‘Conceived so that you could search the flat and find the evidence you needed to convict Myers,’ she concluded bitterly. ‘Oh get, out of here, you…you hypocrite!’
For a long time after he had gone she sat staring ahead of her, unaware that it had grown dark, or that Nicky’s chatter had stilled, trying to come to terms with this fresh blow fate had struck her. Kieron had not been making idle threats. He would fight to get his child. And surely no court would favour the claims of a working mother over those of a father who could provide both a luxurious home and a suitable stepmother? Who did he have in mind? Gail? Hardly, the blonde girl disliked children intensely, but Kieron would never be short of women to share his life.
The faint rap on the door startled her and at first she thought it was Kieron. When she opened the door, though, it was Gina who stood there, her eyes red from crying.
‘Oh, Gina, it wasn’t your fault!’ Briony exclaimed, hating herself for not going upstairs immediately upon her return. Had Gina thought she blamed her for the accident? ‘I would have been up to see you, but I had things on my mind. Kieron wants us to be married, for Nicky’s sake,’ she said abruptly, not knowing why she felt this need to confide in someone.
Relief spread over Gina’s face.
‘Oh, Briony! Some good news at last! When we got back here from the hospital Paolo’s papa was on the telephone. Paolo’s elder brother has been seriously injured in a car accident and Papa Guido wants us to go home right away. With Cesare in hospital there will be no one to run the vineyard, and I was dreading telling you that we must leave.’
As she listened to her friend’s story, Briony’s heart sank. Of course Gina and Paolo would have to go home, but who would look after Nicky? How could she go out to work if she had no one she could trust to leave him with? He was far too young for nursery school; even if such facilities had existed locally. The only other alternative—which she shrank from—was finding a baby-minder who had room to take him, but she had always wanted Nicky to grow up in familiar surroundings, which was why she had been so glad to let Gina and Paolo have the flat. She could advertise for another couple, but that would take time, and even if she found someone suitable Nicky might not settle down with them as well as he had done with Gina, whom he had known since birth.
‘Marriage!’ Gina was saying romantically. ‘Oh, that is so good! I knew the moment I saw him that he was not the man to turn his back on his own child. You quarrelled, si? and pride would not let you tell him about the baby. Oh, Paolo will be so relieved! We were dreading having to tell you.…’
Briony knew exactly what she meant. Somehow she could not find the words to tell Gina that she did not want to marry Kieron. She was trapped. And it seemed doubly ironic that it should be through the love she bore his child, whom he had not even known existed until today, and whom he had made it clear he intended to have beneath his roof and bearing his name, even if he had to destroy Nicky’s mother to do so.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘SO the answer is yes?’
Kieron was standing with his back to her, staring out into the garden, his hands in the pockets on the hip-hugging dark trousers he was wearing. He had arrived just as she was putting Nicky to bed and the small sitting room was cluttered with the little boy’s toys. His broken arm had kept him inside, and Briony had just been going to shower and change when Kieron’s car slid to a halt outside.
She had been awake nearly all night, and close on twenty-four hours of arguing backwards and forwards with herself had left its effect. Her eyes looked huge in her small face, and she pushed the heavy mass of her copper hair back from her shoulders with a defeated gesture, unaware that Kieron had seen her reflection in the glass. He turned round, his eyes a deep, unfathomable navy blue, and Briony had to suppress the urge to snatch up Nicky and run as far and as fast as she could.
It was for Nicky’s sake that she had been compelled to decide in favour of Kieron’s proposal. It wasn’t merely that he was better equipped than she to give Nicky material things; it was the fact that if she refused she would be deliberately depriving her child of his father—something for which Nicky might find it hard to forgive her later. Since his birth his well-being had been her prime concern, and little though she wanted the marriage it was impossible to deny its benefits for Nicky, even if it only meant that she would be able to spend more time with him.
If Gina and Paolo had not been leaving she might have found the courage to defy Kieron, but without them she knew she could not provide Nicky with the stable, loving background he needed. Constantly haunting her was the fear that Kieron would make good his threat to remove Nicky from her by legal means, and it showed in her haunted, shadowed eyes.