But the voice of her conscience wouldn’t be silenced.
Because…
What about Vito? Despite his aversion to fatherhood, surely he had a right to know he was going to be a dad. And if that were to be the case, then what was the correct protocol for imparting such a monumental piece of news? Should she pluck up courage and phone him, or maybe just pitch up at his Milanese headquarters and announce it without any kind of warning.
No.
That kind of dramatic confrontation might have been appropriate if they’d had been in some sort of relationship, but it had been nothing more than a one-night hookup. It wasn’t ever supposed to be repeated and it wasn’t supposed to have any repercussions. Imagining Vito’s horror at discovering that she was carrying a Monticelli heir was all too easy and Flora wasn’t feeling strong enough to stomach such a reaction. Nor to face the sniggers of the workers in his Italian office with whom she’d spoken many times.
It turned out that procrastination was easier than confrontation. So she put off doing anything.
February came and went, and soon the first buds of spring appeared in some of the window boxes along her road. She should have been cheered by the sight of all those miniature yellow daffodils pushing through the wet brown soil but for once the advent of spring was refusing to inspire her.
And then the sickness started. Without any kind of warning she’d be forced to rush to the loo at work and, more than once, she caught Dante Antonelli regarding her curiously when she returned to the office, pale-faced and dry-mouthed and trying very hard not to tremble.
‘You are not well,’ he observed one morning, his dark eyes narrowing.
‘I think I must have some sort of bug!’
‘Again?’
Was she imagining the thoughtful tone of his reply? Was he thinking she was useless as a secretary and about to ring HR to ask how best she could be replaced and if that were the case, what would shedo? If people found out she was pregnant they’d want to know who the father was and unless she was planning on trying to carry off a virgin birth, imagine their shock if they discovered it was the boss!
And although the sickness receded as swiftly as it had arrived, she knew she couldn’t carry on like this, pretending nothing was the matter. She would ring Vito at the weekend—when he wasn’t busy and she wasn’t distracted—and she would tell him her newsvery calmly. What he did with that piece of information was up to him, but she would let him know that she was prepared to be reasonable.
Flora awoke on Saturday morning to the heavy pound of rain. Wind was whistling through the gap in the window frame and, after shivering in the shower, she bundled on her thickest sweater and a pair of Amy’s jeans which were slightly too short for her, before making some weak tea. Carrying her mug into the sitting room, she sat down on the battered sofa and started rehearsing the words she would say when she finally plucked up enough courage to dial the international number, when a loud ring on the doorbell startled her out of her reverie.
Was it her hipster neighbour Joe from upstairs? she wondered. Offering her one of his homemade brownies, or asking if she had any camomile teabags? Amy had been certain the geeky designer fancied her, but Flora hadn’t been convinced. Anyway, the most eligible man on the planet could have asked her out and she would have just looked at him blankly, because who in the world could have compared to Vito Monticello?
She opened the door by a crack, her polite smile dying when she saw who was standing there and for a moment Flora thought she must have magicked him up from her frenzied thoughts.
But this man wasn’t a figment of anyone’s imagination.
This man was real.
Very, very real.
And angry.
Not a raging kind of anger, but a quiet and infinitely more deadly kind, which simmered at the back of his ice-blue eyes.
Why was he angry? she speculated with a sudden sinking feeling of apprehension.
‘Vito!’ she said.
‘You look surprised, Flora,’ he observed, his silken tone underpinned with something which sounded like…
Danger?
Tiny droplets of rain glinted like jewels in his ebony hair and his dark and golden beauty was so intense that it quite simply took her breath away, just as it had done the first time she’d seen him. And oh, how she wanted him. Flora swallowed. It was as instant and as complete as that. She felt a part of him. Was that because she was carrying his baby inside her?
Sucking in a deep breath, she sought to compose herself. ‘Of course I’m surprised! It’s a long way from Milan! Why…why didn’t you warn me you were coming?’
‘I think,’ he said, and his voice sounded as if it had been coated in some dark and corrosive liquid, ‘that if there are any questions to be asked, then I should be the one seeking answers. Don’t you?’
A shiver of apprehension whispered down Flora’s spine. ‘Not if—’
‘Is everything okay, Flo?’ came a concerned voice, and Flora looked over the shoulder of the Italian billionaire, up to see Joe coming down the communal stairs, his brow creased with concern.
