund Mastroianni business empire on the death of his father ten years earlier, he’d dragged it kicking and screaming, into the twenty-first century—not a task for an indecisive weakling.
And as for compassion for fools and knaves—forget it!
So why hadn’t he pressed home his advantage when she’d asked to use the Rosewalls’ phone? Why had he allowed her to avoid answering the burning question? No one else on the planet would have got away with it!
He should have forced the truth from her. He’d had the ideal opportunity.
Except—
She’d looked so vulnerable. Exhausted. Wet and bedraggled, like a half-drowned kitten. His primary emotion had been rage that a woman in her condition was forced to slave for those too privileged to do anything but issue orders and then sit back and wait for them to be carried out. That had been swiftly followed by the need to transport her to where she could find comfort and rest.
He expelled a harsh breath through his teeth. He had to be getting old, losing his touch!
And who the hell was Nick?
Clutching her hot water bottle, Anna crawled into bed. The bathwater had been tepid at best and her bedroom was draughty, with damp patches on the ceiling where the venerable roof leaked.
Her throat tightened. She shivered convulsively. She was being threatened. He really did mean to drag the truth from her, against all her earlier expectations he wasn’t going to shrug those magnificent, expensively clothed shoulders, discount the fact that he might be about to become a father and leave her to get on with it.
She’d read somewhere that the Latin male was deeply family orientated. The reminder made her shudder.
If only she hadn’t accepted the Rosewalls’ catering job! They wouldn’t have set eyes on each other again. And if only she’d been able to fall in love with Nick and accept the offer of marriage that had been made when her pregnancy had begun to show she’d have been a married woman, and Nick would have sworn blind the child was his. He would do anything for her. The thought depressed her.
She and Nick had been best mates since they were toddlers, and he was the kindest, gentlest person she knew. They were deeply fond of each other—always had been—and that had prompted his proposal, and the vow to care for her and the baby, look on him or her as his own.
He cared for her—she knew that—but he was not in love with her and he deserved better. One day he would meet someone who took his breath away. And she wasn’t in love with him either. What she felt for Nick was nothing like what she’d felt when she’d fallen for Francesco—
Oh! Scrub that! Punching the pillow with small, angry fists, she buried her head in it and tried to sleep.
Anna gladly left her rumpled bed at daybreak. Dressing in a fresh maternity smock, she bunched up her hair and pinned it on top of her head. Her eyes looked huge and haunted as they stared back at her from the mirror.
Turning away, disgusted with herself for being scared of the Italian Louse, because he couldn’t make her do anything she didn’t want to do, she stuffed her feet into a pair of beat-up old running shoes. The comfy flats she’d worn last night were still sodden.
She hunted for her mobile.
Nick sounded sleepy when
