That evening when Kathy took her break at the café, she told Bridget everything.
During that confessional, Bridget made several brusque comments about Sergio and gave the younger woman a reassuring hug. ‘Falling pregnant is not the end of the world, so stop talking as though it is—’
Kathy gulped. ‘I’m terrified—’
‘It’s the shock. Not to mention the fright Sergio Torrente gave you when he assumed that you had stolen his watch,’ Bridget muttered tight-mouthed. ‘When I think of what you’ve already gone through, his attitude makes my blood boil.’
‘At least he was honest,’ Kathy muttered heavily. ‘But I hate him for it. How fair is that?’
‘Forget about him. I’m more concerned about you.’
‘Why am I crying all the time?’ Kathy lamented, hauling out a tissue to mop at her overflowing eyes.
‘Hormones,’ Bridget answered succinctly.
Over the next forty-eight hours Kathy discovered two missed calls from Sergio on her mobile and she kept it switched off because she didn’t want to speak to him. That evening she had an unexpected visitor when Renzo Catallone knocked on the door of her bedsit.
‘I’d like to speak to you. Will you give me five minutes?’ the former police officer asked bluntly.
Pale and stiff with unease, Kathy gave him a grudging nod.
‘Mr Torrente has given me my job back as his chief of security,’ Renzo volunteered. ‘I understand that I have you to thank for that change of heart.’
Kathy was astonished by that assurance. ‘But I only pointed out that it wasn’t fair to blame you for misjudging me when you didn’t actually know me.’
‘In the circumstances, it was very generous of you to make that point on my behalf,’ the older man told her warmly. ‘I wanted to thank you and tell you that if there is ever anything I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to ask for my help.’
Kathy went to bed that night feeling a little more cheerful and a little less ashamed of the past she could not change. The next day was Saturday, and she was serving breakfast at the café when Sergio strode in. His hard dark gaze raked across the room and closed in on her with punitive force. For a split second she stared and the edge-of-the-seat excitement was there, instant and powerful, sizzling through her slender taut frame like an electric charge. Her face flamed and she hastened into the kitchen with her order and lingered there.
Bridget put her head round the door. ‘Kathy? We’ll have to do without you today. Let Sergio take you home.’
‘Bridget, I—’
‘You have to talk to him some time.’
Kathy supposed that that was true. But it did mean stifling a seething desire to storm out and tell Sergio exactly what she thought of his two-timing cheating habits. With a baby on the way, she needed to take a long-term view, she told herself doggedly. Sergio was single and he could do as he liked. Her pregnancy was an accidental development. Now that the intimate side of things was over between them, establishing a civil connection with the future father of her child made better sense. Having given herself that quick mental pep talk, she emerged from the rear of the café clutching her bag and jacket.
The epitome of cool elegance in a black business suit teamed with a gold silk tie, Sergio was poised by the cash desk and incongruously out of step with his pedestrian surroundings. A bodyguard stood by the door, while two more hovered on the pavement outside.
Dark deep-set eyes alert, Sergio studied Kathy. As thin and pale as a wraith with her vibrant copper and red hair anchored in a casual pony-tail and her apple-green eyes hostile, she looked barely out of her teens. Yet not one of those facts detracted in the slightest from the power of her haunting beauty.
‘You were supposed to wait for me to phone,’ Kathy complained as she got into the limousine.
‘That’s not my style,’ Sergio murmured lazily, the smoky timbre of his dark drawl ensuring that she remained outrageously aware of his sensual charisma. ‘You need to collect your passport—we’re flying to Paris this morning.’
Already shaken, her studied air of detachment evaporated entirely at that statement. ‘Paris? Is this a joke?’
‘No.’
‘But to go all that way just for one day and when I’m supposed to be working…’ Her voice ran out of steam because the minute she thought about it, the more she wanted to do it.
Sergio elevated a fine ebony brow. ‘Why not? We have to talk and you’re stressed. I would like you to relax today.’
CHAPTER SIX
THE opulent interior of Sergio’s very large private jet took Kathy’s breath away.