‘Like the condemned man?’ Bella looked across the table at him and steeled herself. ‘I’m afraid I wasn’t very honest with you this afternoon…’
He tautened perceptibly. His narrowed dark eyes rested on her with grim intensity. He drained his glass of wine and set it down without taking his attention from her once. ‘I am aware of that fact.’
For some peculiar reason Bella felt as though the dining-table between them had just become a bank manager’s desk, with her playing the role of debtor asking for a loan that was about to be refused. There was just something so cold and businesslike about Rico’s attitude.
‘Well, I owe you the truth,’ she told him.
‘You do,’ he agreed.
‘I’ve realised that I still have feelings for Griff,’ she muttered, and she didn’t need to pretend to feel guilty saying that; she did feel guilty.
The silence stretched like a rubber band pulled to breaking-point. Then Rico’s strong face clenched, his sensual mouth flattening into a bloodless line. ‘To employ your jargon… tough!’
Bella gave him a dazed look, wildly disconcerted by such a response.
‘Why don’t you tell me the rest of the truth?’ he invited softly, only there was something innately menacing about that tone.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Maybe you could tell me why you’re not wearing your black dress… or why you’ve sworn off alcohol again?’ Rico invited. ‘Or why one of my closest friends can’t meet my eyes when I ask him a perfectly reasonable question?’
Bella had turned pale.
‘Or how about why you’re developing a bosom worthy of a Playboy centrefold?’
‘How dare you?’ she gasped, unable to dredge anything more riveting from a brain in the deep freeze of turmoil. He couldn’t possibly have guessed, she told herself frantically; he couldn’t possibly have!
Rico vented a harsh laugh and thrust his plate away. ‘You’re pregnant… and all I want to know now is how pregnant?’
In a wave of pain Bella bowed her head.
‘George didn’t tell me but when you got up out of that bed and told me we were finished you told me,’ Rico spelt out. ‘I can add two and two. So tell me, when did this happy event take place?’
‘When we were kidnapped—’
‘So now I discover why you suddenly agreed to move in with me!’ he shot at her.
‘I didn’t know until today!’ she protested, shocked that he could think that.
‘And with the best will in the world how am I supposed to believe that?’ he breathed, sounding almost weary.
‘Because it’s the truth.’
‘For someone who prides herself on telling the truth, and who gives an outstanding impression of always delivering it, you tell a lot of lies!’
A sob was trapped in her throat. Why, oh, why hadn’t she had the wit to tell him this afternoon as soon as she’d found out? But she knew why. This was the very scene she had sought to avoid and it was tearing her apart. She had believed that a few weeks or months down the line, when they had already split up, she would have been able to handle his bitter reaction a lot more easily. But in avoiding the issue she had only made Rico more suspicious.
The tip of her tongue stole out to moisten her dry lips. She lifted her vibrant head. ‘I can’t blame you for thinking that, but I just wasn’t ready to face this yet. I was as shocked as you are and I knew how you would feel—’
‘Por Dios, you have not a clue how I feel!’ he raked back at her.
Bella forced herself to explain why she had assumed that she was not pregnant, and at that moment did not much care whether Rico believed her or not. They had both taken that risk two months earlier, and if the first time their lovemaking had been prompted by her, the second time Rico had been the guilty party. The responsibility cut both ways.
‘And what are your plans now—a termination?’ he demanded abruptly.
She looked back at him in horror.
‘I had to ask,’ he murmured tautly, and oddly enough her unspoken rejection of such an option seemed to remove much of the strain stamped into his bronzed features. ‘I was afraid that that was your intention.’