—Romantic Times Mothers-To-Be(19)

“Can’t hold the Press off much longer, though,” the chief superintendent sighed.

“The Press?” Bella gasped.

“They’ll be down on us like vultures the minute they know we’re free,” Rico drawled flatly.

“They could blow the whole bloody show,” the inspector chipped in bitterly as they were hustled into a small, bare interviewing room which made Bella feel more claustrophobic than she had ever felt in the container.

“The Press know about us?” she whispered dazedly. “We have their agreement to hold off on printing a word, but now … well, let’s say there’s a risk of a leak before we get a proper chance at catching those b-blighters.” He selected the word grimly.

“Miss Jennings will be staying at my estate,” Rico volunteered without any expression at all.

“My staff are trustworthy.”

“Her story has got to be worth a quarter of a mill flat, even at a conservative estimate,” the inspector muttered with cold cynicism.

“I

hope you know what you’re doing. “

She heard the senior policeman’s slight intake of breath, knew the inspector was all at sea as to what he had said wrong. And several lowering realisations hit Bella very hard all at once. The police already knew all about her—her background, the accident through which she had met Rico, her un arguable poverty. Even as a victim she been investigated, possibly just to make sure that she was indeed a victim. Rico’s remark in the bath the previous night—about her being a suspect—returned to haunt her.

And clearly in the inspector’s biased view she was exactly the kind of woman who was likely to jump on some tabloid bandwagon and tell all for a price.

“Bella’s not going to talk.”

Glancing up, she met Rico’s brilliant golden gaze, aimed ‘at her like a stranglehold and a gag. That look spoke not of faith but of threat. If you talk I’ll personally throttle you, that look said. Her cup of humiliation ran right over there and then. She looked away, her facial muscles locking tight, an acrid sting burning her eyelids.

“O ye of little faith’, she reflected, in more pain than she could have believed possible and sick to the heart from it.

Did he really think that he was in danger of wakin some morning soon to a kiss-and-tell revelation about their lovemaking in captivity?

Her stomach churned. After all they had gone through together he still distrusted her. So maybe she wasn’t a whore, but she could still be a greedy little gold-digger, it seemed! And this was the male that every hateful instinct urged her to cling to and stay with?

That was when she knew it was over between them—absolutely, finally and conclusively over, regardless of what she did or did not feel for Rico da Silva.

“Of course she’s not about to talk.” The older policeman patted her Shoulder in reassurance as he tactfully angled her down into a chair, and she had the bitter pleasure of appreciating that a man who had met her only an hour ago already knew and understood more about her than Rico did.

She answered questions like an automaton. Inside herself she just wanted to die behind her forced smiles, but torture wouldn’t have wrung an ounce of her true feelings from her. Pride. Thank the Lord it was there for her when most needed it. Rico watched her like a hawk throughout, as if he were programmed to probe that uncharacteristic complete emotional withdrawal of hers. But she really didn’t credit him with that much sensitivity.

The noisy clatter of rotor blades stole through her self-imposed inner wall, her darkened green eyes briefly revealing her turmoil as she frowned.

“Mr da Silva’s helicopter landing in the car park,” the chief super revealed.

“I’ll take you wherever you want to go, Miss Jennings. I’m heading back to London.”

“Bella’s coming with me,” Rico murmured drily without a single shade of doubt.

Without looking at him, so grateful to the older man that she could have grabbed his hand and kissed it, Bella sprang upright.

“Thanks, but I have friends I can go to … friends I want to be with,” she muttered abruptly.

“Perhaps you could leave us alone for a moment?” Rico suggested smoothly to their companions.

“I’ll be waiting outside,” the chief super told her, with a wry smile. And then the door closed, sealing them into the privacy which she would have done any craven thing to avoid, but which her intelligence told her had to be faced.

“What the hell are you playing at?” Rico enquired harshly.

“Of course you’re coming with me!”

She had to force herself to look at him again. She had to know, before she walked away, that she was making the only possible decision. ” and yet she already knew that, and loathed herself for being weak enough to require, further proof.

“I’m not going to talk to the Press,” she said stiffly.

The faintest hint of dark colour accentuated the angular slant of his hard cheekbones. His hooded dark eyes were nailed to her, however, without any perceptible emotion at all. He made no comment on her reassurance. His sensual mouth twisted.

“I want you to come with me.”

“Why? The party’s over … don’t you think?” Behind her mocking grin she felt like somebody handing a murderer a knife.



“But I don’t mind if the band plays on … for a while,” he murmured, coolly careful to conclude with that candour.

He had used the knife without compunction. It was sex, nothing else.

That was all he wanted—a temporary affair in the privacy of his home, with the added security of knowing that she couldn’t talk to the Press while he was around. Neat, tidy, every necessity covered, sexual and otherwise. ” so much Rico’s stamp that she wanted to shout and scream and claw him.

But she didn’t. She used her talons to hang on like grim death to her pride instead.

“I don’t think so.” Turning, unable to meet his sharp appraisal any longer, she began moving towards the door.

“You’re as hot for me as I am for you, gatita … and I won’t make you a better offer,” he warned with silken insolence.

Her spine stiffened. She spun back, unable to let that go unchallenged.

“So what? You think that matters to me?” she demanded shakily.

“I want you in my bed.” The admission might have been wrenched by force from him. His strong face was hard and taut, his eyes as dark as black ice, biting into her almost accusingly.

Bella gave vent to an edgy laugh.

“I’m sure you’ve got no shortage of willing replacements!”

“And what if you’re pregnant?”

Bella paled but her magnificent eyes flashed at him. “Highly unlikely it was the wrong time,” she told him brittlely as she made for the door again, really desperate this time to escape.

“Then allow me.” He reached the door ahead of her and swung it wide.

“Look after yourself,” he murmured drily as she preceded him into the corridor. And then he was gone, striding past her in the direction of the rear exit.

On cotton-wool legs she wandered down to the window and stood there, watching him walk out and spring into the waiting helicopter. Well, that was that, she told herself. The feeling that she had been cut in half without an anaesthetic would wear off. She was not, could not be, in love with a creep like that.

Fear had somehow made her emotions centre on him. She had become disgustingly dependent, weak and vulnerable, but now that the whole ghastly experience was over she would swiftly recover and return to normal. “A self-contained bastard, isn’t he?”

Her head flipped round, her every feeling exposed. And the chief super placed a supportive arm round her and wafted her out to his car. He asked her where she wanted to go and then handed her a box of tissues. Sorry, he had four adult daughters, he told her ruefully; couldn’t help reading her like a book. He had seen her paintings, he told her. Fabulous, out of this world, he added almost shyly. Was there the slightest chance that she would sell one?

And that cracked her shell as nothing else could have done. The tears flooded out, and she got dug into the tissues with the agonised acknowledgement that this stranger, this kind, clever man whom she barely knew, knew so much more about her than the arrogant, hateful swine she had stupidly, recklessly gone to bed with!

It was a long drive down to Liz’s country cottage. With Liz she knew she was always welcome and she knew that Liz would keep her mouth shut. And she even knew where her friend kept her spare key—under the second tub of pansies to the left of the back door. The policeman was appalled, but to her he didn’t feel like a policeman any more.

He had become Maurice during the drive.

“I’ll stay until your friend gets home,” he told her.

“I want to be on my own.”

He studied her and then sighed.

“If he asks where?” — “No!” she interrupted, with helpless force.

TII keep you in touch with developments,” he asserted, and took his leave with a touching reluctance to leave her alone.



Liz wouldn’t be back until far later than she had admitted to him.

This was her night with the art club. She dined in town those nights and went straight to the college for her class. Liz was an accountant, several years Bella’s senior, who painted great, vibrant canvases of the flowers she loved and enjoyed a lucrative sideline from their sales. She joked that her clients would be unnerved by that flamboyant side to her nature and only ever signed her creations with her initials.