‘I’m sure you’re wrong...’
Cass tried to laugh it off, while all she wanted to do was to leave the store and rush to the pharmacy to pick up a pregnancy test, but she had to wait until she finished work.
It was the longest working day of her life. Back home, she stared at the test in shock. The thin blue line didn’t lie, according to the instructions. But Marco had used protection, so how could this happen?
Quite easily, those same instructions informed her as she scanned the printed sheet.
No protection is foolproof.
Well, they’d got that right, and she was the fool.
* * *
‘A call from Signorina Rich?’
Marco sat back in his leather seat, staring out across the majestic skyline of Rome. His secretary knew never to interrupt him unless it was to announce his next appointment, or unless it was a matter of vital importance, so Cassandra must be kicking up a fuss. The lack of her pained him, but the fact that she had walked out on him without a word had ended it as far as he was concerned. How long had it been now? Almost three months? What was so important she had to call him at the office? Had she changed her mind about the cheque?
‘I have a ten o’clock meeting,’ he snapped, frowning.
He drew breath to give himself a chance to weigh up the facts. Cassandra was back in his life, asking to speak to him. He needed to think about this for a few moments.
Calm reason triumphed. They hadn’t expected to hear from each other. When something was over it was over, as far as he was concerned.
‘Tell Ms Rich I’m too busy to take her call, but I’m happy to send her cheque on.’
Thoughts of Cassandra plagued him for the rest of the day, and flashbacks kept him from his work. These were not just of Cassandra, but of the past. Maybe because their pasts were quite similar he was thinking back to that frozen Christmas Eve when the man he had called Papa had thrown him and his mother out on the street, cutting them off without a penny or a word of farewell.
His mother must leave with nothing, the man he had thought was his father had instructed. That was the price of betrayal. More disillusionment followed when his mother had explained that Papa wasn’t his father, and that the man who had fathered him had been an odd job man around the house, and now that man was gone too.
Even though their circumstances had been much changed, to begin with the two of them had rubbed along well enough. His mother hadn’t been a fool, but the unrelenting hardship of their new life had eventually ground her down, and she’d begun to drink to blot it out.
Cassandra’s mother had been a drunk too, so Cassandra knew how it felt when a mother chose to lose herself in a bottle of liquor, rather than care for her child.
When his mother had died he had found ways to make himself useful—carrying trash for restaurants in return for a good feed and carting logs for the rich folk who could afford them. He had vowed that one day he would go to school, and one day he would be rich.
And Cassandra?
She had been cast adrift in just the same way, and she was a survivor too.
With a frown of impatience he got back to his work and vowed not to allow thoughts of Cassandra to distract him. He relied on no one. He shared his past with no one. He never had. He couldn’t afford this sort of disturbance to his working day. There must be no more calls from Cassandra.
‘Your ten o’ clock appointment is here, sir...’
‘Thank you. Send him in.’
Closing the book on Cassandra Rich, he turned his attention back where it belonged, to the business that had never let him down.
* * *
Precious time was passing and Marco was still refusing to take her calls. Soon it would become obvious that she was pregnant, and he had to know. She had called her godmother in Australia and, typically, her godmother had shared Cass’s delight. She had asked who the father was, and when Cass had enthusiastically said she’d be doing this alone, her godmother had immediately offered to come home. Cass had had to insist that this wasn’t necessary, and had pointed out that her godmother’s time with her son was precious. Cass had friends around, as well as the best of medical care, and she promised to get in touch with regular updates.
Marco’s refusal to speak to her was one difficulty she had no intention of burdening her godmother with, Cass thought as she placed yet another call to Fivizzano Inc. She was tired of speaking to the same PA and receiving the same firm, but polite answer: ‘I am sorry, signorina, but Signor di Fivizzano cannot take your call. He’s too busy today.’