Kitabı oku: «Modern Romance April 2019 Books 5-8», sayfa 8

CHAPTER SIX

‘THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE.’ His arrogant assertion was the last thing she expected and in other circumstances she might have found that amusing.

‘Oh, okay,’ she murmured sarcastically. ‘Have it your way, then. I’m not pregnant.’

She glared at him, her arms crossed over her body, her expression one of disdain.

‘You can’t be,’ he corrected, and Amelia almost felt sorry for him, because Antonio Herrera didn’t strike her as a man who was used to having things happen beyond his control. ‘We used protection.’

‘Well, you’re the only man I’ve ever slept with and I am most definitely pregnant.’ She pinpointed him with an icy glare. ‘So I guess it didn’t work.’

He was uncharacteristically lost for words.

‘Anyway,’ she said after a moment’s silence, ‘I thought you should at least know.’ He remained silent. ‘But you should also know that I don’t need anything from you. I have the financial means to raise this child without worry, and I will be a good mum, all on my own.’ She stiffened then, her spine straightening as she forced herself to finish the offer she came willing to extend. ‘You may, of course, choose to be involved, if you’d like.’ She let that sentiment hit its mark before barrelling forward. ‘But I understand why that would be difficult for you and I’m okay—more than okay—with that. This is my baby. You don’t have to worry about it.’

‘I see.’ He seemed to have relocated his voice. He spoke crisply and, though it was a genial enough agreement, it filled Amelia with a sense of wariness because she could feel a ‘but’ coming. ‘And do you think I will let you return to England to have my child? And what, confer upon it your surname? Raise my son or daughter as a diSalvo?’

At that, a surge of anger beat inside her and she pushed at his chest, surprising them both with the violent outburst. ‘Don’t you dare draft my baby into this damned feud!’ she exploded. ‘Yes, this child will be a diSalvo because it’s my child! But I won’t be raising it to hate the Herrera name, so you can relax.’

His expression was one of barely concealed fury.

‘And as for you “letting” me do anything, I have a newsflash for you, Antonio. I don’t answer to you. I’ll leave when I want to leave, and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it.’

* * *

Her threat was a gauntlet that she really shouldn’t have issued. Because he wasn’t afraid to run it. Hell, he was relishing the prospect of running it, in fact, and unsettling her attitude of unconcern. As though she could tell him she was pregnant and then waltz out of his life once more! Pregnant, and with his baby.

‘You know, there’s not even a legal requirement for me to tell you about this,’ she continued, apparently oblivious to how close his patience was to fraying.

‘And yet you’re here,’ he snapped.

She opened her mouth and then clamped it shut, before nodding. ‘I thought you should know.’

‘Thank heavens for small mercies,’ he murmured, stalking away from her towards his desk, where he pressed a red button on his phone. ‘Cancel my afternoon schedule,’ he clipped and then disconnected the call before his assistant could respond.

‘You don’t need to do that,’ Amelia muttered, a hint of panic flaring in her expression now. ‘As I said, I’m flying home soon.’

‘We have to discuss this,’ he murmured, bracing his palms on his desk and dipping his head forward. The reality of this hit him in the solar plexus and a strange metallic taste filled his mouth. Adrenalin. Fight or flight.

He’d tasted it before: when his father had been staring down the barrel of bankruptcy and Antonio had known it was all down to him. That he alone could save his father’s legacy: that he alone could salvage the ruins of the once-great Herrera Incorporated.

And he felt that again now. Fight or flight responsibility.

This was his baby, but she was offering him an out. She didn’t want him to be involved. She didn’t need him.

And God knew he didn’t want to have a child. Not now, probably not ever, and sure as hell not with a diSalvo.

But when he lifted his gaze to Amelia, the door to escape swung closed.

Wanted or not, this baby was reality and there was no way he was going to ignore that.

‘I intend to raise my child, querida,’ he said, the words forged from iron.

It was obvious that she had not been expecting that. She took a small step backwards and made a sound of confusion, then shook her head from side to side. ‘But...you... Didn’t you hear me? You don’t have to be involved. You don’t need to have anything to do with him.’

‘Do you truly believe that? This is my child and, while it is far from ideal that you are to be the mother, it does not change the fact that my flesh and blood is growing in your belly.’

‘Gee, thanks. I’m so warm and fuzzy right now,’ she clipped.

He ignored her ironic assertion. ‘Obviously there is only one solution to this situation.’

‘I swear, if you’d said “problem” I would have walked straight out of here.’ And then her eyes flew wide and a slim hand lifted to her mouth, covering a gasp. ‘You can’t be serious?’

‘Completely.’

Her face paled—if that was possible, and she staggered back once more. Then a hand came to curve protectively over her still-flat stomach. ‘You can’t actually expect me to terminate my pregnancy just because you don’t want to have a child with a diSalvo?’

Her words seemed to come from a long way away, and took even longer to process. ‘What?’ he said eventually. And though his English was perfect, he presumed he must have misunderstood something in the translation.

‘You want me to have an abortion? How dare you? I came here as a courtesy, to tell you that you’re going to be a father and that I will allow you to be some part of our child’s life and you actually try to bully me into getting rid of our baby?’

She sent one final glare in his direction and then strode purposefully towards the door. She grabbed her bag from a chair as she went and it took Antonio vital seconds to process both her accusation and the certainty that she was about to walk away from him.

He moved quickly, reaching the door first and putting his back against it.

‘Move,’ she demanded, not meeting his eyes.

And, heaven help him, he knew tears weren’t far away for Amelia and he fought a ridiculous urge to comfort her. That was not who or what they were.

‘I was not talking about an abortion,’ he said in a tone that was carefully wiped clear of emotion.

‘Then what exactly did you mean? What “solution” is there to this?’

‘We’ll get married.’

The relief that had glanced across her features was swallowed by another look of abject panic.

‘You’re kidding?’

‘Do I look like I am kidding?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘but you must be crazy if you think I would ever marry you.’

‘It was not a suggestion,’ he said, moving away from the door and returning to his desk.

It was a calculated risk—she would either leave, now he’d given her the opportunity, or she would stay.

And Antonio’s instincts, finely honed through his experience in business and trade, told him that she would stay and fight. Because Amelia was not a coward, and she was also not a fool. She might be pregnant with his baby but he held all the trump cards. The perfect bargaining chip to get everything he wanted. Not just their baby, his heir, but Prim’Aqua as well. A primal sense of accomplishment made him want to roar like an animal in the jungle. He pictured his father, pictured all he’d lost, the grief he’d known, and he swept his eyes shut for a moment and simply breathed it in: the certainty that all was about to be righted, once and for all.

‘And why is that?’ she asked: he’d been right. She wasn’t running. She was staying, because she knew as well as he did that this marriage was inevitable.

He took his time, savouring the moment, and then delivered the final blow to her insistence that marriage was a bad idea. ‘Because if you don’t marry me you know I will destroy your brother once and for all.’

She drew in a sharp breath but then seemed to rally. ‘You wish you could do that. But you forget, Antonio, I’ve had time since that night to think, and I’ve told Carlo about you. He knows what you’re up to, and he’s not worried.’

‘No, he doesn’t,’ Antonio said simply.

Amelia’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Come and see.’

She glared at him, as though moving close to him was the last thing she wanted.

But Antonio simply loaded up a spreadsheet on his computer and waited with a veneer of patience. Sure enough, a moment later, accompanied by a heavy sigh, Amelia closed the distance between them, pausing just behind him.

‘What am I looking at?’ she demanded.

‘How much of your family’s portfolio I have absorbed over the years,’ he said, running his own eyes over the spreadsheet with a sense of triumph.

It was all laid out in simple black and white and it painted a stark picture. Several of the companies, if he clicked on them, would show dramatically declining stock prices.

He heard her breathing change, grow faster, and he closed his eyes for a moment before flicking off the computer screen.

In the reflection, his eyes met hers.

‘You’re saying,’ she asked quietly, ‘that you’ll leave Carlo alone if I marry you?’

Antonio was at a fork in the road. The anger he had felt for a long time was balanced against a child he was determined to raise, and he found he couldn’t turn his back on either. ‘No,’ he said, standing and surprising her by being right there, so close they were almost touching. ‘I’m saying that if you marry me and hand over your Prim’Aqua shares, I will leave his remaining businesses alone.’

Indignation shaped her features as the full force of his words sunk in. ‘You’re blackmailing me?’

He made a sound of disagreement. ‘I am offering you a chance to potentially save your brother from financial ruin,’ he corrected. ‘And I am offering us both a chance to raise our baby as a family, which is, surely, your preference?’

‘My preference is never to see you again.’

He arched a thick dark brow. ‘Let us stick to the realm of reality, hmm?’

She turned away from him and he fought an urge to lift his fingers to her chin and angle her face back to his. He didn’t like it when she hid her expressive face. ‘I will never give you those shares.’

Determination flashed in the depths of his black eyes. ‘Then I will continue to destroy your brother in other ways. And believe me, Amelia, I do nothing by half measures.’ He slashed his hand through the air to emphasise his point. ‘Already I have wiped half a billion dollars off the value of his business interests—in a little over a month. What do you think I will have achieved by the year’s end?’

She drew in a sharp gasp and lifted her face to his. ‘You can’t be serious?’

‘Does it look as though I am joking?’

He was a study in humourless, dark intent.

‘But...why?’

‘Because I hate him,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘And because he deserves this.’

She swept her eyes shut and his gut fired with adrenalin.

‘A week after I turned eighteen, I came home from college to discover my father crying.’ Sympathy clouded Amelia’s expression. ‘He’d lost everything—because of your father and your brother. A liquidator had been approached to step in. I honestly believe he wanted to end his life rather than live with the shame of his bankruptcy.’

Pink bloomed in her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry he experienced that.’

His eyes lifted to hers, firing with the same strength that had led him then. ‘I took over the company that same day. Bit by bit I rebuilt it. It was not easy, querida, and it did not happen fast. Every day when I woke up and stared down the barrel of uncertainty and doubt, when I knew my father’s life and pride were riding on my success, I swore that I would win. And that I would make your brother pay for what he’d almost done.’

Amelia drew in a sharp breath.

‘I hate him.’

‘I can see that,’ she whispered unevenly. ‘But that doesn’t give you the right to ruin his life...’

‘He gave me the right.’ Antonio closed his eyes for a moment and he was back in the past, remembering the bleakness in his father’s eyes that night, many years earlier.

‘He made an enemy of me long ago, and nothing will change that.’

‘You talk like this about my brother,’ she said stiffly, ‘yet you actually expect me to marry you?’

‘Yes.’ His answer was instantaneous.

‘And you’d be happy with the fact you’re blackmailing me into it?’ she countered, her eyes narrowed. ‘You haven’t even asked how I’m feeling. You haven’t asked about the baby, the due date, nothing! You are heartless and selfish and so damned focused on revenge against my family that you don’t even see me as a flesh and blood woman, do you?’

At that, his eyes flared and every cell in his body that was noticing only her womanly self pushed him forward. ‘You ask if I see you as a woman?’ he demanded fiercely, and now he cupped her cheeks and held her mesmerised face still. His voice was gravelly when he spoke. ‘You think I don’t want you even now, in the midst of all this?’

Her eyes lowered and he could feel the rushing of her blood; he could see the way she was as affected by this as he.

‘That’s not what I meant,’ she whispered after a moment, but his words were turning her blood into lava. ‘You don’t see me as a person with my own desires and wants, as someone who deserves to be able to steer her own fate; to make her own decisions.’

‘Of course you can decide,’ he contradicted gently. ‘But one of those choices is better for everyone.’

‘Another ultimatum,’ she grunted.

He sighed and dropped his hands, walking a few paces clear of her, to where the air was less thick with Amelia-ness and he could think a little straighter.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Let us look at this differently. The circumstances of our meeting were unfortunate.’

She snorted her agreement.

‘But I am not actually a bad person.’

Her eyes rolled heavenwards and when she spoke her words dripped with scathing sarcasm. ‘You’re determined to ruin the only family I have.’

‘I am determined,’ he corrected coldly, ‘to be a father to this baby. Why can’t we create a new family? Yes, I’m a Herrera and you’re a diSalvo, but we are also a mother and a father now. I want us to live together and to raise this baby side by side, giving it everything we can in life. Tell me this is not what you want, Amelia. Tell me you don’t want our child to grow up with a loving mother and father always at hand.’

* * *

The words were dangerous because they were so, so achingly true.

Her own childhood flashed before her eyes. The absence of any kind of family structure or regular home, the absence of time and love and affection. A mother who saw Amelia at times as an inconvenience and at others as a pet, and eventually an accessory, when Amelia was old enough, at eleven, to be dragged to parties that were, in hindsight, woefully inappropriate for a girl on the cusp of womanhood.

The things Amelia saw at her mother’s side! The drugged-out state of various guests, the orgies, spectacular fist fights. More than once she’d had to call an ambulance when someone had become so high they were a danger to themselves or others. Then there were the nightclubs, when Penny would park Amelia with the bouncers and she’d listen to them swearing and ogling women all night—it was a wonder she’d reached adulthood with any semblance of normality.

In the midst of it all, she had desperately wanted someone who would just be average. Boring. Someone who would read her books and make her pasta for dinner, who would take her to the playground or on long walks, who would ask her about her life, her hopes, her dreams.

She had wanted a mother—and not a mother like Penny.

And oh, how she’d craved a father. In her mind, she’d probably idealised what role a father might take. Her knowledge had been fleshed out from the pages of her books, but she’d imagined a sort of Mr Bennet type figure, benevolent and kindly, strict when necessary.

And Antonio? What kind of father would he be to their baby?

‘We hate each other,’ she said quietly, trying to remind herself of all the reasons this marriage was a stupid idea. ‘No child should grow up in a house where two parents can’t stand one another.’

‘We have more than seven months to find a way to co-exist,’ he said sensibly. ‘I think we can achieve that.’

‘And if we can’t?’

His eyes glittered with determination. ‘I do not see failure as an option here, hermosa.’

Frustration curdled inside her. ‘It would never work.’