‘When I left Italy I had no idea that I was pregnant,’ Charlotte said tightly. ‘We were so careful. Just a couple of times. Well, that was all it took. ‘
‘And so, when you discovered that you were, you just decided that you would eliminate me from the picture,’ Ricardo said, his voice cold and steady.
‘You made it perfectly clear that I had been a passing fling. You didn’t need your life cluttered up with a clingy girlfriend. The last thing you would want would be your life cluttered up with a responsibility that would last a lifetime.’
‘My own child.’ Riccardo tried to get his head around that and found that he couldn’t. ‘How dare you sit there and calmly tell me what I would or would not have wanted when it came to my own flesh and blood!’
‘And how dare you sit there and imply that what I did was a deliberate act of cruelty!’ Charlotte returned hotly. She glanced at the closed door and lowered her voice, because children had a knack of appearing just when you didn’t want them to. ‘I was in pieces when I left Italy. How do you imagine I felt when I found out that I was pregnant, alone here, with no means of income and a university career that was over before it had had a chance to begin? Don’t you think that I wished I could turn to you for support?’ Charlotte took a bitter trip down memory lane. ‘Yes, I admit it briefly crossed my mind to get in touch with you, although that would have been difficult enough. Every time the thought crossed my mind, I imagined what your reaction would be. To not want someone to be part of your life and then find out that you’re lumbered with their offspring…’
‘That’s no excuse! What kind of monster do you think I am, that I would deny my own child?’
‘Actually there are quite a few men who turn tail and run the minute they know their girlfriend’s pregnant. Believe me, it’s not exactly a unique reaction!’
‘I am not “quite a few men”!’
Charlotte took a deep breath and looked at him. ‘I was scared, Riccardo. I had walked out of a lion’s den. I wasn’t about to head straight back into it. You didn’t want me…’ God, it still hurt even now to say that. ‘You didn’t want me, and the way I saw it was that, even if I went straight back to Italy and broke the happy news to you, you would either send me on my way again or else take my baby away from me!’
‘Our baby!’
‘There’s no point getting into a great big argument about it now, Riccardo. What’s done is done.’
‘It never occurred to tell me at any point along the way that I was a father?’
‘I built my life without you. It’s not like I chose the easy option.’
Riccardo stood up abruptly, so abruptly that it took a few seconds for Charlotte to register that he was going. But going where?
‘You’re not taking my daughter away from me!’ She sprang to her feet, ready to do anything it took to avert that eventuality. ‘Don’t imagine that you can use your money and influence to have Gina!’
‘I cannot stay under this roof a minute longer,’ Riccardo said savagely. ‘I need to go away and think.’
‘Think about what?’ She reached for his arm, and he shrugged her away.
‘I’ll be back, and when I return, believe me, I will come with a solution!’
‘A solution?’ What kind of solution? Did he imagine that this was an intriguing little conundrum that could be sorted out, the way he sorted out his problems at work?
But she was relieved that he wasn’t storming up the stairs, two at a time, so that he could shake Gina’s world to its foundations. Although, she knew that the time had come to tell her daughter about her dad. Of course she had asked questions in the past, but really not that many. They had been content to live in their happy little bubble, and Charlotte had shoved the future and all its attendant problems, when Gina got older and grew more curious, to the back of her mind.