Italy's Most Scandalous Virgin - Carol Marinelli Page 0,37

said, as he did himself up, ‘that I am not in the least surprised we find ourselves here.’ For a moment there he had trusted her, had honestly believed they might stand a chance. ‘Has the money run out? How much more do you want?’

‘Dante, please...’

‘No need to beg.’ Dante deliberately misinterpreted her words. ‘Just speak with a lawyer. Though, when you do, tell them I want DNA before I respond.’

‘Do you really think I want to be in this situation?’ Mia asked.

‘Yes,’ Dante said. ‘Absolutely! I think you are exactly where you want to be—in fact, you are where you planned to be.’ He stared right at her. ‘I told you where and when to get emergency contraception.’

‘And I took it,’ Mia said.

He gave such a mocking laugh. ‘You had one job, Mia. Did I have to go and fetch the pills and watch you take them myself? No, I trusted that you would take care of it. Clearly you didn’t.’

‘Just because you’re such an expert on emergency contraception it doesn’t mean we all are. I forgot to take my motion sickness medication that night. If you’re such an expert, perhaps you should have warned me that if I vomited within three hours—’

‘I’m no expert!’ he angrily interrupted. ‘I was looking it up on my phone while you got the cases. The pharmacist should have told you.’

‘She spoke in Italian, Dante, and very fast.’ But Dante didn’t want to hear it. He was already heading out to the lounge to gather his clothes, and she was shaking and upset as she followed him. ‘Yes, I made a mistake, and, yes, this isn’t what you want. Well, guess what? I didn’t want to be pregnant either. I wanted the Romanos out of my life for good.’

‘Yet here you are,’ Dante pointed out. ‘You never wanted to be gone.’

‘Do you think I enjoyed the scrutiny? Being called a gold-digger and a whore by the press?’

‘I don’t believe you, Mia, and with good reason. You’ve been lying to me from the first day we met. You introduced yourself as his PA when you knew you were about to the blow the family apart. You masqueraded as his lover, yet that was clearly a lie, so tell me, why should I start believing what you say now? There hasn’t been a word of truth from your mouth from the very start. There’s been nothing but trouble since the day you came into our lives.’

He stalked out through the adjoining door, but then returned and took the bottle of champagne. ‘You won’t be needing this,’ he said tartly, and walked out again.

This time, it was Dante who turned the key.

CHAPTER NINE

NEITHER MIA NOR Dante got much sleep.

Mia wasn’t angry at his reaction. How could she be, when she had asked the very same questions of herself?

Well, not the DNA one, but even that she understood.

Rafael had once told her about the various paternity suits filed against him, how a woman with whom he had once had a business dinner had announced eight weeks later she was pregnant with his child, and had insisted the same right up to the return of the results. Sadly there were people willing to go to any lengths to get their hands on the Romano fortune.

No, she had never expected Dante to blindly believe and suddenly trust her, of course not.

But it still hurt that he didn’t.

Yet Dante was right, Mia thought as she peeled off her gown. Despite the chaos of her personal life, Mia clung to order and hung the dress up. Then, with shaking hands, she returned the gorgeous earrings to their box and put them in the safe, but such was her turmoil that Mia just tapped in the first numbers that came to mind. Yes, she clung to order, even removing her make-up and brushing out her hair. But even with her night-time routine and the sumptuous bed, it was impossible to sleep, for there was no real relief that Dante now knew the truth.

Dante did not sleep either.

In fact, he paced his way through the early hours of morning, tempted to go to her suite and haul her out of bed so that they could sort this out.

Except the straight black arrows of anger he aimed at her blurred when he thought of Mia flying home after the drama of the last twenty-four hours. He did not easily lean into sympathy, but conceded that he had not taken his usual care that night,