Pregnant with His Baby!: Secret Baby, Convenient Wife / Innocent Wife, Baby of Shame / The Surgeon's Secret Baby Wish

She nodded. ‘You’ll be home soon.’

He watched as without warning tears started to leak from Dervla’s glorious eyes. ‘My God,’ she groaned, flashing him a mortified look as she brushed them away. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Why are you crying, Dervla?’ he asked, sitting upright.

Normally tears were his cue for recalling he needed to be somewhere else. Gianfranco had a cynical take on female tears, being of the opinion they were more to do with manipulation than sentiment.

Only it was fast dawning on him that unlike other lovers in his past, this redhead didn’t know the first thing about manipulation or, for that matter, self-preservation.

His hands clenched into fists as he thought of her walking like an innocent lamb into the clutches of some bastard who would take advantage of that trusting nature.

Some might say she already has. Gianfranco dismissed the thought. Men took advantage of a woman when they pretended to feel something they didn’t. He did not play those games.

‘I’m not. I don’t cry. Oh, God!’ she snapped, rounding on him angrily. ‘Can’t a girl sniff without a full-scale interrogation?’

‘You’re upset and I want to know why.’ He had felt a slight twinge of unease, recognising that he genuinely did want to know.

In previous relationships the most personal details he had felt it necessary to learn about the women in his life were their preferences in designer labels. He was not an ungenerous lover, but he was not one who was interested in emotionally high-maintenance women.

‘Are you regretting this?’

‘Regretting?’ she echoed, looking startled by the suggestion and then wryly amused as she told him, ‘Nothing could be farther from the truth.’

He was relieved but perplexed by the odd inflection in her voice. ‘Then why …?’

She shook her head mutely and rolled away, presenting him with her slim bare back. A hand on her shoulder, he pulled her back. ‘Look at me!’ he commanded.

After a moment she did. Their eyes meshed and the silence stretched until a small choking sound escaped her throat. In one single fluid motion she was on her feet at the side of the bed, red hair falling in a silken skein around her shoulders. She seemed oblivious to her nakedness as she stood there literally quivering, her pale skin glowing with an opalescent sheen.

Gianfranco had known at that moment that the image of her standing there would always remain in his memory.

‘I was trying very hard to be grown up about this, but if you want to know, fine!’ She flung up her arms, causing her small pink-tipped breasts to bounce in a way that sent a fresh distracting stab of lust slamming through Gianfranco’s aroused body.

‘I was crying because I’ll miss you when you go back home.’ She screwed her eyes tight shut and shook her head before fixing him with a challenging glare. ‘And before you say it, yes, I do know how stupid that sounds and how ludicrous I’m being. I barely even know you. We have nothing in common and—’

‘You’ll miss me?’ He watched as dull colour ran up under her fair skin as she reached for a quilt that had fallen to the ground and wrapped it around herself.

‘I really don’t know what I’m saying. This has been a pretty emotional day.’

Was she referring to losing the patient she had cared for or losing her virginity? He patted the bed. It was an invitation she accepted after a moment, though to his regret the quilt stayed in place as she sat primly on the edge of the bed.

‘Come with me,’ he heard himself say.

Her expression mirrored the incomprehension he was feeling. ‘Come …?’

‘Come with us when we go back to Italy.’

‘That’s very nice of you, but I don’t have any annual leave left this year.’

‘For the record, Dervla, I am not a nice man, and I’m not talking about taking a vacation. You’d like Italy.’

‘Live there, you mean?’

‘Why not?’

‘A hundred why nots,’ she retorted, trying to laugh but sounding strained as she reminded him, ‘My work is here, Gianfranco.’

‘There are hospitals in Italy.’

‘I don’t speak Italian, it takes time to learn a language and I need to earn a living … God, will you listen to me?’ she exclaimed, clapping a hand to her head and rolling her eyes. ‘I sound as though I’m actually considering it.’

‘You don’t need to worry about earning a living straight away—I’m not exactly a poor man.’

Beside him she stiffened. ‘You’re suggesting I should pack in my job, leave my friends and come with you to Italy as your mistress?’

‘Not mistress precisely,’ he admitted.

But now that he thought about it he could see the very definite advantages to this plan. It wasn’t until she turned her head and he saw her expression that it dawned on him that Dervla was not warmed to the idea.

He continued to study her and thought about the women, he could think of several, who might manage to simulate a little enthusiasm at the prospect of the lap of luxury as his mistress.

‘Well, what else would you call a woman when a man pays her bills in return, of course, for certain favours?’ she enquired with withering contempt. Her bosom heaved as she choked. ‘I’ve never been so insulted in my life!’

Her anger seemed totally inexplicable to Gianfranco. ‘You are insulted?’

He wondered whether to inform her that the post that apparently filled her with such disgust was one that any number of women had angled for over the years.

‘Damn right,’ she ground through clenched teeth. ‘Do I seem to you like the sort of woman who would make herself reliant on a man? A woman who would give up her independence? Waiting until I’m twenty-six to discover sex might in retrospect make me a fool, but not that much of a fool.’

‘So is that it? Now that you have discovered sex, you are anxious to experiment.’ An image of the faceless men who would continue the education he had begun flashed into his head. The throbbing in his temples became a pulsating thud.

After staring at him in stunned silence for a moment, she threw back her head and laughed. Her eyes were sparkling with anger as she said in a flat little voice, ‘And I have you to thank for my sexual liberation.’

‘Do not confuse promiscuity with liberation,’ he counselled severely, still seeing that line of predatory faceless males.

‘You’re accusing me of being promiscuous? That’s rich! That really is rich! The way I hear, you change women the same way a normal man changes his shirt. If you were a woman and not filthy rich people would call you some very nasty names. And they might be right!’

‘Dio mio!’ he breathed wrathfully. The women he took to his bed were experts at pleasing a man; they did not go out of their way to insult him.

It turned out she hadn’t finished with him yet.

‘You know, you’re the sort of man who can’t talk about his feelings and thinks it’s a sign of strength.’

‘Suddenly you know an awful lot about men—and me,’ he observed grimly.

She glared at him through shimmering green eyes and tossed her head contemptuously. ‘I know enough about you to know I never want to see you again.’ Snatching up her scattered clothes, she ran from the room.

He told himself that the turn of events, while frustrating, was for the best in the long run. Dervla Smith was too high maintenance. He threw aside the covers and vaulted to his feet, his toe caught in the lacy strap of her bra.