THERE WAS NO worse place to be lonely than Venice.
And for Lydia that theory was proved again.
Loretta, his housekeeper, walked her along the lovely mirrored hallway, but instead of going straight ahead, Lydia was shown to the right.
She walked along another hallway and through to an apartment within his home. Loretta brought her dinner, and it was served at a polished table on beautiful china, but though her surroundings were gorgeous Lydia ate alone.
Raul, of course, ate out.
Naturally she didn’t sleep, and in the morning she spent ages trying to work out what to wear.
It wasn’t just that she had no idea what she should wear to a meeting to discuss their child’s future. Nothing was a comfortable fit.
Lydia had no choice but to settle for the taupe dress—the one with the buttons. Only now it strained across her breasts.
Instead of undoing a couple of buttons she put on a little cardigan.
It would have to do.
She loathed it that she had been pencilled in as some sixty-minute item on his to-do list.
And she certainly hadn’t expected an audience to be in attendance!
But as she walked into the drawing room Raul sat relaxed and chatting with a very beautiful woman.
‘This is Allegra,’ Raul told her. ‘My assistant.’
Lydia, with her hackles already up and perhaps a little too used to her mother’s handling of staff, gave Allegra a cursory nod and then ignored her.
Raul could see that Lydia was uncomfortable and he didn’t blame her for that.
He had resisted discussing this at her home and was aware that he had the advantage, so he moved to the first point on his list.
‘Would you be more comfortable in a hotel?’
‘I don’t intend to be staying very long,’ Lydia replied coolly. ‘The apartment is sufficient.’
Sufficient?
She had a six-room apartment within his home.
But Raul said nothing—just moved to the next point.
‘There is a property less than a mile from here that has come onto the market. Allegra has arranged a viewing for you at two today.’
‘Why would I need to see a property here?’ Lydia asked. ‘The baby will be raised in England.’
‘But I shall be seeing my baby regularly. I assume you will want to be close when I do? Especially at first.’
‘You assume correctly. However...’
But Raul had moved on.
‘Allegra is going to look into the hiring of a nanny. It would appear good ones need to be secured early.’
That was an easy one, and Lydia dismissed it with a shake of her head. ‘I shan’t be hiring a nanny.’
It really annoyed her when Allegra wrote something down, and then she asked Lydia a question in a rich Italian purr.
‘Will you want to sit in on the preliminary interviews, or would you prefer I do that and then we discuss the shortlist?’
‘I just said...’ Lydia was responding to Allegra as if she was speaking to a three-year-old with a hearing problem ‘...that I don’t require a nanny.’
‘We heard you the first time,’ Raul said. ‘But I need a nanny for the times when the baby is to be with me.’
Lydia, who had been glaring at Allegra, snapped her gaze back to Raul. ‘Could we speak alone, please?’
‘Of course.’
Allegra stood and walked out. Lydia sat with her back ramrod-straight and said nothing until the door behind her had closed.
Oh, but when it closed!
‘You’ve been busy.’
‘Yes,’ Raul agreed.
And as she sat there she gleaned the fact that while she’d been eating alone last night Raul had been out to dinner, with Allegra, discussing her baby’s future.
Of course he had.
Raul’s time was heavily in demand, and a lot of his day-to-day stuff was delegated.
‘Do you really think I have time to be wandering around looking at apartments for someone I spent a weekend with three months ago?’
Lydia opened her mouth to respond, but then closed it.
‘You wanted businesslike, and you have made it clear you don’t want to be in Venice for long, so I discussed things with my assistant...’
‘Over dinner,’ Lydia sneered. ‘Have you slept with her?’
Oh, she hated it that she’d asked that—she really did.
‘What the hell does that have to do with anything?’
And she hated his exasperated inevitable answer.
‘Yes, but that was ages ago.’
And then he asked Lydia again.
‘What the hell does that have to do with this?’
And she still couldn’t answer, because really it should have nothing to do with this—yet it did.
‘Lydia, I have a past—quite a colourful one. You really should choose your one-night stands more carefully.’
‘I just don’t like the fact...’
‘Go on,’ Raul said when she faltered, and he leant back in his chair to hear what she had to say.
‘I don’t like the fact that someone you’ve been intimate with is discussing my future and my baby.’
‘Our baby.’
‘Yes, but...’ She tried to get back to the nanny point, because she was starting to sound jealous.
Which she was.
And irrational.
Which she wasn’t.
Was she?
‘Lydia, Allegra is very happily married.’ He was annoyingly patient in his explanation. ‘In fact I’ve already told you that. If you really think she’s making bedroom eyes at me and we’re still at it, then that’s your issue. But we’re not. I don’t like cheats. Now, can we bring it back to business?’
‘It is a baby.’
‘Che cazzo!’ he cursed.
‘Don’t swear.’
‘The baby can’t hear me!’ Raul said.
‘You discuss it so clinically.’
‘You told me yourself to keep it businesslike. Come on, Lydia, tell me what you want. You’ve had three months to get used to the idea. I’ve had less than twenty-four hours. Tell me what you’ve decided and we can work from there.’
And she tried to tell him just that.
‘There’s no need for me to have an apartment here. Of course we’ll visit often...’
A smile—a black smile—played on his lips, and she sat back as Raul chose his words.
‘And where would you stay?’ Raul asked. ‘The guest wing?’
As she nodded that dark smile faded.
‘Lydia, I don’t want my ex, or rather one of my one-night stands, as a regular guest in my home. I don’t want someone who has already said that she disapproves of me dictating the relationship I have with my child.’
‘And I don’t want my baby to be raised by a nanny.’
‘Tough.’ Raul shrugged. ‘Do you really see me getting up at night to feed it and...’ He pulled a face.
And, no, she could not see it.
‘Raul, I haven’t made any plans...’
‘Oh, I would say you set your plans in motion a long time ago,’ Raul said. ‘And I would suggest that when you “forgot” to take your Pill you thought you’d chosen carefully indeed.’
She frowned.
He enlightened her.
‘I said I don’t like children, and you decided I’d make a very good absentee father...’
‘No!’ she shouted.
‘Correct,’ Raul said. ‘Because I shan’t just be a chequebook father—I’m going to be very hands-on.’
He dismissed her then—she knew it from the wave of his hand.
‘We’re getting nowhere. We can try again tomorrow if you would like?’
‘You’re going to schedule me in again?’ Lydia asked in a sarcastic tone.
Raul ignored it but answered her question. ‘If you want me to.’
And that was how they would be, Lydia was starting to realise.
Parents, but apart.
So, so far apart that she could not see across the void.
‘Do you want to see the apartment?’ Raul checked before he closed this disaster of a meeting. ‘We should try to get as much as possible done while you’re still here.’
‘Fine.’
Raul heard the resignation in her voice and loathed it.
They had ended up fighting, and he knew he tended to win fights.
‘I think perhaps we should do this through lawyers,’ Raul admitted.
He didn’t want to fight Lydia. He just wanted the details sorted. He would leave it to them and then sign.
‘Raul, I can’t afford a lawyer.’
It was a very difficult admission for someone like Lydia to make.
But he just sat there and leant back in his chair, and wondered just who she took him for.
‘We both know that’s not true.’
‘Seriously, Raul. I know I live in a castle...’
‘Lydia,’ he told her as he sat there, and let her know himself how to nail him to the wall. ‘Call a lawyer—the best you can find—and tell him my surname.’
‘I can’t afford to.’
‘Try it,’ he said. ‘Tell them whose baby you’re having and I guarantee they won’t give a damn as to the current state of your finances. They’ll probably offer to hold your hand in the delivery room.’
She stood.
‘For their cut, of course,’ Raul added.
He watched as she walked out, and usually he would be feeling delighted that a meeting had concluded early and he could get on to the next thing.
Yet she was the next thing.
When there was so much he should be getting on with Raul sat there thinking. Not even about the baby, but about her.