Pregnant with His Baby!: Secret Baby, Convenient Wife / Innocent Wife, Baby of Shame / The Surgeon's Secret Baby Wish

Sure, you were so traumatised you only paused to catch your breath before trying to do it again!

Ignoring the sardonic interjection of the critical voice in his head, Gianfranco recalled the primitive surge of male satisfaction tinged by a tenderness that had followed his initial blank shock.

When he had held her in his arms and told her that the possibility that she would be a virgin had never even crossed his mind she had confirmed her naivety by saying with a rueful grimace, ‘You noticed, then. I was wondering if you would.’

‘How is this possible? You are twenty-six. I thought I was a late starter,’ he muttered under his breath.

With feline grace that fascinated him, she rolled over and snuggled with a very un-virginlike lack of self-consciousness up to him. She trailed a finger down his sweat-slick hair-roughened chest, insinuating the feminine curve of her hip into the hard angle of his as she threw one slim thigh across his legs.

‘So how old were you?’ she asked, adding with a sigh of voluptuous pleasure and a sexy shimmy of her soft body against his, ‘God, this is good and you are totally and absolutely beautiful.’ Her exuberance was contagious.

‘Are you going to fall asleep?’

‘No, I am not going to fall asleep,’ he promised, laughing.

He had never associated laughter with sex before, but then it was not his habit to indulge in teasing banter or snuggling in the post-coital aftermath.

The romantic boy in him was long dead. For him sex was about satisfying a mutual primal need. Modern society felt the need to dress it up and talk of spiritual, emotional connections, but he did not buy into the self-deception.

And if on occasion, no matter how great the sex had been, he was left with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction, not being a man inclined towards introspection, he didn’t analyse it or feel he was missing out on anything.

‘So how old were you?’ she persisted.

‘You seem fascinated by my sexual history.’

Tongue caught between her teeth, she trailed a finger down his chest, her green eyes teasing him from under the flirtatious sweep of her lashes. It amused him to see her discovering the power of her female sexuality and taking such obvious delight from it—so was he!

Her questing hand slid lower and she gave a deliciously throaty chuckle as he shuddered, his body stirring lustfully.

‘I’m fascinated by lots of things about you,’ she admitted. ‘But I did have you down as a very early starter.’

Very conscious of the small hand that now rested palm down on the flat of his belly, he retorted, ‘I was not twenty-six.’ He avoided whenever possible thinking of his idealistic nineteen-year-old self.

‘How is it possible that a woman who looks like you has never had a lover?’

‘Thank you. That’s a very nice thing to say. You’ve got lovely manners.’

‘Manners? Dio, you say the oddest things. It’s not nice; it is a fact—you are beautiful.’ He caught her softly rounded chin in his hand and tilted her heart-shaped face up to him and looked deep into her emerald eyes.

Dervla didn’t look away, but looked steadily back at him, though there was a touch of shyness in her direct gaze. When he touched his thumb to her lips, still swollen from his kisses, and traced the cushiony softness, her lashes had swept downwards, brushing against her smooth flushed cheeks.

He kissed the delicate blue-veined eyelids and murmured, ‘Very beautiful and desirable. I thought so from the moment I saw you.’

Her eyelashes lifted and there was a sparkle of teasing wickedness in her eyes. ‘Do you want to know what I thought when I first saw you?’ Before he could respond she shook her head and with a rueful grimace said, ‘On second thoughts, don’t ask. It wasn’t very professional.’

He watched her expression grow sober, a furrow appearing between her feathery brows as she touched the sutures that had closed the healing wound that lay close to the hairline at his right temple and ended at his jaw.

He caught her hand and raised it to his lips.

‘Come to think of it, this isn’t very professional,’ she said huskily as she curled her fingers around his jaw. He watched the clear green of her marvellous eyes cloud as, with a distracted expression, she began to stroke her thumb across the light dusting of stubble on his cheek.

‘But what you lacked in expertise you made up for in enthusiasm.’

It took her a second before she digested his comment; in the next second her eyes widened as she loosed an indignant, ‘You know what I mean!’ before she rolled away from him and in one seamless motion pulled herself into a sitting position. Then, balancing on her heels, she lobbed a pillow at his chest.

Gianfranco had been too absorbed by the gentle and incredibly erotic quiver of her small pink-tipped breasts to block the missile.

Pleased that he had succeeded in driving the self-recriminatory frown from her face, he grinned, removed the second weapon from her hands and pushed her back against the mattress. Supported above her by one hand, he curved the other over her delectable bottom. As he dragged her to him he heard her sharp intake of breath and felt the vibration as the husky little whimper got trapped in her throat.

Looking into her eyes, he saw them dilate dramatically until just a thin ring of green remained. She aroused a hunger in him that threatened the control he prided himself on.

‘What you need, cara, is practice and lots of it.’

‘Which you will provide?’ Before he could assure her of his total willingness to do so she suddenly groaned. ‘No, this is all wrong!’

‘Wrong?’ It felt pretty right to him. Frustration clawed at his belly.

‘Patients are vulnerable,’ she explained solemnly. ‘Sometimes they get close to the people caring for them, imagine they have feelings.’ Her eyes slid from his. ‘It’s a well-documented fact. To take advantage of someone vulnerable is despicable … and I can’t even claim I didn’t know what I was doing. I knew exactly what I was doing.’

It took him a few seconds to interpret her convoluted and earnest explanation.

‘You think you are taking advantage of me?’ He had to bite back the laughter because she clearly took this very seriously. ‘If anyone could be accused of taking advantage it should be me. You were the virgin.’ She brushed aside the reminder with a wave of her hand. ‘And today you were upset because you lost your patient.’

‘I’m a nurse and I work on a unit where people are very ill, patients die.’

‘And you stay objective—you expect me to believe that?’ he asked incredulously. ‘I’ve watched you.’ He actually couldn’t take his eyes off her. ‘You ooze empathy.’

She gave him a quizzical look. ‘Is that a bad thing?’

‘Not for the lonely old man you visited on your day off.’

‘Mr Chambers had no family here. His daughter had emigrated, she was coming and—’

‘You do not need to explain your actions to me, Dervla. I am not your patient.’

‘No, but your son is.’

‘Not for much longer.’ If Alberto threw off the infection that had slightly delayed his progress, the medics said he ought to be fit enough to be transferred to a hospital within half an hour’s drive from their Florence home to convalesce.

She nodded. ‘You’ll be home soon.’

He watched as without warning tears started to leak from Dervla’s glorious eyes. ‘My God,’ she groaned, flashing him a mortified look as she brushed them away. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Why are you crying, Dervla?’ he asked, sitting upright.

Normally tears were his cue for recalling he needed to be somewhere else. Gianfranco had a cynical take on female tears, being of the opinion they were more to do with manipulation than sentiment.

Only it was fast dawning on him that unlike other lovers in his past, this redhead didn’t know the first thing about manipulation or, for that matter, self-preservation.

His hands clenched into fists as he thought of her walking like an innocent lamb into the clutches of some bastard who would take advantage of that trusting nature.

Some might say she already has. Gianfranco dismissed the thought. Men took advantage of a woman when they pretended to feel something they didn’t. He did not play those games.

‘I’m not. I don’t cry. Oh, God!’ she snapped, rounding on him angrily. ‘Can’t a girl sniff without a full-scale interrogation?’

‘You’re upset and I want to know why.’ He had felt a slight twinge of unease, recognising that he genuinely did want to know.

In previous relationships the most personal details he had felt it necessary to learn about the women in his life were their preferences in designer labels. He was not an ungenerous lover, but he was not one who was interested in emotionally high-maintenance women.

‘Are you regretting this?’

‘Regretting?’ she echoed, looking startled by the suggestion and then wryly amused as she told him, ‘Nothing could be farther from the truth.’

He was relieved but perplexed by the odd inflection in her voice. ‘Then why …?’

She shook her head mutely and rolled away, presenting him with her slim bare back. A hand on her shoulder, he pulled her back. ‘Look at me!’ he commanded.

After a moment she did. Their eyes meshed and the silence stretched until a small choking sound escaped her throat. In one single fluid motion she was on her feet at the side of the bed, red hair falling in a silken skein around her shoulders. She seemed oblivious to her nakedness as she stood there literally quivering, her pale skin glowing with an opalescent sheen.

Gianfranco had known at that moment that the image of her standing there would always remain in his memory.

‘I was trying very hard to be grown up about this, but if you want to know, fine!’ She flung up her arms, causing her small pink-tipped breasts to bounce in a way that sent a fresh distracting stab of lust slamming through Gianfranco’s aroused body.

‘I was crying because I’ll miss you when you go back home.’ She screwed her eyes tight shut and shook her head before fixing him with a challenging glare. ‘And before you say it, yes, I do know how stupid that sounds and how ludicrous I’m being. I barely even know you. We have nothing in common and—’

‘You’ll miss me?’ He watched as dull colour ran up under her fair skin as she reached for a quilt that had fallen to the ground and wrapped it around herself.

‘I really don’t know what I’m saying. This has been a pretty emotional day.’

Was she referring to losing the patient she had cared for or losing her virginity? He patted the bed. It was an invitation she accepted after a moment, though to his regret the quilt stayed in place as she sat primly on the edge of the bed.

‘Come with me,’ he heard himself say.

Her expression mirrored the incomprehension he was feeling. ‘Come …?’

‘Come with us when we go back to Italy.’

‘That’s very nice of you, but I don’t have any annual leave left this year.’

‘For the record, Dervla, I am not a nice man, and I’m not talking about taking a vacation. You’d like Italy.’

‘Live there, you mean?’

‘Why not?’

‘A hundred why nots,’ she retorted, trying to laugh but sounding strained as she reminded him, ‘My work is here, Gianfranco.’

‘There are hospitals in Italy.’

‘I don’t speak Italian, it takes time to learn a language and I need to earn a living … God, will you listen to me?’ she exclaimed, clapping a hand to her head and rolling her eyes. ‘I sound as though I’m actually considering it.’

‘You don’t need to worry about earning a living straight away—I’m not exactly a poor man.’

Beside him she stiffened. ‘You’re suggesting I should pack in my job, leave my friends and come with you to Italy as your mistress?’

‘Not mistress precisely,’ he admitted.

But now that he thought about it he could see the very definite advantages to this plan. It wasn’t until she turned her head and he saw her expression that it dawned on him that Dervla was not warmed to the idea.

He continued to study her and thought about the women, he could think of several, who might manage to simulate a little enthusiasm at the prospect of the lap of luxury as his mistress.

‘Well, what else would you call a woman when a man pays her bills in return, of course, for certain favours?’ she enquired with withering contempt. Her bosom heaved as she choked. ‘I’ve never been so insulted in my life!’

Her anger seemed totally inexplicable to Gianfranco. ‘You are insulted?’

He wondered whether to inform her that the post that apparently filled her with such disgust was one that any number of women had angled for over the years.

‘Damn right,’ she ground through clenched teeth. ‘Do I seem to you like the sort of woman who would make herself reliant on a man? A woman who would give up her independence? Waiting until I’m twenty-six to discover sex might in retrospect make me a fool, but not that much of a fool.’

‘So is that it? Now that you have discovered sex, you are anxious to experiment.’ An image of the faceless men who would continue the education he had begun flashed into his head. The throbbing in his temples became a pulsating thud.

After staring at him in stunned silence for a moment, she threw back her head and laughed. Her eyes were sparkling with anger as she said in a flat little voice, ‘And I have you to thank for my sexual liberation.’

‘Do not confuse promiscuity with liberation,’ he counselled severely, still seeing that line of predatory faceless males.

‘You’re accusing me of being promiscuous? That’s rich! That really is rich! The way I hear, you change women the same way a normal man changes his shirt. If you were a woman and not filthy rich people would call you some very nasty names. And they might be right!’

‘Dio mio!’ he breathed wrathfully. The women he took to his bed were experts at pleasing a man; they did not go out of their way to insult him.

It turned out she hadn’t finished with him yet.

‘You know, you’re the sort of man who can’t talk about his feelings and thinks it’s a sign of strength.’

‘Suddenly you know an awful lot about men—and me,’ he observed grimly.

She glared at him through shimmering green eyes and tossed her head contemptuously. ‘I know enough about you to know I never want to see you again.’ Snatching up her scattered clothes, she ran from the room.

He told himself that the turn of events, while frustrating, was for the best in the long run. Dervla Smith was too high maintenance. He threw aside the covers and vaulted to his feet, his toe caught in the lacy strap of her bra.

He returned it a week later when he proposed.

CHAPTER TEN

DERVLA’S apprehension increased as the limo pulled into the underground parking space of the London house. She swallowed past the nervous constriction in her throat as the car came to a halt and Eduardo switched off the engine.

Beside her Alberto clicked free his seat belt, nothing in his manner suggesting he shared her apprehension. Dervla couldn’t believe he was really that relaxed, but if he wasn’t, she thought, studying his stress-free, handsome young face, he was the world’s best actor.

Her brow furrowed; his attitude totally baffled her. Gianfranco might be an indulgent parent, but when Alberto overstepped the mark he came down hard. And by anyone’s definition he had overstepped the mark this time!

His father was going to go ballistic and Alberto had to know it.

She waited until Eduardo was out of hearing distance before she voiced the question that was uppermost in her mind.

‘Why did you do it?’

He had fed her a steady stream of information concerning the highlights of his journey, including the complicated romantic life of the lorry driver who had given him a lift to Calais—she might suggest he didn’t share that little anecdote with his father—but so far he hadn’t even hinted at any reason for the escapade.

Alberto looked at her and shrugged.

She sucked in a sharp breath. The similarity between father and son had never been more pronounced as the teenager slung her a look from under well-defined sable brows. ‘An impulse, I guess.’

Dervla rolled her eyes and begged with a groan, ‘Please don’t say that to your father, Alberto.’

‘Don’t worry about Dad, Dervla. I can handle him.’

Dervla’s mouth fell open. ‘You can handle …’ She began to laugh. The person had not been born who could handle Gianfranco.

The boy was not offended by her amusement. ‘It’s all right, really, Dervla. I’ve got it all under control.’

‘Have you suffered a head injury?’ Concussion would go some way to explaining his ill-judged confidence. ‘Sometimes, Alberto, there is a fine line between confidence and stupidity—in this instance there is a dirty great chasm!’

Alberto laughed.

‘Alberto!’ she protested. ‘This isn’t a joke. You can’t just run away.’

‘Why not, Dervla? You did.’

The gentle reminder made her flush to the roots of her hair. ‘That,’ she retorted, her eyes sliding from his, ‘is not the same at all. I’m an adult …’

‘And you’re married and I’m not.’

Dervla was starting to wonder who was meant to be defending reckless behaviour here. ‘Your father must have been beside himself.’

‘When you left he spent the night walking the floor. I could hear him all night.’

‘Really?’ She stopped and bit her lip. Suddenly I’m the adolescent. Alberto really was his father’s son, she reflected, and not just in looks. ‘That’s between me and your father,’ she said repressively.

‘Of course. Adult stuff.’

Dervla looked at him suspiciously, unable to rid herself of the idea he was humouring her. The boy looked innocently back at her through eyes that were so like his father’s that it was like being pierced by a dull blade.

‘You’re thirteen. What you did was incredibly dangerous. Anything could have happened,’ she said, struggling to impress on him the seriousness of the situation without coming over as the heavy step-parent.

‘But it didn’t,’ he pointed out with another flash of unarguable logic. ‘So there’s not much point worrying about it, is there?’

‘I know your dad can seem a bit unapproachable at times, but if there’s a problem you should tell him, Alberto. I think you’d be surprised at how understanding he can be.’

‘Oh, don’t worry, Dervla, I know I can tell Dad anything and, let’s face it, he’s the sort of person that you want around in a crisis.’

This piece of worldly wisdom robbed Dervla momentarily of speech. ‘Yes, he is,’ she admitted finally.

‘You look a bit misty, Dervla. Are you all right?’ her stepson asked, watching her dab the suspicion of moisture from under her eyes.

‘Fine, just a bit of hay fever.’ She caught his arm. ‘It’s just when your father does get here don’t whatever you do act as if this is a joke.’

‘I won’t.’

With that she had to be content as the teenager put on a spurt of speed and shot ahead.

She called his name, breaking into a jog to catch him up.

But she didn’t; the teenager with the advantage of longer legs and youth reached the porticoed entrance to the tall Georgian building before she caught up with him.

Dervla stopped at the bottom of the elegant sweep of shallow steps and watched him exchange a few words with the man standing at the open door before disappearing inside.

Run, her inner voice screamed as the man began to walk down the steps towards her. She might even have responded to the voice had her feet not been nailed to the spot.

‘Hello, Gianfranco.’ He looked devastatingly handsome in a pale linen shirt open at the neck to reveal smooth golden skin and jeans that clung to his narrow hips and emphasised the length and power of his muscular legs.

The longing rolled over her like a tidal wave as she stared at him.

It did not even occur to her to question his presence here. A year sharing his life had taught her that ingenuity, determination and seemingly limitless financial resources meant that very few things were impossible for Gianfranco.

Compared to some of the things she had witnessed, reaching the London house before them could not have presented much of a challenge to him.

He stopped on the step above her, making the disparity in their heights even more noticeable, but he didn’t respond to her polite greeting.

His eyes, dark and intense, remained on her face.

‘Alberto’s very sorry.’

Dervla saw a flicker of something that looked like amusement in his dark eyes. ‘Did he tell you that?’

‘Not in so many words, but—’

Gianfranco cut her off with a sharp movement of his hand. ‘Dio mio, I have no wish to discuss my son just now.’

‘Not with me, you mean.’

Gianfranco’s mouth tightened with frustration.

‘It’s stupid, really,’ Dervla observed, her voice high and shaky. ‘But when we got married I was actually nervous about being a step-parent.’ She saw the flash of something that might have been shock move in his eyes and laughed again. ‘That didn’t occur to you? It didn’t cross your mind that I was worried I’d mess up and disappoint you.’

‘Well, you didn’t.’

‘Of course I didn’t, how could I? You’ve got the parenting covered. Actually, when you think about it, for someone who refused to be your mistress my present job description is not so very different.

‘I’ve tried hard to fit into your world, Gianfranco, really hard, but it seems to me that, no matter how hard I try, I’ll never be good enough.’

A stunned silence followed her quivering emotional outburst.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you felt that way? I thought you wanted to be part of a family.’

‘Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve been saying? I did, I do want to be part of a family, but I’m on the outside looking in where you,’ she accused, ‘put me.’

He looked genuinely shocked by her claim. ‘If that is true it was not my intention.’

‘You never do anything accidentally, Gianfranco. You manipulate people.’

‘Per amor di Dio, you act as though I planned everything …’ Releasing a hard laugh, he dragged a hand through his ebony hair and shook his head. ‘Since the moment I met you I have been playing catch-up; my life has been about as planned as a forest fire!’

The antagonism drained from Dervla as if someone had released an escape valve. They were just going around in circles. He didn’t love her and he wasn’t going to change, so what was the point in this?

‘Right, fine, well, it doesn’t matter any more,’ she said dully. ‘I’ll let you get on with doing your parent things. I’m staying with Sue just now and you’ve got her number.’

A look of astonishment spread across Gianfranco’s lean dark face. For a moment he just stared at her. ‘You expect me to stand here and let you walk away …?’

She shrugged, pretending a lack of interest she didn’t feel. ‘Why not?’

His sable brows twitched into a dark disapproving line. ‘What are you talking about? You are my wife, though you seem to have forgotten that.’

Dervla knew she was only his wife on paper. In his heart he would only ever have one wife and it wasn’t her. ‘I was your wife two days ago,’ she observed. ‘I didn’t see you going out of your way to see if I was all right.’

‘So I was meant to follow you?’ Eyes smouldering, he stepped down to her level and curved his hands possessively across her narrow ribcage, drawing her towards him until they stood barely an inch apart. The indentation above his aquiline nose deepened as his glance moved across her face.

‘You don’t look well,’ he accused, concern for her fragile appearance making his voice harsh.

‘I didn’t have much time to make myself presentable.’ She made no mention of the fact her brain had gone into meltdown the moment she had heard his voice. ‘You said it was urgent so I assumed a trip to the hairdresser’s was out of the question.’