It hurt to even say it. “You were marrying another woman.”
“All the more reason to tell me.”
“What, even when that woman was a member of the Esposito family? I knew telling you would…”
“Screw your excuses,” he interrupted, his handsome face contorting. “You should have told me the second it wasconfirmed –sooner. The minute you suspected you might have conceived.”
“But I knew you had to marry Siena,” she defended herself shakily. “I couldn’t predict how you’d react. I was trying to protect you.”
“Bullshit. You hid it from me because you were punishing me. You turned into a Tasmanian Devil when you realised it was me in that apartment last night. Hardly the actions of someone wishing to protect me.” Throwing the duvet off, he sat up, fully naked, and swung his legs off the bed, getting to his feet with a pained curse, as if he’d forgotten he had a stab wound above his hip bone.
“I know you’re angry with me, but please be careful of your stitches,” she pleaded.
His furious face turned back to her. As impossible as it should be, he’d lost even more colour. “Don’t pretend you give two shits about me,” he snarled. “You hate me, remember?”
Although Georgia longed to defend herself some more, she could see the mood Niccolo was in meant there was no reasoning with him. Callie had warned her of his guaranteed fury at her keeping the pregnancy from him. God, how she’d warned her.
He stormed into the ensuite and slammed the door shut.
Flinching, she reached down for her little bump and gently stroked it for needed comfort.
She’d told him. That was the main thing, she assured herself. She’d never disagreed with Callie that Niccolo needed to know. And now he did.
But his knowing meant another layer of mess had been added to an already fraught situation.
At least she’d been prepared for the pregnancy. The early signs had been so strong that by the time she’d taken the test, she’d have been more surprised if it had come back negative.Niccolo had had no such forewarning. He needed time to digest it and gather his thoughts.
Climbing out of bed, Georgia knocked tentatively on the ensuite door. “I’m going to take a shower in one of the other bathrooms.”
There was no answer, but she knew he’d heard her. She also knew better than to tell him not to get his wound wet. The mood Niccolo was in, he might just soak it to spite her.
Leaving the bedroom door ajar, she returned to the bedroom she’d originally claimed as her own and left that door open too before helping herself to another shirt from the wardrobe.
The shower in the ensuite was easy to work, and she stood beneath it, closing her eyes as the hot water poured over her.
Her sleep had done her some good. It had cleared the worst of the exhaustion from her mind and body, but now there was tightness in the pits of her stomach and chest. While Georgia and Niccolo were hiding out in the middle of the English countryside, the Espositos were inching closer to finding them. Every minute that passed brought them nearer.
And yet, even when knowing danger was so imminent, the tightness inside her was all for Niccolo.
At least he hadn’t asked who the father was. He’d accepted paternity without question. That was something. They might not live long enough for it to matter, but it was the one straw she could cling to for comfort.
After scrubbing her body clean and washing her hair, she rinsed off the last of the detritus of fear that had ingrained itself in her pores and watched it swirl away.
Cleansed in body if not in spirit, she dried herself with a towel that was small but did the job, then wrapped her hair in it and brushed her teeth. She had no clean underwear, but the shirt was long enough to cover her modesty. It would do for now. Later, she would overcome her qualms about breaching theprivacy of a stranger and hunt for clothes. She’d also suss the washing machine. The thought of being caught by the Espositos without any underwear on was just too stomach-churning to contemplate.
While Georgia had showered, the door of the bedroom she’d shared with Niccolo had been closed. She sensed his movement within the bedroom’s walls. Sensed, too, that her presence was still unwelcome.
Down in the kitchen, the afternoon sun poured through the windows but did nothing to lift her deflated spirits or warm the coldness of fear that had settled back in her veins. It was a fear that only sprang to life and pounded its own beat in her heart when she was alone. It was only Niccolo’s presence that soothed it. For all her complicated feelings for him, knowing he was there at all was more comforting than she should ever let it be.
This was the man who’d ended their relationship without discussion. At the first hint of Georgia’s distress and anger at his insulting proposition to make her his ‘official mistress’, he’d closed down. Just as in her dreams, where he was blind to her tears and deaf to her screams, he’d closed off his senses to her pain. He’d stormed into the bathroom and then reemerged with all the emotions of a robot. The fun, sexy, generous, open-hearted man she’d fallen in love with had refused to engage. The few times the poison between them had threatened to choke her on their journey back to England and she’d tried to speak to him, he’d blanked her.
He’d dropped her home without looking at her and without a word of goodbye.
And yet he was here. Niccolo had the means to go anywhere in the world, but he’d come to her, to protect her.
It occurred to her that she didn’t know how he’d found her. Hadn’t even asked.
So many questions that needed answering. So much that needed to be said. Did they have enough time left to get it all out in the open?
