The doorbell was ringing. She heard it. Wanted it to stop. Ignored it. But it went on. Insistent. Intrusive.
She hauled herself to her feet and walked out into the hallway of the lofty high-ceilinged apartment. Her parents had a maid, but Fran had given her the day off, wanting only to be alone.
She reached to open the security locks of the double front door, then opened one side of it.
And slumped against the other side.
It was Nic.
* * *
He strode in, shutting the door behind him with a snap as she backed away. His eyes swept over her.
‘Is it true?’ he asked.
She stared, blinking at him. ‘Is what true?’ she said dimly. Faintness was drumming in her, a deluge of emotion swamping her.
His voice was terse. ‘That you’re pregnant.’
She stilled, turned to stone except for her eyes, which were dilating. ‘How—?’
‘Mantegna—he’s just been to see me!’ He bit out the words.
To tell me what I need to do—which he did not have to tell me. Which I knew from the very instant he said those words.
He could feel his guts twisting, feel so much more. A storm of emotion he could not deal with, like a tempest in his head. And then, slicing through him, came the sight of her swaying.
Fran felt the blood drain from her, dizziness pumping over her. She heard Nic give an oath, and then he’d closed the space between them, taken her arms, her weight against his shoulder.
He was guiding her through into her parents’ opulent drawing room, with its gilded furniture, hand-blocked wallpaper, oil paintings on the walls. Was setting her down on a silk-upholstered eighteenth-century sofa. Standing in front her. Tall, overpowering. Demanding the truth.
The truth she had kept from him. Concealed. Because what would be the point in telling a man who did not want her that she carried his child? A child he would not want.
Through the stab of emotion she cursed Cesare for his interference.
Nic was speaking again, towering over her, demanding an answer.
‘Tell me!’ Something flashed across his face. ‘I need to know!’
She took a breath like a razor in her lungs. A razor that cut through the emotions storming inside her—emotions that weren’t relevant. That got in the way of what she must say.
She lifted her eyes to his, making herself meet that demanding gaze. Steeling herself to speak.
‘No, Nic, you don’t need to know. And I didn’t want you to know—what would be the point?’
She got to her feet. She would do this standing. Say what needed to be said. Keep all emotion out of it. For what use was emotion in such an impossible situation?
With a strength she called upon from a place she had not known she possessed, she spoke, making her voice clear.
‘Nic, what happened in the States was a passing romance for both of us. We both knew that. And what happened in London was a mistake.’ Her lips pressed together. ‘We both know that too—you said as much to me, and I agree.’
She said the words calmly, as if calm was what she was feeling. She saw his face close.
‘A mistake that has had consequences—’ His voice was terse, clamping down on any other possibility.
She cut across him. ‘Consequences that I shall cope with.’ She lifted her chin, meeting his eyes head-on. Not flinching or floundering. Saying it straight out. ‘Nic, I’ll be living in America. You won’t be troubled by me. I give you my word.’
With biting mockery she heard herself say what she had said to him that nightmare morning when he’d thrown her out of his bed, his life.