Happy Mother's Day! - By Sharon Kendrick Page 0,38
around,’ he said, and then when she didn’t he spoke again. ‘I said, turn around and look at me, Aisling.’
Slowly, she complied and Gianluca sucked in a disbelieving breath as he stared at the ripe swell of the unborn child. Even out on the pavement it hadn’t seemed quite real. She could have been one of the many passers-by who played their walk-on parts in everyday life—but up here there was no denying it. The evidence was here—as large as life itself.
‘What the hell have you done?’
In a way his livid eyes and furious voice helped. At least it told her what she had suspected—that Gianluca would want nothing to do with this baby. Yet Aisling had been too independent for too long not to bristle at the unfairness of his accusation. And wasn’t justifiable anger a stronger emotion for her to hide behind? Wouldn’t that prevent her from doing something regrettable like sinking to the floor and begging him to take care of them both?
‘What have I done?’ she demanded. ‘Shouldn’t that be what have we done? Surely you know that it takes two to make a baby!’
‘But which two?’ he lashed out.
Aisling blinked at him uncomprehendingly. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘There must have been others! Other men? How many others, Aisling?’ The white-hot heat of fury that he was going to be a father and that she hadn’t told him now manifested itself in angry accusation. ‘How do I know it’s mine?’ he demanded.
Did he really think so little of her that she could pretend about something as monumental as that? Well, she certainly wasn’t going to grovel in order to try to prove herself. ‘Do you imagine that I would attempt to foist a false paternity claim on you? What would be the point of that?’ she iced back. ‘Take a damned DNA test if you don’t believe me!’
He stared her out, believing her—her defiance telling him that she spoke the truth. She was a strong woman, yes, but no woman would have been able to maintain such a huge lie about something like this—not in the face of his formidable line of questioning.
‘You told me you were protected,’ he said quietly.
How humiliating it felt to discuss it so cold-bloodedly. Like picking over the debris after a wild party when everyone else had gone home. ‘And I was.’ ‘So what happened?’
‘I had taken antibiotics and they reacted against the pill. I didn’t realise. It was an accident, Gianluca.’ ‘I see. How convenient.’
‘Really?’ Her head jerked up. ‘Convenient for whom? What are you suggesting—that I became pregnant in order to trap you?’
He didn’t answer that, just continued to fix her in the ebony spotlight of his eyes, because at the moment he needed facts before reasons. ‘When is it due?’
Aisling swallowed down the bitter taste of fear in her mouth. ‘Any day now,’ she whispered, and the answering light of comprehension which flashed in his black eyes made him look oddly vulnerable and she felt her heart twist with sudden longing. And you stop that right now, she told herself fiercely. He’s about as vulnerable as a steel trap.
Any day now. Any day now and his child would be born. Gianluca shook his head as he took in the enormity of this news. She was glaring at him like an adversary, and her attitude made him want to …
He let out a heavy sigh. To what? He didn’t know. But he could see that her skin was paler than perhaps it should have been—the beads of sweat about more than a stuffy summer’s day—and he was stricken with a momentary guilt.
‘Hadn’t we better sit down?’ he suggested. ‘You in particular.’
Proudly, Aisling drew her shoulders back, then winced as the nagging pain in her back began to grow more intense. ‘I don’t remember inviting you to stay.’
‘Sit down!’ he urged urgently.
Aisling did as he said, suddenly realising just how tense she was and as her hand fluttered instinctively over her bump she saw his eyes drawn to it with an expression of horrified fascination.
‘You need a drink,’ he said grimly. And so did he.
Pointing wordlessly towards the kitchen, she didn’t contradict him. She needed something. Anything. She felt faint. Sick—and she didn’t want to harm the baby.
It wasn’t a huge apartment and the doors along the corridor on the way to the kitchen had been left open. All bar one. He passed a gleaming white bathroom and, right beside it, a closed door.