The Italian's Pregnant Mistress(31)

'I have no idea what you're talking about, Georgina, and I don't intend  to waste any more time listening to the rantings of a jealous woman.'

'I'm not ranting. Ask your girlfriend about Birmingham and that  unfortunate brush with trouble she had. I'm sure she'll only be too  happy to tell you what I'm talking about-to fill you in on why exactly  she won't be marrying you. Ditched for the second time, Angelo … how  degrading for you.' She pushed herself away from the window ledge and  slanted a malicious smile at Francesca. 'Well, I'll be off now. Hope you  haven't too many pieces to pick up, Angelo.' She left as she had  entered, in a swirl of elegant complacency.                       
       
           



       

'Care to tell me what that was all about?' Angelo swung round so that he was facing Francesca.

The house of cards had finally come crashing down. She took a deep breath and met his cool, curious gaze steadily.

'It's something I should have told you a long time ago. When we first met, in fact.'

'Which is?'

'When we met, Angelo, I was a model, working in Europe, a glamorous  person without any roots anywhere and no past. Or rather, no past that I  felt I could let on to you.' And the bits that I did fill you in on  were creations, little figments I never thought would come back to haunt  me …

'And why would that be?' Angelo had gone very still but that was only  for a moment. Then he walked across to the sofa and sat down.

'That would be because … because of who you are, someone huge and  important, moving in all the right circles, mixing with all the right  people.' Francesca looked down and was surprised to see that her hands  were fluttering nervously on her lap. She didn't feel nervous. Just  numb. 'The truth is that you never really knew me at all, not the real  me.'

'The real you being … ?'

'The real me being someone who grew up on one of the roughest council  estates in Birmingham, ran with all the wrong people. My mother died  from a drugs overdose when I was eight and at sixteen I left school  altogether to take care of my father. He was an alcoholic, you see,  and-well, somebody had to take care of him so that's what I did. I  didn't mind. I was fed up at school anyway. They tried to get me back  but I wasn't having any of it. Dad was on benefits and we had enough to  just about struggle through.'

Angelo, sitting in complete silence, was trying hard to equate the  glamorous model he had met, dated and loved with the person she was now  describing. She had always avoided questions about her past but the  impression she had left him with was of someone who had lived a fairly  ordinary middle-class life. Her revelations now were peeling off the  layers of what he thought he knew and exposing the face of someone who  was a complete stranger to him and always had been. It left a harshly  sour taste in his throat, the sour taste of deception.

'Then Dad died, quite suddenly, and I was left with nothing. I had no  education to speak of and, anyway, it was too late for me to think of  going back to school. Where I grew up, people didn't think about going  to school, they thought of ways to get out of it. Even if I had wanted  to, I would never have been able to, the peer pressure would have been  too much.' Francesca watched Angelo's expressionless face with a sinking  heart. Maybe if she had given him some indication in the past that her  life had been troubled, then he wouldn't now be sitting there, looking  at her as though he was seeing her for the first time.

She took a deep breath and ploughed on. 'Jack was one of the lads in our  group and my best friend. I didn't have many girlfriends. They didn't  like the way I looked, but Jack and I were mates. It was his suggestion  that we just clear off, head for London. It seemed a good idea at the  time. I was seventeen by then but I knew that with Dad no longer around,  the Social Services might be inclined to get involved and I didn't want  to go down that road. The minute Social Services get involved there's a  good chance that you'll end up worse off than you were to start with.'

'So you just … took off … '

'We stole a car, something else that seemed a good idea at the time. I  didn't think about whether it was right or wrong, it was all just a  means to an end. Jack drove.' In retrospect, she could see the craziness  of it all but she could remember how she had felt at the time. An  orphan, missing her drunken but humorous father, just trying to escape  the trap she had seen other girls fall into. The baby at seventeen, then  another two years later, the pathetic desperation of endless  relationships with abusive boyfriends who disappeared after a few months  or a few weeks. The hopelessness.

She just wished that he would say something, even if it was to condemn  her, but his silence was complete and, really, wasn't his complete  silence damning in itself?

'Of course, we were caught. We hadn't even made it halfway down to  London when Jack was picked up for speeding. It didn't take long before  we were hauled into a police station and, because there had been a lot  in the press about joyriders, we were dealt with pretty harshly.  Fingerprints, the lot. I got off because I was just a passenger, but  Jack went to prison for six months.'

'And where were you at the time?'

'Back in Birmingham, sleeping rough. I managed to get some casual work  at one of the department stores, which was good. When Jack got out, he  had changed. He was into drugs.'                       
       
           



       

Looks or no looks, if Angelo Falcone had met her then, he would have crossed to the other side of the road to avoid her.

'He bummed around for a few months, getting worse and worse … '

'And yet you stuck by him.'

'Because that's what friendship is all about. It was while I was working  in that store that I was spotted. It was all a matter of chance. The  Clothes Show was on and there must have been scouts around. A month  later and chances are that I would have ended up in the same place as  lots of other girls I knew, pushing a pram at eighteen and dreaming of  better things.'

'But you ended up on the other side of the Atlantic, wearing designer clothes … '

And meeting you. 'As soon as I had accumulated some money, I arranged  for Jack to be privately treated at a rehab centre. The top one in the  country. It's where a lot of my money went.'

Secrecy and lies, Angelo thought.

'He was there for quite a while … and then the balance is, well … '

'History? You paid for him to go on a caterer's course and it turned out  to be your refuge as well when you returned to England.'

Francesca nodded and stood up. 'I have a murky past, Angelo, and that  might not matter to a lot of people but it would matter to you. The  paparazzi would have a field day if they ever found out. Georgina  obviously has, but I don't suppose she'll say anything, not after you've  issued your warnings … ' She couldn't meet his eyes. It was one thing to  know the scales had dropped but another thing to actually see it for  herself. 'I couldn't get involved with you then and I can't get involved  with you now. I certainly can't marry you. I won't be responsible for  ruining your reputation.' And his reputation would be ruined. It was all  true what he had said about the small but powerful circle of movers and  shakers in London. Gossip could spread like wildfire and not only would  he personally be tarnished by his contact with her, but he might very  well be professionally tarnished as well.

'So all we have to decide is how we deal with this … situation … ' No longer  travelling down memory lane. She was crisp and businesslike now, not  giving him any opportunity for those eyes to express what he thought of  her. 'I intend to move away from London, but not too far, perhaps  towards Warwick. I know that part of the world and it's a good place to  raise a child.' For the first time she looked at him. 'Nothing you can  say or do will stop me.'





CHAPTER TEN




FOR the past week Francesca had been on bedrest. She had been feeling  sick and light-headed. She couldn't eat. The sight of food, any food,  just made her feel sicker. The doctor who had initially warned her that  she needed to get her energy levels up had given her a stern warning  about the effects of stress on her unborn baby and added some extra  spice to his lecture by referring to the vulnerability of women during  the first three months of their pregnancy. He had thrown her some scary  statistics but by that point Francesca had been too busy thinking about  the possibility of losing her baby to pay him much attention.

Bedrest. Dr White had been kind but firm, cutting through her protests  about having to work with one raised hand that had stopped her in  mid-flow. Bedrest or risk losing the baby-it was as simple as that. And  she needed to start eating properly, not just a handful of crackers on  the go to stave off nausea.