Happy Mother's Day!

chapter NINE


GIANLUCA was angry when the plane touched down at the private airfield outside London and even angrier when his car became snarled in a jam outside the capital.

‘Can’t you hurry it up?’ he demanded.

The chauffeur shot a quick glance in his mirror. ‘I can try, sir.’

To give the man his credit, he did. They passed the river and then row upon row of narrow streets, crammed with houses which looked tiny to Gianluca’s eyes.

‘We’re here, sir.’

‘Pull up a little way back,’ Gianluca instructed—because instinct made him want to see her before she saw him. As the car pulled to a halt in front of a tall house, not far from the tube station, Gianluca sat there—brooding and waiting.

How things could change, he thought—and how quickly.

Earlier that day, he had risen from his bed and showered, slid into one of his immaculate suits and drunk some coffee. He had been excited about a new merger—but even more excited about setting up a school sports programme which was to be affiliated with the new football stadium.

Before his breakfast had even been completed he had arranged to buy a new helicopter and refused the opportunity to take part in a forthcoming television series about successful tycoons. Overall, his feeling as he had been driven to work had been one of a quietly underlying sense of satisfaction. The world according to Gianluca.

And then had come Aisling’s phone call.

Apparently he was going to be a father!

Cancelling all his meetings, he had made a few calls before immediately arranging a plane to take him to England. During the flight and the drive from the airport, his thoughts had spun round and round in an unchanging circle as he tried to work out the approximate date of the last time he’d slept with her. Because if she was telling the truth and he was the father of her child as she had implied—then the baby must be due any time soon!

He stared out at the tree-lined road. It was the most beautiful English summer’s evening—with the intense green leaves of the trees almost blocking out the bright blue of the sky above. Sunlight dappled through the available space, making bright, unmoving patterns on the dusty pavement—for there was not a trace of wind.

But Gianluca found himself looking at it with a highly critical eye. This place was pleasant enough, yes—but it was surrounded by the rest of the city with its noise and crowds and potential dangers. Was this where she planned to bring up the baby? In a culture so alien to his own? And was she intending to give him any say in the matter?

And then he saw a woman walking down the road, walking slowly and rather awkwardly as if the weight of the bags she carried and the heat of the late afternoon were proving too much.

His eyes narrowed and for a moment he didn’t recognise her, even though the jacket of her pale summer suit had been cut cleverly in an attempt to conceal her pregnancy. But there was no tailor in the world—no matter how talented—who could disguise the tell-tale signs of impending birth and Gianluca stared at her incredulously as she grew closer.

Madonna mia—but this could not be Aisling!

Narrowing his eyes, he realised he hadn’t thought of the baby in real terms—his head had known the facts, but his heart had refused to accept them. He must have slept with her last … last November. He knew that. But time passed and you barely noticed it. That was how lives went by.

Yet this.

He swallowed.

This was a physical manifestation of time passing—because Aisling looked as if she could give birth at any moment!

For a moment, a dark tide of fury washed over him as he acknowledged that she had kept him out of the loop right until the very end. How dared she? How dared she?

His heart was pounding but he sucked in a deep breath because instinct told him that he must tread very carefully. That he needed to know what her game was. If ever there was a time when he needed his ability to think logically, it was now.

He let her walk right past.

She didn’t notice the car. Didn’t stop to glance at the shadowed figure sitting statue-still in the back seat. He could see the faint beads of sweat on her pale forehead and watched while she walked up to her front door and put the carrier bags down, briefly searching around inside her handbag before pulling out a set of keys.

He waited until the front door had shut behind her. Like a tiger who forced himself to linger despite knowing that his prey lay waiting, Gianluca made himself stay in the car for a full five minutes. And then he stepped out.

‘Wait here,’ he told the driver.

‘Any idea how long you might be, sir?’

‘None,’ Gianluca clipped out and walked up to the door.

It was clearly an apartment—for there were several bells—and he jammed his thumb on the one which said ‘A. Armstrong'. And then he remembered her telling him that she lived in a one-bedded apartment!

Her voice—sounding disembodied—floated out from the intercom. ‘Hello?’

‘Hello, Aisling,’ he said silkily.

In her stuffy apartment, Aisling’s knees went weak and she slumped against the wall, and that was just pure physical reaction to the sound of his deeply sonorous voice. She had known he would come, yes—of course she had—and yet the reality of his impending presence was like a fierce body-blow.

‘Gianluca?’ she said uncertainly.

‘Just open the door, Aisling.’

At least his quietly furious voice gave her some clue what to expect. Weakly, she lifted her hand to buzz him in, when that horrible tight sensation in her back which had been plaguing her since yesterday caught her off guard, and she hesitated.

‘Open the door!’

Sucking in a deep breath to try to ease the spasm, she pressed the entry button and then went to stand beside the French windows she’d just opened—as if trying to put as much space between them as possible.

Stay calm, she told herself. Just stay calm.

But that was easier said than done. Her heart was pounding so rapidly and so loudly that she was worried about the baby. The baby. She felt the hot shudder of her breath as the tightening in her back increased. Why the hell was she getting back pain at a time like this? Hearing the sound of his approaching footsteps, she turned to look out at the garden, not wanting to see his face. Not daring to.

Why, Aisling? Frightened you’ll give yourself away—let him know that you can’t get him out of your head, and now he’s embedded his seed in your body, too.

Shutting the door with a click which sounded like a gun hammer being cocked, Gianluca stopped and stared at her for one long moment. From the back she looked no different. Just a tall, slim woman in a linen skirt and silk shirt, her dark hair caught up in a chignon—though, unusually, a couple of strands of it had escaped and were clinging damply to the back of her long neck.

‘Turn 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.

He knew he shouldn’t open it. That this was her place and itwasn’t his right to do so. Yet what Gianluca had learnt had turned his whole world upside down. Did she have the monopoly on secrets? Did she control all the information which flowed in and out of his life? Like hell she did!

Quietly, he turned the door handle and just stood there, as if he had been carved from rock. For this was Aisling’s bedroom, yes—with its big bed and its neat counterpane. And off the bedroom was what must have once been a dressing room and which she was now clearly intending to act as a nursery. Silently, he walked towards it and it was as alien to his life as if a meteor had crashed in through the ceiling and embedded itself on the soft, primrose-coloured carpet.

She must have spent years wanting and waiting for this baby, he thought—because the tiny room was furnished with loving care and precision to detail. Yellow seemed to be the main colour. Did that mean she didn’t yet know the sex—or was that something else she was withholding from him?

There was an old-fashioned crib draped with gauzy material, which had some kind of gold thread running through it—making it look like a canopy of sunshine. There was a mobile hanging over it, composed of different animals—both wild and domestic—and Gianluca’s mouth curved as his fingers drifted over the sleek body of a tiger.

Quietly, he shut the door and his eyes were hooded when he returned to the sitting room a couple of minutes later, with a beaker of iced water for her and a glass of wine for himself. She took the tumbler from him with shaking fingers and gulped some down, spilling a little as she did—so that drops of it splashed over the material which strained over her bump.

But he didn’t sit down, he just drank off half a glass of wine with a speed he’d never used before and stood staring down at her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’ he demanded.

Why, indeed? Because she was frightened of his reaction? And hadn’t she been right to be—judging by the thunderous look on his face? ‘There never seemed to be a right time,’ she said.

‘So you wait until now—when it is almost over,’ he said bitterly.

She looked at him. ‘Over? It hasn’t even begun, Gianluca.’

‘Madre di Dio!’ he exclaimed, in a strangled voice as the monumental significance of what had happened really hit home and he half wanted to turn his back and to walk away from her—to erase her and this unplanned baby from his life. Yet there was part of him which wanted to go over to her, to take away her hand and to lie his own over her belly—perhaps to feel the infant kick beneath him.

He took another swallow of his wine and looked away. He must keep focussed and deal with the facts, he reminded himself. Then, and only then, would he be able to decide what action to take.

‘You planned this?’ The accusation cracked out like a pistol shot.

‘Planned it?’ Aisling looked up at him in confusion and then realised what he meant. ‘You think … you think I got pregnant on purpose?’

‘Did you?’

She balled her hands into two tiny fists, wanting to scream and shout and flail, but recognised that all these were indulgences she could ill afford—and especially not at a time like this. This was Gianluca she was dealing with. Il Tigre at his most calculated even though his bitter words were coated in anger. She needed to keep all her wits about her—because if there was one thing she could count on, it was that Gianluca was going to be keeping his.

‘No. I didn’t get pregnant on purpose. Why would I do something like that?’

He gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Oh, come on! Use your imagination, cara. I happen to know you have a very good one. Any woman having a child of mine would be set up for life!’

Even in the midst of her disquiet such an audacious piece of chauvinism made her blink. ‘That’s rather an extreme method of guaranteeing financial security, isn’t it?’ she questioned drily.

She saw his eyes narrow in surprise and suddenly knew that this was the way to go. She needed to stand up to him. She must not go to pieces. Because he was a powerful man—he exuded influence and authority from every fibre. She could feel it radiating from his spectacular body as he stood there, darkly intimidating—an interloper in her home. And yet she carried that interloper’s child inside her. Biologically, at least, she was tied to this man for life.

‘Well, you needn’t worry on that account, Gianluca—I’m not asking you for anything.’

‘Then why did you bother telling me?’ he flashed out.

‘Because—strange as it may seem—I felt that, as the father, you had a right to know.’ Aisling put her empty glass down with a thud. ‘But now I’ve done the right thing, you can forget all about it. I can see from your face that this is unwanted—so why don’t you just go away and leave me alone?’

‘Go away?’ he echoed in disbelief. ‘Are you out of your mind, cara mia? Is that really what you imagine I would do?’

Suddenly she didn’t know. Tiredly, she shook her head—hating the heavy weight of her hair and thinking that if she had a nearby pair of scissors she would lop the whole lot off.

‘Didn’t you think through what the repercussions of telling me might be?’ he persisted.

It was a horrible word and she stared at him, hoping that she hid her alarm. ‘What do you mean—repercussions?’

‘You carry my child!’ he breathed fiercely. ‘You cannot deny me that child—and, what is more, I will not let you!’

For a moment Aisling stared at him in horror, the look of intent on his dark face so threatening that he looked almost capable of carrying her away with him. Why the hell had she told him? The pain in her back now seemed to be gaining momentum, spreading round to spear at her abdomen, but she choked back the little cry of pain which was gathering at the back of her throat.

‘Look, Gianluca, this was never meant to happen,’ she said desperately.

‘You mean you wish it hadn’t?’ he demanded.

Afterwards Aisling would wish that she had thought more carefully about answering that particular question, but her head was swimming and another sharp twist of pain was piercing at her middle and she just wanted everything to be as it was before. No discord. Just that fluffy pink cloud which had stopped her thinking about an unthinkable future. One which involved a baby.

‘Do you, Aisling? You wish it hadn’t happened?’

‘Of course I do!’ she burst out, in the grip of some terrible hormonal rush. All those old childhood insecurities came rushing back in a terrifying dark wave which was threatening to swamp her. ‘Don’t you think this threatens everything I stand for, everything I’ve worked for?’

There was a deadly silence and when he looked at her the expression in his eyes had changed. Even their colour looked different. Suddenly black seemed like the coldest colour in the world.

‘Then there’s no problem. We won’t let it affect you,’ he said icily.

Aisling’s nails dug into the palm of her hand. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘None of this need affect anything,’ he chipped out. ‘You can keep your precious job and everything which goes with it—and I will keep the baby. A perfect solution to an unwanted pregnancy.’

All she could see was the narrowed jet eyes, the lips curled with cruel intent—like a tiger about to attack. She might have protested—answered him back—but by then his words seemed as inconsequential as whether or not it remained sunny outside. Because now there was no world outside—it was all in here. Here and now. The pain was twisting sharper—as if someone were turning a meat skewer inside her—and she gasped and tumbled forward, the weight of the baby seeming to make her topple, like a giant clown.

She saw Gianluca start and then it was as if everything were happening in slow motion—so that while she sensed he was rushing to her side, he seemed to be moving through water. But maybe that was because all the external things seemed blurred—put out of focus by the intensity of what was happening inside her.

He caught her in his arms before she fell—the warm and unfamiliarly heavy weight of her—and he carried her over to a sofa and laid her down on it, his eyes scanning over her, fearful of what he might see.

‘What is it, Aisling? What is happening? Tell me. Tell me!’

She had no idea, and yet she knew—as women must have known since they’d lived in caves.

‘I’m having a … baby!’ she gasped. ‘Just call me an ambulance, will you?’

‘There’s no need for an ambulance,’ he grated as he bent down and scooped her up into his arms. ‘My car’s outside.’

‘I’m booked in at the local hospital down the road,’ she gasped.

‘Not any more you’re not—I’ll get you into the best clinic in London,’ he snapped.

Even through her pain, Aisling felt a wave of indignation. ‘It’s a fantastic hospital,’ she gritted out. ‘And I’m going there. Besides, there’s no time for messing around.’

He raked his eyes over her and recognised that she spoke the truth. ‘Where are your keys?’

‘On the hook,’ she gasped as he plucked them off and pocketed them and proceeded to carry her towards the car. Her face was pressed against his chest, the scent of him invading her—as if one invasion of her wasn’t enough. Moving her head away, she half-heartedly tried to pummel against him, but his chest was as solid as a brick wall. ‘Put me down!’

‘Save your energy, Aisling,’ he urged, his face and his voice becoming suddenly serious. ‘I demand that you conserve your strength—because you are going to need it!’

To the chauffeur’s credit he said nothing when Gianluca emerged from the villa with a heavily pregnant woman in his arms—just leapt out of the driver’s seat and pulled the door open.

Gianluca settled Aisling in the back seat and gave the driver the address. ‘Drive!'he commanded. ‘Quickly—but lievemente—gently.’ He saw the man shoot them an anxious glance and who could blame him? Because Aisling was now moaning every few minutes, her face tightening with tension as she gripped onto him.

‘Is it the contraction?’ he demanded.

‘Of course it’s the wretched contraction!’ she half sobbed. ‘What else do you think it is?’

‘Do you want me to call anyone for you?’ He realised how little he knew about her—this woman who carried his child. ‘Your mother?’

‘My mother is dead.’

He winced. ‘You have any other family?’

As the fierce wave of pain receded Aisling briefly opened her eyes. ‘No. Just me.’

Somehow, that smote at his conscience—that she had done this all on her own, with no one to protect her—until he reminded himself that it had been her choice to do it that way.

At least the rush-hour traffic had now died away and the baking city streets were relatively quiet, but he didn’t breathe easily until the car bumped its way round the back of the hospital.

‘We’re here.’

Aisling’s eyes flickered open as she read the sign. ‘Accident and Emergency. How apt,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘The baby was an accident—and this is an emergency!’

Gianluca nearly smiled but for once in his life, he didn’t dare—if they didn’t get amove on then his son or daughter was going to be born in a car park. But a wheelchair and a doctor and midwife had miraculously materialised out of nowhere and Aisling was being taken at breakneck speed to the maternity unit—and then chaos broke out. Or, at least, that was how it seemed to him.

There were lights and people dressed in green, battering him with questions, most of which he was unable to answer—because she had kept him in the dark, he thought, and once again that sense of dark fury washed over him.

‘Are you the father?’ a midwife asked.

At least he knew the answer to that one—though he found himself telling them in his native tongue. ‘Sì, io sono il padre!’

‘So you’ll be staying?’

Aisling’s head jerked up. ‘No!’

‘Sì,’ he contradicted with silky emphasis as he stared down into her ice-blue eyes. ‘I will be staying.’

She didn’t want him there. Didn’t want him seeing her in such a vulnerable and sorry state. Now they were putting her legs up in some kind of stirrups—how could she ever look at him again after this? She bit her lip with embarrassment and turned away as the contractions began to get stronger, and more frequent.

And by then she was past caring about anything, other than following what they were telling her to do—or, rather, telling her not to do. Like push. Or bearing down. And she, who hated control being taken from her, found that she wanted so badly to relieve these tightening bands of pain that she almost welcomed the bossy orders they were hurling at her. She might have laughed at the irony of it all if she hadn’t been so exhausted.

The room was crowded for it seemed that the royal obstetrician had been rushed in from his nearby private clinic, following a directive from Gianluca’s doctor in Rome.

‘Please!'Aisling begged. ‘I just want to have this baby!’

Gianluca shot an anxious glance at the doctor, but for once in his life he was forced to relinquish control. He wanted to help Aisling, but he could do nothing for her physically—or emotionally—because when he went to grip her hand, she pulled it away, refusing to look at him.

It was only when he sensed that the labour was close to the end, when her desperate cries echoed on the air, that she reached for him, biting her lip with pain as her fingernails pierced his skin.

‘Help me,’ she whispered. ‘Gianluca—please help me.’

Never in his life had he felt so completely powerless. ‘It’s going to be all right, cara,’ he soothed, but his voice sounded harsh.

She turned her sweat-sheened face away. He lied. For how could it ever be right?

‘Gianluca, do you want to see your baby being born?’

He turned to Aisling and the moment their eyes met she knew that she could not deny him this. And as she nodded her head with mute permission, she so wished that it could have all been different. Normal. That they could have been like other couples in this situation. But you aren’t a couple, came the painful reminder, before another, vastly superior pain eclipsed it.

Gianluca was dazed as he watched the physical process of childbirth, which seemed light years away from the desire which had brought them all to this point. One last cry from Aisling split the air. He saw a shock of jet-dark hair emerging and heard a lusty squawk and he shook his head, as if denying the evidence of his own eyes. This miracle.

But when a slimy and wriggling bundle was swathed and placed in his arms, Gianluca looked down, and his heart turned over with love.