So what did she do?
Just how did she tell him?
She wasn’t due to see him until after she’d found him a new general manager for his new hotel—but as the purchase hadn’t gone through she didn’t have a clue when that would be. It could be months. She thought about ringing him up—trying to imagine how she’d tell him she was having his baby—but some protective instinct made her want to shy away from the potential of his angry words raining down the phone-line. And over her.
In the end it seemed easier to do nothing. To let the baby grow inside her while she existed in the curiously detached state of well-being which seemed to have descended upon her, like a comforting cloud. It was as if she’d been given an important project to work on—and, being Aisling, she threw herself into it wholeheartedly.
As the weeks slid inexorably into months, she read every book on pregnancy which her local store had to offer. Her diet had always been healthy, but she went for it in a big way—and discovered a deep love of spinach. Once the morning sickness had passed, she found she had an amazing amount of energy, and so she swam at her gym before work, the gentle exercise calming her for the day ahead. It was as though she were living in her own little private bubble of a world—where outside forces had no place.
Only Suzy acted as the voice of her conscience. ‘Aisling—this is crazy. You’re ballooning by the day. You’ve got to tell him!’
‘And I will.’
‘When?’
‘I don’t know. When it’s the right time.’
‘But time’s running out!’ cried Suzy, eying the bump with a mixture of fascination and alarm. ‘You’ll be thinking about giving up work soon.’
Aisling stared down at her stomach as if it belonged to someone else and then gripped the desk with her hands, as if to steady herself. Not only had her body taken on a life of its own, but so had her emotions, and as the weeks passed they grew stronger and stronger. Night after night, she lay in bed while the face of her baby’s father swam into her mind’s eye and some deep yearning filled her with an inexplicable kind of sadness. ‘Some women work until they go into labour,’ she said hoarsely.
‘But it isn’t mandatory,’ said Suzy. ‘Anyway—that’s something we ought to talk about, too. How long you’re going to take as maternity leave—or whether you’re planning to give up work altogether.’
And that was what freaked Aisling out and brought her crashing to her senses. The sudden dawning that her life was about to change irrevocably—that everything she had strived for could be lost by this unplanned pregnancy. And that she hadn’t got into this predicament on her own.
The feeling which had been building and building inside finally burst out and she knew an overwhelming need to tell Gianluca. To connect. To let him know the momentous thing which was about to happen—no matter what had gone on between the two of them.
She looked at the calendar which hung by the little window in her kitchen and stared at the date ringed on it as if someone had crept in while she’d been sleeping and drawn it there. It couldn’t really be August, could it? She couldn’t really be due to give birth in a fortnight? What if the baby came early—before she had told him?
With a sudden sense of urgency, she lifted the phone and punched out the number of his office in Rome—although she had to speak to three different people before she got through to the great man himself.
‘Aisling,’ he murmured. ‘This is a surprise.’
But his voice sounded remote. Wary. As if he was trying to second-guess why she was ringing him—something which he had clearly not been expecting and definitely hadn’t wanted, by the sound of it. They both knew there were no outstanding contracts to be discussed—maybe he thought she was contacting him in a transparent attempt to get him into bed again? Aisling shuddered.
‘I’d like to see you, Gianluca.’
‘Really? Want to tell me why?’
‘There’s something I need to discuss with you.’
‘Go ahead—I’m free now.’
Aisling flinched. He couldn’t have made it more plain that he was no longer interested in her. She was past tense and he wanted her to understand that. But a sense of duty and of indignation and some biological imperative to share this with her baby’s father drove her on. ‘I’d rather not talk about it on the phone.’
‘Now I’m intrigued.’
Aisling ignored that. ‘Are you coming over to England at all?’
‘Regrettably not,’ he purred. ‘I’m pretty tied up here at the moment. Perhaps you’ve read that I’ve just bought a football stadium and it’s keeping me pretty busy?’
‘Yes,’ said Aisling tightly. Who could have forgotten her appalled shock when she’d seen the photograph in the international section of her business paper which had shown Gianluca laughingly surrounded by a posse of scantily clad cheerleaders?
In his office, Gianluca looked out onto the monument of Vittorio Emanuele as it gleamed brilliantly white in the sun, remembering Aisling staring out at it and him inviting her to his vineyard, that first night he’d slept with her. Yet there had only been two nights—and both times it had been the most fantastic sex. She was an interesting woman, there was no denying that. She hadn’t pestered him for more—she had kept to their pact, and, undeniably, his opinion of her had gone up as a consequence.
So did this phone call mean that she was hungering for a little more of the pleasure they’d shared?
And wasn’t he?