“I’m so sorry.” She swallowed back the tears that were threatening and watched the carpet swim instead. She was appalled by what he had told her.
“And I swore I would never have another child because losing Carlos was the toughest challenge I have ever had to face.” His facial muscles locked, he downed his brandy in one.
“But be assured that now you carry my baby inside you everything changes…”
“Yes.” Her head was aching from the tension he had induced.
“We do the very best we can for that baby,” he informed her with sudden savage ferocity.
“And I will not allow you to walk away as Margarita did and take that child from me! He or she is as much mine as yours…” and the sooner you accept that reality the better! “
“I don’t want to walk away,” Bella said thickly just as the door closed. She looked up. Rico had gone. She flew to her feet and went after him, but by the time she realised that he had left the house and not just gone into another room he had already driven off.
She was distraught and yet part of her wanted to kick him for not telling her about Carlos sooner. It wasn’t her fault that she had made a series of false suppositions on the subject of how he felt about children, it was his. Yet she understood why he hadn’t told her as well. Understandably, talking about that tragedy really upset him. Dear God, what an evil bitch he had married, she thought helplessly.
At first she planned to sit up and wait for him and explain how she had misunderstood. But then she began to go back over all that Rico had said. Marriage hadn’t been on his agenda because he hadn’t wanted to risk having another child with any woman. Once bitten, twice shy.
But the fact that a baby was actually on the way had completely altered his attitude.
And he wasn’t worded about losing her, was he? It was a bitter irony.
Rico was more worded about losing control of the new life in her womb! No wonder he had relaxed when he’d realised there was to be no threat of a termination. Rico, whether he realised it or not, could not wait to get his paws on her baby! He was even prepared to marry her to ensure that he had greater legal rights!
She went up to bed, deeply shaken and deeply hurt. She was distressed by what he had told her about Carlos but never in her entire life had she felt more rejected. Regardless of the fact that Rico really seemed to want their child, he seemed to have pitched their relationship right out the window. And she just couldn’t comprehend why it was happening that way.
He woke her up coming to bed. It was some Unholy hour of the morning and he was humming under his breath. She couldn’t believe it. Her teeth clenched. And when, ten seconds after he got into bed, a pair of arms reached for her she presented him with a back as welcoming as Everest in a blizzard.
“I asked you to marry me. I thought you’d be pleased,” he murmured without any expression at all.
Bella shot upright as if he had stabbed her with a knife. “Why the hell would I be pleased?”
“It is what you wanted at the beginning.”
“I wised up!” she screeched.
A lamp was switched on.
“Calm down,” he instructed. “How do you think that baby feels listening to you scream?”
“It’s listening to you too … being totally, hatefully objectionable!”
she sobbed, her every worst fear about the exact nature of her value to him now confirmed.
He enclosed her in his arms. She did her stick of rock impression.
“Bella…” he said tautly.
“I was under a lot of strain earlier. I felt incredibly confused. I was scared that you were pregnant … and then scared that you might not be! But by the time I was cracking open the champagne with George…” Bella froze in absolute disbelief at this revelation of how he had passed his time away from her ‘. I realised how extraordinarily happy I feel about this baby,” he delivered with positive fervour, in the tone of someone who believed that he was telling her exactly what she wanted to hear.
“You’ve been celebrating with my doctor?” Bella enunciated in a voice which shook.
“Naturally we did not discuss you either medically or personally,” Rico assured her.
“You toad!” she spat.
Rico dropped his air of insouciance and compressed his lips, his glittering golden eyes splintering into hers.
“Do you really think he’ll still want you when you tell him you’re pregnant?”
“Who?” Bella looked blank.
“Who?” Rico echoed, cut tingly incredulous.
Comprehension assailed her. A heady tide of pink washed over her complexion. Somehow, in all the turmoil of the evening, she had forgotten telling him that lie about Griff.
Since it now seemed pointless to continue it, she muttered,
“I made that up—’ ” Qud dices? “
“About Griff … that was a little white lie—’ ’” A little white lie”?” Rico thundered, springing out of bed.
“Madre de Dios … you tell me you’re in love with another man and you call that ” a little white lie”?”
“I had to give you a reason for leaving!” Bella protested. “So if you are not pining for Biff why were you leaving?” he slung at her with a positively feral snarl as he began to get dressed.
“Because of the baby.” Bella gave him an ‘are you stupid? ” look of angry reproof.
“I thought you wouldn’t want it … I thought it would be the worst news you had ever heard—’ ” And when was I going to hear this news? ” he roared at her.
“Some time after we’d split up … when the subject wasn’t so emotive.”
Rico sent her a glimmering glance of disbelief.
“When it felt less … personal,” she floundered in desperation.
His disbelief was magnified.
“Does that really make sense to you, gatita?” he enquired gently.
Reluctantly she shook her head. In retrospect it didn’t make sense.
Finding out that she was pregnant had made her panic. She had not been thinking clearly about what she was doing.
“I guess I was running away. I couldn’t work up the courage to tell you something I thought you didn’t want to hear.”
“And that was my fault?”
Bella shrugged.
“You didn’t want to be trapped into marriage again. That’s fine.” She took a deep breath.
“But I don’t want to marry you on that same basis, Rico. Even though both of us were reckless—’ ” I’m never reckless, gatita. I knew the risk and I accepted. it. I should have known then that there was something special between us. “
Bella winced.
“Rico, you would tell me just about anything to persuade me to marry you. I can understand that but—’ A hand had closed round her arm. Rico was pulling her out of bed.
“What ‘are you doing?”
“I want to show you something.” “It’s four o’clock in the morning!”
But he wasn’t listening to her. He thrust her robe at her and tossed her mules across to her.
“Come on.”
“Where?”
“You’ll see.” Impatiently he propelled her out of the bedroom and downstairs.
When he climbed into the Bugatti outside she hissed, “I’m not dressed!”
“We’re not leaving the estate.”
He drove down the lane that ran from the stable block out to the fields. At the end of it he parked, leaving the headlights on, and walked over to the fence. Thoroughly exasperated by now, Bella leapt out and followed.
“Keep your eyes peeled for something vaguely animate that reminds you of a very tatty, small, moving hearth rug.”
A shape ambled out of the darkness, attracted by the light.
“I located him five days ago,” Rico murmured.
“He hasn’t been very well looked after but the vet says he’ll be fine once he’s groomed and fattened ui0.”
Bella was already striving to climb the fence, somewhat hampered by her flowing nightwear. Rico lifted her over.
Fiddlesticks,” she whispered shakily, and then surged over the grass to the Shetland pony.
Ten minutes later she was wiping at her eyes, genuinely overcome not just by the reunion with the little pony she had never thought to see again but by the fact that Rico had gone to so much trouble to trace him and give him back to her.
Rico swung her back over the fence. She slid back into the car, still in a happy daze.
“I planned to get a dog and a cat to go with him,” he murmured very tautly.
“And I was also planning to present the three of them to you before the party.”
“Dog … cat … party?” Bella mumbled in helpless repetition.
“You told me that you loved children and wanted a large fluffy dog, a cat and a pony for them,” Rico reminded her stiffly.
“Well, I was ready to supply them.”
She went rigid, understanding finally sinking in. Rico was telling her that at least a week ago he had been ready to give her what he believed she wanted. And all of a sudden, instead of being touched and pleased by the gesture, she felt like screaming. She wanted him to love her, not drag her out to a field in the middle of the night and offer her a menagerie!
He dug something from his pocket and handed it to her. “This is a sample of the invitations I was having printed. It was going to be an engagement party … a surprise,” he breathed in a harsh undertone.