At the Count's Bidding(72)

                “I never said I wanted nothing to do with the baby,” he protested. “Quite the opposite.”

                “We can debate that when there’s a baby, then,” she hurled at him, hardly stopping to take a breath. “Which by my calculations gives me six months and then some of freedom from having to talk to you.”

                “But I want to talk to you.” And he didn’t care that he sounded more demanding than apologetic, then. She might truly want nothing to do with him, ever again, and he understood he deserved that. But he had to be sure. “I want to see how you’re doing. I want to understand what happened between us in Italy.”

                “No, you don’t.”

                And her face twisted again, but her eyes were still that dark gray and they still burned, and he couldn’t tell what she wanted. Only that as ever, he was hurting her. The way he always did.

                “You don’t want to understand me,” Paige told him. “You want me to understand you. And believe me, I already do. I understood you when you were the very wealthy, semifamous director who took an unexpected interest in a backup dancer. I understood you when you were the noble son standing up for his mother against the potential lunatic who had infiltrated her home behind your back. I even understood you when you were the beleaguered, betrayed ex, drawn back into an intense sexual relationship against his better judgment by the deceitful little seductress he couldn’t put behind him. I understood myself sick.”

                She pulled in a breath, as if it hurt her, which was when Giancarlo realized he hadn’t breathed throughout this. That he couldn’t seem to draw a breath at all.

                “And then,” Paige continued, her voice strong and even, “once I left, I understood that you have never, ever pretended to be there for me in any way. Not ten years ago. Not now. It never crossed your mind to ask me why I did something like sell those pictures, just as it never occurred to you to ask me how I felt about finding myself pregnant. The only thing you care about is you.”

                “Paige.”

                She ignored him. “You never asked me anything at all. You’ve never treated me liked anything but a storm you had to weather.” She shook her head. “You’re the damned hurricane, Giancarlo, but you blame me for the rain.” She shifted then, her hands moving to shelter that little bump, as if she needed to protect it from him, and he thought that might be the worst cut, the deepest wound. He was surprised to find he still stood. “All I want from you is what you’ve always given me. Your absence.”

                The room seemed dizzy with her words when she’d stopped speaking, as if the mirrors could hardly bear the weight of them. Or maybe that was him. Maybe he’d fallen down and he simply couldn’t tell the difference.

                “You said she.”

                “What?”

                Giancarlo didn’t know where that had come from. He hadn’t known he meant to speak at all. He was too busy seeing himself through her eyes—and not liking it at all. “Before. You called the baby a she.”

                “Yes.” She seemed worn-out then, in a sudden rush. As if she’d lanced a wound with a surge of adrenaline and the poison had all run out, leaving nothing behind it. “I’m having a little girl in May.”

                “A daughter.” His voice was gentle, yet filled with something it took him a moment to identify. Wonder. He heard it move through the room and he saw her shudder as she pulled in a breath, and he knew, somehow, that everything wasn’t lost. Not yet. Not quite yet. “We’re having a daughter.”