‘So has it sunk in?’ she asked after a moment, once Ella had settled down. ‘That you’re a father?’
‘I don’t know if it will ever sink in properly.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘I suppose it should have crossed my mind, considering we didn’t use birth control.’
A blush stole over her cheeks at the blatant reminder of that one life-changing and emotional night. ‘I suppose we had other things on our minds.’
‘I assumed you were on the pill, but obviously that was not an assumption I should have made.’ He rubbed his jaw, clearly uncomfortable. ‘I’m just trying to explain why it didn’t cross my mind that you could have fallen pregnant.’
‘I don’t have an explanation,’ Maisie answered with a laugh, trying to lighten the mood. Already her body felt prickly and oversensitive, flashes of memory from that night going through her mind like streaks of lightning. She shifted Ella to her other shoulder. ‘Naivety, perhaps.’
Antonio frowned. ‘Naivety?’
Maisie’s blush deepened, and she considered bluffing it out, but then decided it didn’t matter any more. She wasn’t about to invent some imaginary string of lovers to save face. ‘I hadn’t had many, or any, experiences of one-night stands, or anything like that. Birth control had never been an issue.’
‘Why not?’
Was he really so dense that he couldn’t figure out what she was saying? Fine, then she would spell it out. ‘Because I was a virgin, Antonio.’
Antonio’s expression froze for a second, and then his brows snapped together, his eyes piercingly bright as they arrowed in on her. ‘A virgin?’ He sounded completely incredulous.
‘Yes.’ She laughed, shaking her head. ‘You sound surprised. I thought you might have realised, I suppose. Can’t men tell? I thought you’d have guessed at least, because I was so clumsy.’
‘You weren’t clumsy.’
‘I felt like it. I had no idea what I was doing.’ She turned away, embarrassed by how frank they were both being, as well as how many memories were rushing through her, a tangle of sensual images that made her pulse start to skyrocket. ‘Anyway, that’s why I didn’t think about birth control.’
Antonio was silent for a tense moment. ‘I didn’t realise you were a virgin,’ he said at last.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It does,’ he insisted in a low voice. ‘If I’d known...’
‘What?’ She tried for light and missed, but something kept her going. ‘You wouldn’t have touched me? You would have found a bed? Lit a couple of candles?’
‘I don’t know,’ Antonio admitted. ‘But it would have made a difference.’
‘It’s all in the past now, and we don’t need to discuss it or even think of it any more,’ Maisie said as firmly as she could. ‘What we need to think about is Ella, and what’s best for her.’
‘I agree. And what is best for her is surely to live with both of her parents.’
Maisie’s heart lurched at his implacable tone. ‘And how is that meant to happen?’
Ella had started to fuss again, and without even realising it Maisie began to do the jiggling and deep knee-bend routine that she’d discovered, through many fraught and sleepless nights, helped her daughter to settle.
‘What are you doing?’ Antonio asked, his eyebrows raised in incredulity.
He was looking at her as if she was mad, and Maisie supposed she did look a little strange, jiggling Ella about while she performed squats.
‘It helps her settle.’
‘How did you figure that one out?’
‘Trial and error.’
Antonio’s expression softened, surprising her. ‘It sounds like it’s been challenging.’
‘It has, but I wouldn’t change a thing. Not even for a second.’
‘I believe you.’ He glanced around the living room again, and then back to her. Maisie watched him warily, unsure what was coming. ‘Why don’t we go out? It’s a beautiful spring day. Does Ella have a pram?’