if we can manage it. Sex would wreck that.’
‘Too complicated,’ he agreed.
She shook her head. ‘It’s actually incredibly simple. You never want to marry while I’d love to find the man of my dreams and settle down with him. If we make love here—in my real world—I would be in grave danger of falling in love with you.’
He shot back in his seat, his eyes filling with horror. The pulse in his throat pounded. ‘I...’ He gulped. ‘That would be seriously unwise.’
She snorted. ‘It’d be a disaster.’ And if they were being honest... ‘I doubt I’d make a particularly gracious jilted lover.’
He raised both hands. ‘Point taken. We keep our hands to ourselves, keep things strictly platonic and...friendship.’ He nodded vigorously. ‘We focus on friendship.’
* * *
Ryan stared at Marianna, his heart doing its best to pound a way out of his chest. There couldn’t be any sex between them. Ever again. She’d just presented him with his nightmare scenario and... Just, no. It would wreck everything.
He swallowed and tried to slow his pulse. If only he could forget the satin slide of her skin or the dancing delight of her fingertips as they travelled across his naked flesh, not to mention the sweet warm scent of her and the way he’d relished burying his face in her hair and breathing her in.
He stamped a lid on those memories and shoved them into a vault in his mind marked: Never to be opened.
Marianna lifted another spoonful of cake to her lips. He glanced at his fettuccine, but pushed the plate away, his stomach now too acid. Marianna had told him the food here was superb, world class, but it could’ve been sawdust for all he knew.
He glanced across the table and his gaze snagged hers. ‘You really don’t mean to make it difficult for me to see our child?’
Very slowly she shook her head. ‘Not if you want to be involved.’
He wanted to be involved all right. He just didn’t know what involved actually entailed. ‘So...where do we go from here?’
She halted with a spoon of cake only centimetres from her mouth.
He tried not to focus on her mouth. ‘I mean, what do we do next?’
She lowered her spoon. ‘I don’t really know. I...’ She frowned and he went on immediate alert. It had to be better for her health and the baby’s if she smiled rather than frowned.
Also, it had to be seriously bad for her health—her blood pressure—to go about hurling vases at people. He made a mental note to try and defuse all such high emotion in the future.
Her spoon clattered back to her plate and she gestured heavenwards with a dramatic flourish. ‘It feels as if there must be a million things to do before the baby arrives!’
Were there? Asking what they were would only reveal the extent of his ignorance. He hadn’t been able to shake off her horrified expression when she’d realised he’d never so much as held a baby. So, he didn’t ask what needed doing. Instead he asked, ‘What can I do?’
She folded her arms and surveyed him. She might only be a petite five feet two inches, but it took all of his strength to not fidget under that gaze.
‘You really want to help?’
‘Yes.’ That was unequivocal. He needed to help.
‘I plan to move out of the family home and into a cottage on the estate.’
He wondered if her brothers knew about this yet.
‘It’s solid and hardy, but I’d like to spruce up the inside with a new coat of paint and make everything lovely and fresh for the baby.’
It took a moment before he realised what she was asking of him. His heart started to thud. She’d told him that if he was serious about becoming a good father, his time would no longer be his own. His mouth dried. Could he do this?
He had to do this!
He reviewed his upcoming work schedule. He set his shoulders and rested both arms on the table. ‘How would it be if I spent the next month—’ four whole weeks! ‘—in Monte Calanetti? I can work remotely with maybe just the odd day trip back to Rome, and in my spare time I can help you get established in your cottage, help you set up a nursery...and in return you can tell me what you see as the duties and responsibilities of a good father?’
Her eyes widened, and he was suddenly fiercely glad he’d made the offer. ‘You’d stay for a whole month?’
It wouldn’t interfere with the Conti contract, and he didn’t kid himself—he’d only have one chance to prove himself to the mother of his yet-to-be-born child, and he wasn’t going to waste it. ‘Consider it done,’ he said.
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