At first she planned to sit up and wait for him and explain how she had misunderstood. But then she began to go back over all that Rico had said. Marriage hadn’t been on his agenda because he hadn’t wanted to risk having another child with any woman. Once bitten, twice shy. But the fact that a baby was actually on the way had completely altered his attitude.
And he wasn’t worried about losing her, was he? It was a bitter irony. Rico was more worried about losing control of the new life in her womb! No wonder he had relaxed when he’d realised there was to be no threat of a termination. Rico, whether he realised it or not, could not wait to get his paws on her baby! He was even prepared to marry her to ensure that he had greater legal rights!
She went up to bed, deeply shaken and deeply hurt. She was distressed by what he had told her about Carlos but never in her entire life had she felt more rejected. Regardless of the fact that Rico really seemed to want their child, he seemed to have pitched their relationship right out the window. And she just couldn’t comprehend why it was happening that way.
He woke her up coming to bed. It was some unholy hour of the morning and he was humming under his breath. She couldn’t believe it. Her teeth clenched. And when, ten seconds after he got into bed, a pair of arms reached for her she presented him with a back as welcoming as Everest in a blizzard.
‘I asked you to marry me. I thought you’d be pleased,’ he murmured without any expression at all.
Bella shot upright as if he had stabbed her with a knife. ‘Why the hell would I be pleased?’
‘It is what you wanted at the beginning.’
‘I wised up!’ she screeched.
A lamp was switched on. ‘Calm down,’ he instructed. ‘How do you think that baby feels listening to you scream?’
‘It’s listening to you too… being totally, hatefully objectionable!’ she sobbed, her every worst fear about the exact nature of her value to him now confirmed.
He enclosed her in his arms. She did her stick of rock impression.
‘Bella…’ he said tautly. ‘I was under a lot of strain earlier. I felt incredibly confused. I was scared that you were pregnant… and then scared that you might not be! But by the time I was cracking open the champagne with George…’ Bella froze in absolute disbelief at this revelation of how he had passed his time away from her ‘…I realised how extraordinarily happy I feel about this baby,’ he delivered with positive fervour, in the tone of someone who believed that he was telling her exactly what she wanted to hear.
‘You’ve been celebrating with my doctor?’ Bella enunciated in a voice which shook.
‘Naturally we did not discuss you either medically or personally,’ Rico assured her.
‘You toad!’ she spat.
Rico dropped his air of insouciance and compressed his lips, his glittering golden eyes splintering into hers. ‘Do you really think he’ll still want you when you tell him you’re pregnant?’
‘Who?’ Bella looked blank.
‘Who?’ Rico echoed, cuttingly incredulous.
Comprehension assailed
her. A heady tide of pink washed over her complexion. Somehow, in all the turmoil of the evening, she had forgotten telling him that lie about Griff. Since it now seemed pointless to continue it, she muttered, ‘I made that up—’
‘Qué dices?’
‘About Griff… that was a little white lie—’
‘“A little white lie”?’ Rico thundered, springing out of bed. ‘Madre de Dios… you tell me you’re in love with another man and you call that “a little white lie”?’
‘I had to give you a reason for leaving!’ Bella protested.
‘So if you are not pining for Biff why were you leaving?’ he slung at her with a positively feral snarl as he began to get dressed.
‘Because of the baby.’ Bella gave him an ‘are you stupid?’ look of angry reproof. ‘I thought you wouldn’t want it… I thought it would be the worst news you had ever heard—’
‘And when was I going to hear this news?’ he roared at her.
‘Some time after we’d split up… when the subject wasn’t so emotive.’
Rico sent her a glimmering glance of disbelief.
‘When it felt less… personal,’ she floundered in desperation.