A child would depend on her for everything. Love. Stability. Nourishment. Of the three, came the sharp knowledge that she would only be able to provide the first.
At that precise moment, even more so than when she’d taken the pregnancy test, her life had changed irrevocably.
What stability did she have living in a shared rented home that banned children? What nourishment could she provide when she barely earned enough to feed herself? Nappies alone cost a fortune on her salary. Maybe if this had all happened a few years down the line, when she’d scaled the career ladder a little higher and was earning more, things would have been more manageable. But they weren’t. At that moment she had nothing.
‘So that’s it, is it?’ she demanded, fighting with everything she had to keep her tone moderate, to fight the hysteria threatening to take control. ‘What do you want me to do? Give you a ring in five months and tell you if it’s a boy or a girl?’
He speared her with a look. ‘Not at all, cucciola mia.’
Cucciola mia: the endearment that had appropriated itself as his pet name for her during their weekend together. Curiosity had driven her to translate it on the same phone he had stolen from her. She had been more than a little chagrined to learn it meant something along the lines of my puppy. The way he said it though...in Pepe’s thick Sicilian tongue it sounded tantalisingly sexy.
Momentarily distracted at the throwaway endearment, it took a second before she realised he was studying the scan picture.
‘I notice this was taken a month ago,’ he said, referring to the date of the scan shown clearly on the corner.
‘And?’
‘And it’s taken you all this time to tell me. Why is that?’
How she hated his mocking scepticism, as if he were looking for a conspiracy in every little thing.
‘I didn’t tell you any sooner because I don’t trust you an inch—I wanted to be sure I was too far gone for you to force an abortion on me.’
Pepe’s firm, sensuous lips tightened and his eyes narrowed, lines appearing on his forehead. After too long a pause, he said, ‘Why would you think that?’
She almost laughed aloud. ‘You have loved and left so many women it’s become a second career for you. What do you, Playboy of the Year, want with a child?’
His features darkened for the split of a second before his usual laconic grin replaced it. ‘It might make a nice accessory for pulling more women.’
She would have believed he was serious if the granite in his eyes hadn’t said otherwise. She gave an involuntary shiver.
‘Do you think I was oblivious to the disparaging comments you made about babies?’ she demanded. ‘Do you think I didn’t notice you rolling your eyes whenever Grace and Luca discussed having kids?’
‘So that’s proof I would demand an abortion, is it?’
‘You made it perfectly clear that kids are not and never will be on your agenda.’
A tiny pulse pounded on his jawline. After a loaded pause, he said, ‘Say a paternity test proves it is mine. What do you expect from me? Marriage?’
‘No!’ She practically shouted her denial. ‘No. I do not want to marry you. I don’t want to marry anyone.’