He was waiting for her in the drawing room. Tall, dark and spectacularly handsome, he surveyed her entrance. Her heart skipped a beat; her mouth went dry. In mute misery she swerved her attention off him again.
“That dress looks like a maternity outfit,” he drawled. Bella flinched and spilt some of the sherry which Haversham always served her before dinner and which she had yet to drink. But, since the same thought about the dress had occurred to her, she thought nothing of the remark.
She contrived a shrug and said,
“It’s comfortable.” “Allow me to get you another drink,” Rico said.
“No, I’m not really— Oh, dinner!” she exclaimed with relief, rising to her feet as Haversham appeared.
Since she was really hungry, she was on the second course before it crossed her mind that it was time to bite the bullet and convince Rico that their affair was over. So far the meal had been unusually silent. And that, now that she actually thought about it, was strange. Rico was not, as a rule, someone who quietly smouldered.
Rico did not suffer in silence, yet, in spite of emitting hostile vibrations into the steadily thickening atmosphere between them, he had barely opened his mouth.
“Why are you so quiet?”
He sent her a glimmering smile which made her feel uncomfortable.
“I
wanted to see you eat a decent meal. “
“Like the condemned man?” Bella looked across the table at him and steeled herself.
“I’m afraid I wasn’t very honest with you this afternoon…”
He tautened perceptibly. His narrowed dark eyes rested on her with grim intensity. He drained his glass of wine and set it down without taking his attention from her once. “I am aware of that fact.”
For some peculiar reason Bella felt as though the dining-table between them had just become a bank manager’s desk, with her playing the role of debtor asking for a loan that was about to be refused.
There was just something so cold and businesslike about Rico’s attitude.
“Well, I owe you the truth,” she told him.
“You do,” he agreed.
“I’ve realised that I still have feelings for Griff,” she muttered, and she didn’t need to pretend to feel guilty saying that; she did feel guilty.
The silence stretched like a rubber band pulled to breaking-point.
Then Rico’s strong face clenched, his sensual mouth flattening into a bloodless line.
“To employ your jargon … tough!”
Bella gave him a dazed look, wildly disconcerted by such a response.
“Why don’t you tell me the rest of the truth?” he invited softly, only there was something innately menacing about that tone.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Maybe you could tell me why you’re not wearing your black dress.., or why you’ve sworn off alcohol again?” Rico invited.
“Or why one of my closest friends can’t meet my eyes when I ask him a perfectly reasonable question?” Bella had turned pale.
“Or how about why you’re developing a bosom worthy of a Playboy cent refold
“How dare you?” she gasped, unable to dredge anything more riveting from a brain in the deep freeze of turmoil. He couldn’t possibly have guessed, she told herself frantically; he couldn’t possibly have!
Rico vented a harsh laugh and thrust his plate away.
“You’re pregnant … and all I want to know now is how pregnant?”
In a wave of pain Bella bowed her head.
“George didn’t tell me but when you got up out of that bed and told me we were finished you told me,” Rico spelt out.
“I can add two and two. So tell me, when did this happy event take place?”
“When we were kidnapped—’ ” So now I discover why you suddenly agreed to move in with me! ” he shot at her.
“I didn’t know until today!” she protested, shocked that he could think that.
“And with the best will in the world how am I supposed to believe that?” he breathed, sounding almost weary. “Because it’s the truth.”
“For someone who prides herself on telling the truth, and who gives an outstanding impression of always delivering it, you tell a lot of lies!”
A sob was trapped in her throat. Why, oh, why hadn’t she had the wit to tell him this afternoon as soon as she’d found out? But she knew why. This was the very scene she had sought to avoid and it was tearing her apart. She had believed that a few weeks or months down the line, when they had already split up, she would have been able to handle his bitter reaction a lot more easily. But in avoiding the issue she had only made Rico more suspicious.
The tip of her tongue stole out to moisten her dry lips. She lifted her vibrant head.
“I can’t blame you for thinking that, but I just wasn’t ready to face this yet. I was as shocked as you are and I knew how you would feel—’ ” Pot Dios, you have not a clue how I feel! ” he raked back at her.
Bella forced herself to explain why she had assumed that she was not pregnant, and at that moment did not much care whether Rico believed her or not. They had both taken that risk two months earlier, and if the first time their lovemaking had been prompted by her, the second time Rico had been the guilty party. The responsibility cut both ways, “And what are your plans now—a termination?” he demanded abruptly.
She looked back at him in horror.
“I had to ask,” he murmured tautly, and oddly enough her unspoken rejection of such an option seemed to remove much of the strain stamped into his bronzed features.
“I was afraid that that was your intention.”
“No,” she confirmed, decidedly knocked off balance by his reaction because deep down inside she had been equally afraid that that might have been his intention.
“I would not have allowed that,” Rico added, just in case she hadn’t got the message.
“And I wouldn’t have considered it,” she asserted tightly. “We will get married as soon as possible.”
Bella very nearly fell off her chair. Wide-eyed, she stared back at him, refusing to’ believe that he had simply murmured that statement as if it almost went without saying that they should now get married, as if any other response to their predicament was not even to be considered.
Rico dealt her shocked face a look of granite-hard determination un tinged by any amusement.
“I intend to have full legal rights over this child.”
Bella unglued her tongue from the roof of her mouth. Just minutes ago he had told her that she didn’t have a clue how he felt about her being pregnant. Now she was tasting the literal truth of that assurance.
“But—’ ” Let’s go into the drawing room,” he suggested drily, rising fluidly from his seat.
“I doubt that either of us is likely to eat any more tonight.”
Once there, Bella sank down into an armchair.
“How can you talk about marriage?” she whispered helplessly.
“I
thought you didn’t even like children—’ “When did I ever say that?”
“You said you had no desire to become a father.”
“Naturally not … outside marriage,” he stressed.
She was shaken by the simplicity of that clarification. “As it happens, I am very fond of children,” he breathed tautly as he poured himself a brandy.
“But children make you vulnerable. I had a son once and I lost him again. It was an experience I did not wish to repeat.”
“I’m not sure I understand.” He was talking about the child he had had with his ex-wife.
“His name was Carlos.” Rico sent her a brooding look, his tension palpable.
“And to this day I do not know whether or not he was my child. But it really didn’t matter because when he was born I believed he was and I loved him,” he proffered tightly.
“He was the only good thing to come out of a rotten marriage, the only reason I tried so hard to make the marriage work.
“Margarita didn’t give a damn about him. He was simply the means by which she married money. But when it came to the divorce he was also the means by which she hoped to achieve a very large settlement.”
All at once Bella was seeing how wildly off-centre her own assumptions had been.
“I wish you had told me this sooner.”
“When Margarita moved out she took Carlos with her. She expected me to buy him back,” he muttered harshly, his jaw clenching.
“But she wanted more than I could afford to pay then. When I didn’t pay up she lost her head and told everyone that he wasn’t mine anyway—’ ” How could she do that to you? ” Bella whispered.
“The reality was that she didn’t know whether he was or not. I had not been her only lover at the time of his conception Her claim threw the custody battle into chaos, causing a delay in the giving of the judge’s decision. Tests had to be carried out. Carlos remained with Margarita and…” he hesitated and gave an almost clumsy shrug ‘. one day when she was partying he fell into a swimming pool and drowned. “
“Oh, God,” Bella mumbled in shock.
“He was eighteen months old,” Rico revealed curtly. “And she wasn’t fit to have the charge of him. She had had a row with his nanny and sacked her the day before. He didn’t have a hope in hell.”