He came back after his shower to find Cassandra still propped up on the pillows, still waiting to talk to him. He might have known she wouldn’t give up, but while he admired her perseverance, his answer hadn’t changed.
‘After what you told me tonight, Marco, I know how hard this must be for you.’
‘You don’t know anything,’ he said, tossing his towel on a chair.
He hadn’t meant to shout at her, but the past was his alone to deal with. It was a wound he showed no one, and he’d been careless tonight.
He felt guiltier than ever as Cassandra, pregnancy-heavy and clumsy, struggled off the bed. ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head at him. ‘You can’t avoid the past, Marco. It’s made us both what we are, and you and I have to face up to that. I can’t even imagine how terrible it must have been for you to be thrown out by the man you thought was your father. To be rejected like that on top of everything else must have been terrible for you, but if you keep on pushing people away because you’re worried they might do the same to you you’ll barely live...you’ll only exist. You’ll never know the pleasure of true friendship, let alone love. We’re in this together, Marco, whether you like it or not.’ She drew his glance down as she cradled her stomach. ‘This is your baby as much as mine, and I have to know what I’m getting into—what the future holds for all three of us. This isn’t all about you,’ she said angrily, when he shook his head and turned away.
‘I never thought it was all about me,’ he said as he turned back to face her. ‘I just can’t see how my past affects you, or any of this—’
‘Then you’re blind,’ she flashed. ‘This is a baby, Marco, a precious life, so don’t you ever refer to our child again in such a dismissive way. Your past has everything to do with the way you’re reacting. Your past is the reason you can’t trust me—it’s the reason you keep backing away from believing that I’m carrying your child. You’re horrified by the prospect of a rerun of your own childhood. Even when the child is proved to be yours, you’re still going to wonder if you can be any better than the man you called father—the man who deserted you, and your blood father who never cared about you.
‘Well, here’s some news for you—I don’t know what kind of mother I’m going to be. I didn’t exactly have the best of starts, but unlike you I’m not running away from my feelings. I’m going to do the best I can for my child—and if that’s not up to your high standards, tough! If it’s not good enough for my child, I’ll up my game—and I won’t stop upping my game until I get it right.’
‘You don’t understand—’
‘Oh, yes I do,’ she argued firmly. ‘I know you care. I know that, however hard you try to hide it, you care for me, and for our baby, and I know you’ll do anything you can to protect our child from the type of rejection that you experienced. I know you’re a good man—’
‘Don’t make me out to be some sort of saint, because I’m not. Even if the baby is mine, I don’t have the capacity to love a child.’
‘The capacity?’ she queried incredulously. ‘This is the first time I’ve ever heard of love having limits, or a heart having boundaries. Your heart will expand to include the new baby, and your love will grow.’
Angry and frustrated at a situation he had no control over, he thumped his chest. ‘How can I do any of those things when I feel nothing?’ Cassandra had asked him for reassurance he was unable to give her.
‘I do know this,’ she insisted fiercely. ‘We can’t go on as we are.’
‘Why? What’s so bad about it?’ he demanded. ‘You’ve got a great job that you love, and you live in one of the most beautiful apartments in Rome—’
‘My prison cell, with a man who feels nothing?’
Her sad laugh chilled him. He was suddenly conscious of how close he’d come to destroying the vigorous, spirited girl.
‘My life here isn’t real,’ she said in a quiet voice that disturbed him more than Cassandra’s anger ever could. ‘It’s play-acting.’
‘It seems real to me.’
‘That’s because nothing’s changed for you, Marco.’
He forced out a short laugh, but Cassandra had distanced herself from emotion and was calmly evaluating things as she saw them. ‘Yes, I live here in your fabulous penthouse, and I challenge you with difficult questions you don’t want to answer, but we’re not close—not really. It takes two people to be close, Marco, and I am more of a convenience for you than anything else. You have sex on tap,’ she explained with a small grimace.