the wildfire attraction between us as much as you do, but it’s there and we will have to deal with it because I’m not going to go away. Nico is a part of both of us and we will be forever linked by him.’
His emotive words shook Kristen and tears filled her eyes. Sergio gave her a piercing look but, when she made no response, he said, ‘I’ll sleep on the sofa tonight, and tomorrow we’ll discuss the best way we can bring up our son.’ He glanced around the untidy kitchen and his jaw hardened. ‘This place is far from ideal,’ he said disparagingly.
Kristen felt a stab of fear. Surely he wouldn’t be able to state that she was an unfit mother just because she hadn’t had time to do the washing-up?
‘I’ll go and find some bedding,’ she mumbled, seizing the excuse to get away from him while thoughts whirled around her head. She ran upstairs and paused on the landing to peep into Nico’s room. He had flung back the covers as he usually did and was cuddling Hippo. He looked utterly adorable with his halo of dark curls framing his face and his long eyelashes fanned out on his cheeks. Intense love surged up inside her. She would never give her little boy up, she vowed fiercely. She was deeply suspicious of Sergio’s insistence that he wanted to be involved with his son. The man she had known four years ago had been the ultimate commitment-phobe and it would take a lot to convince her that he had changed. Her biggest fear was that he would form a bond with Nico and then walk away when the novelty of fatherhood had faded.
She took a blanket and spare pillow from the hall cupboard, and then went into her bedroom to change out of her uniform, which felt uncomfortably damp after her attempts to wash Nico’s hair. Furious with herself for being tempted to wear her new lilac silky top that clung in all the right places, she pulled on jeans and an old T-shirt and quickly brushed her hair, but resisted the urge to put on a bit of make-up. It wasn’t as if she wanted to make herself look attractive for Sergio, she reminded herself firmly.
A tantalising aroma of spicy food met her as she walked into the kitchen, reminding her that she had been too busy to eat lunch. Sergio was opening cartons of take-away food. He had found plates and cutlery, and she saw that he had washed up the breakfast bowls.
‘I ordered Thai,’ he said, glancing at her. ‘I remembered you like it and I’m guessing you haven’t eaten tonight. There’s nothing in the fridge except for a couple of out-of-date yoghurts. What had you planned to give Nico for dinner?’
She prickled at the implied criticism in his voice. ‘I was going to call in at the supermarket on the way home from nursery. Here’s your bedding,’ she murmured, handing him the pillow and blanket.
He gave her a sardonic look when he felt the coarse woollen blanket. ‘I’ve heard of monks wearing hair shirts. Have you decided that I should serve some sort of penance?’ he queried drily.
She flushed. ‘You could always go back to your hotel.’
‘And give you an opportunity to steal Nico away?’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Not a chance, Krissie.’
His use of the nickname that only he had ever called her by twisted a knife in Kristen’s heart, but somehow she managed to give a shrug as she sat down and began to help herself to food. Sergio opened a bottle of red wine that she assumed had been delivered with the meal, but when he went to fill her glass she shook her head.
‘Not for me, thanks. I rarely drink wine.’
His brows rose. ‘Then how do you explain the half a dozen empty bottles that I put in the recycling bin?’
‘A few of my girlfriends came over last night. One of them has just gone through an acrimonious divorce and she wanted to celebrate being free and single again.’
‘And where was Nico while this drunken party was going on?’
‘It wasn’t a drunken party!’ She glared at him. ‘The girls just had a few drinks. Nico was tucked up safely in bed, and I didn’t touch any alcohol. I am a responsible parent.’
‘What about on Friday evening?’ Sergio pressed. ‘Where was Nico while you were in my bed?’
Kristen choked on a prawn ball. ‘I certainly didn’t leave him on his own, if that’s what you’re implying. My neighbour babysat. Nico was in bed asleep before I left, but he knows Sally very well, and she adores him.’
‘You still haven’t explained why you were pretending to be a waitress at the party.’
‘The waitress bit was a misunderstanding.’ Kristen’s appetite suddenly disappeared. Sergio had finished his meal and she collected up the plates and carried them over to the sink. ‘Do you want to go into the sitting room while I make some coffee? There are a few photo albums with pictures of Nico in the bureau. Feel free to take a look at them.’
She could tell he was curious to know why she was determined to change the subject of her visit to the Hotel Royale, but to her relief he made no comment as he strolled out of the kitchen.
Five minutes later, when Kristen carried a tray into the sitting room, she found Sergio inspecting her huge array of gymnastics medals and trophies that she kept in a glass cabinet.
He turned to her and took the cup of coffee she handed him. ‘Do you ever resent that you gave up your sport for Nico?’
‘Not at all, although I can’t deny that I sometimes wonder whether I would have been good enough to win a world championship title,’ Kristen replied honestly.
‘So when you returned to England and discovered you were still expecting, it didn’t cross your mind to end the pregnancy?’
She drew a sharp breath, ‘Of course not. I was devastated when I had a miscarriage, and to be told that I was going to have a baby after all was wonderful—it felt like a miracle. How could you think I might not have wanted our child?’ She couldn’t disguise the tremor of hurt in her voice.
It probably had something to do with the fact that when he had been a child his mother had frequently told him she had not planned to fall pregnant with him and his twin brother and wished she’d had a termination, Sergio thought to himself. He shrugged. ‘When we met, your pursuit of a gymnastics career bordered on obsessive. You might have considered sacrificing an unplanned pregnancy. After all, you put gymnastics before our relationship.’
‘That’s not true!’ Kristen was stung by the unfairness of his accusation.
‘You left me to devote yourself to achieving your dream of sporting glory.’
‘I left because you wanted our relationship, such as it was, to be solely on your terms. You demanded that I should give up my life—my gymnastics training, my university studies—to be your mistress, but you refused to make any compromises,’ Kristen said hotly. ‘The only thing that was important to you was your career. You travelled the world in pursuit of the next deal, the next million pounds to add to your fortune, but you refused to acknowledge that my dreams were important to me.’
She bit her lip. ‘Our relationship was just about sex as far as you were concerned, wasn’t it, Sergio?’ Her anger faded as quickly as it had flared and left her with a dull ache in her chest. There was no point in opening up old wounds. ‘You asked me to be your mistress, but in the same breath you told me that you were not interested in commitment. What did you expect me to do,’ she asked bitterly, ‘give up everything I’d worked so hard for, for an affair that might last a few months at most?’
‘I
