She closed her eyes, knowing that it would take a miracle for sleep to overcome her now. For it was over—she and Rico—over, finished, destroyed. Fate had had the last laugh of all. Secure in the belief that there was no question of her being pregnant, Rico had been brutally frank. A baby was a complication he did not want. She told herself that she was lucky to know his true feelings on the subject. Who could tell how he might have felt forced to react if she had discovered that she was pregnant a month ago?
Certainly he wouldn’t have felt disposed to offer marriage, but he might well have felt that sensitivity demanded that he conceal just how appalled he was by the news. She didn’t want pretences like that between them. Honesty was always the best policy, but oh, God, how it could hurt sometimes…
She drove back the pain consuming her, calling herself a coward. Their affair would have burnt out on his side anyway sooner or later. Now it would just happen sooner and she would be the one to make the break. She had no choice.
Just as Cleo had once made Bella welcome—a child unplanned and unsupported by any man—Bella would do the same for her child. It was that simple. But she felt horribly guilty. How could she have b
een so reckless? Whenever she had thought of becoming a mother she had always believed that the event would take place within a stable, loving relationship.
By three in the afternoon Bella was up again under her own steam. Incredibly she had dozed off. She showered and changed into the fresh clothes which she had flung into an overnight bag the previous day at Winterwood. Physically she felt much better but inside herself she felt dead.
She had woken up with the knowledge of what she had to do. Break it off, finish it… get it over with! Hector’s illness and her argument with Rico, which now seemed so pitifully unimportant, had supplied a natural break. When she came back from the hospital this evening she would tell him.
Since she had assumed that he was back at the bank, it was a shock when Rico strode out of the drawing room as she was heading for the ball. She froze, shielding her startled eyes with her lashes.
‘You were in the shower when I came to wake you up. How do you feel?’
‘Fine now,’ she said stiffly.
‘I’ve ordered a light meal for you.’
‘Thanks, but I’m—’
‘Bella, be sensible.’ He pressed her into the dining room where a place for one was already laid at the gleaming table. ‘You have to try to eat something. Hector’s fine, by the way. You don’t need to rush.’
His manservant appeared out of nowhere and a beautifully cooked omelette was slid in front of her. Her hands trembled as she reached out for the knife and fork. ‘I thought you’d be at the bank,’ she said once the man had gone.
‘I took the afternoon off.’
She couldn’t eat; she just couldn’t eat. She replaced the cutlery again, studied the table with anguished eyes and then cleared her throat. ‘You remember we decided on seeing how it went for a month?’ she whispered in a rush. ‘Well, it’s not working for me any more and I think you must feel—’
‘Eat before I force-feed you,’ Rico broke in, as if he were talking to a difficult child.
Bella stood up and backed away from the table. ‘Rico, listen to me,’ she muttered tightly, crossing her arms and turning away from him, unable to stay still. ‘This is nothing to do with those stupid arguments we had…please believe that. But sometimes a crisis makes you see more clearly—’
‘You’re so blind right now, gatita,’ Rico interposed in the same indulgent tone, ‘that you’d fall over your own feet. Our relationship has nothing to do with Hector’s heart attack.’
‘That isn’t what I was going to say!’ she protested, in so much turmoil that she couldn’t even keep her voice steady. Involuntarily her look clashed with steady dark eyes and she hurriedly averted her gaze again. ‘The point is… The point is,’ she repeated doggedly, ‘that two months ago we were kidnapped, and in the grip of that trauma sex got involved and—’
‘Sex got involved the first time I laid eyes on you,’ he proffered without shame. ‘The trauma of being kidnapped had nothing to do with it.’
Bella ignored that. She didn’t trust herself to look at him, couldn’t afford to be tempted. ‘What I realise now is that we sort of became dependent on each other in that container, and I don’t want to be dependent any more. I want my freedom back.’
‘I might be more impressed if you looked me in the face and told me that,’ he drawled with derision.
Bella looked up, blocked him out, a terrible pain scything through her. ‘It’s over. I’m sorry but that’s the way it is.’
‘You are one lousy liar,’ Rico said grimly, crossing the room in one long, menacing stride. ‘What the hell is going on here?’
Before he could reach her Bella dived for the door. In seconds she was out of the apartment and into the mercifully waiting lift. She made it out onto the busy street at speed. Sobs were tearing at her convulsing throat. She dashed her hand across her streaming eyes, devastated by the force of her emotions. Then she drew in a deep, slow breath and walked on down the street.
CHAPTER TEN
AN HOUR later Bella was sitting by Hector’s bedside with the fixed expression of someone in shock and striving to hide it. He had already been moved out of Intensive Care and into a private room. But while she had been asleep at the apartment Rico had visited him.
‘Absolute nonsense for you to think my dicky heart had anything to do with your love life,’ Hector was telling her in reproof. ‘I had an attack three years ago, as you very well know. As for you and Rico… well, times have changed and he seems very fond of you—’
‘Fond of me?’