had made to break the news to her parents in person the week after the wedding had been a total disaster.
Her mother had gone to pieces when Erin had gently explained that she would be moving to Italy, and Francesco had not helped matters by not being at all sympathetic to her distress.
When she had taken him to task over his attitude in private he had informed her that her mother would soon find someone else to take her place as an emotional prop.
‘She is playing on your guilt, but what do you have to feel guilty about?’ he asked her.
‘I don’t feel guilty,’ Erin protested.
‘You are not responsible for your parents. It’s time you realised that they stay in their marriage, not because they have to, but because it suits them both.’
Recalling the conversation now ignited the resentment Erin had felt at the time.
‘Yes, I spoke to your mother. She has explained in some detail how the mention of my name makes you feel sick and the only thing keeping you going is the thought of taking me for all I’m worth.’
‘And you believed her!’ It made her angry that he could consider her capable of being so mercenary.
‘Was she not following your instructions?’ He shook his head incredulously and loosed a bitter laugh. ‘Believed her? One thing you are not guilty of, cara, is avarice!’ His eyes dropped and it seemed to a horror-struck Erin that he was staring at her still-flat stomach.
My God, he knows about the baby …!
She froze, her eyes wide and shocked, the colour leaking from her face. Common sense reasserted itself about a heartbeat later. A shaky sigh of relief escaped her lips as she recognised her guilt-fuelled imagination was making her read things into his expression and body language that weren’t there.
Francesco couldn’t possibly know, unless he was a mindreader. Nobody but her doctor knew and she wasn’t showing yet. In fact after the weeks of vile morning sickness she weighed less than she had ever done.
She allowed the hands she had instinctively brought up in a protective gesture to casually fall from her middle. ‘I won’t ask what I am guilty of.’
‘Your mother didn’t tell you about the calls?’
Her eyes slid from his. ‘I expect Mum was just trying to protect me.’
‘From me?’ A muscle in his lean cheek clenched. Erin’s head lifted. ‘It’s what mothers do.’ ‘Not yours, I think,’ he drawled.
Erin’s eyes flashed. ‘How dare you criticise my mother?’
‘You are angry because you know I am right,’ he observed with unforgivable accuracy. ‘However, I did not come here to discuss your mother.’ I came here to hear you tell me you are carrying my child. ‘There are things we need to discuss.’
As Erin met his dark eyes her secret had never felt more of a burden. She gave an indifferent sniff.
‘You’re miserable?’ He looked as though the idea did not displease him. ‘Well, if you are it’s your own doing. You are the author of your own misery, Erin.’ And mine.
The claim made her stare. ‘Me …!’ She loosed an incredulous laugh.
He bared his teeth in a white humourless smile. ‘Yes, you!’ he flung back, dragging a shapely hand through his dark hair. ‘From the outset you did not trust me. Every absence you expected me to account for, every woman I spoke to you regarded with suspicion.’ Breathing hard, Francesco fought to contain his escalating resentment and anger.
‘You weren’t talking to that woman, you were kissing her!’ The knife-cut of jealousy and betrayal was just as painful now as it had been on that night.
‘Erin, she had been drinking champagne—she kissed me.’
His dismissive shrug made Erin see red. Breathing hard, she pinned him with an angry glare. She doubted he would dismiss it so readily if the situation had been reversed!
Of course he’d managed to make the entire situation seem perfectly innocent, but how many times had she seen her father offer a totally plausible explanation for his serial philandering? He had been so convincing that half the time her mother had ended up apologising for doubting him! She was never ever going to fall into that trap.
‘So you’re the innocent victim?’ she suggested bitterly.
Francesco dragged an angry hand through his hair. ‘What was I meant to do … scream?’ he suggested derisively. ‘Have her arrested? Tell her my wife will think we’re in love?’
His biting sarcasm brought a fresh flush of anger to her cheeks. ‘What you were not meant to do was kiss her back,’ she