Claiming His One-Night Baby

Nausea swirled violently inside him.

What had they just done?

Why the hell had he got out of his damned car? Why hadn’t he driven off?

He pulled on his black trousers, not bothering to do the button up, then shrugged his shirt on, not caring it was inside out.

His other sock had rolled half under the small dressing table that had only a thin glass of dried flowers on it. That this was clearly a guest room was the only mercy he could take from this.

Stuffing his socks into his jacket pocket, he slid his feet into his brogues and strode to the door. Just as he was about to make his escape a thought hit him like a hammer to the brain.

His hands clenched into fists as recriminations at his complete and utter stupidity raged through him, every curse he knew hollering in his head.

Slowly he turned around to look at her.

She hadn’t moved an inch since he’d rolled off her, her hands gripping the bedsheets, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. But then, as if feeling the weight of his gaze upon her, she turned her face towards him and wide, terrified eyes met his.

That one look confirmed everything.

It didn’t need to be said.

Natasha knew as surely as he did that the madness that had taken them had been total.

They had failed to use protection.

And he knew as surely as she did that Natasha wasn’t on the Pill. Pieta himself had told him they were trying for a baby.

A thousand emotions punching through him, he left without a single word exchanged between them, strode quickly across the street and into his car.

Only when he was alone in it did the roar of rage that had built in his chest come out and he slammed his fists onto the steering wheel, thumping it with all the force he could muster, then gripped his head in his hands and dug his fingers tightly into his skull.

Another twenty minutes passed before he felt even vaguely calm enough to drive away.

He didn’t look at the house again.

Two weeks later

It was taking everything Natasha had not to bite her fingernails. It was taking even more not to open one of the bottles of Prosecco that had been in the fridge since Pieta’s funeral. She hadn’t drunk any alcohol since the wake. If she started drinking she feared she would never stop.

Francesca was due any minute to go through the plans for the hospital they were going to build in Pieta’s memory. To no one’s surprise it had taken her sister-in-law only one week to buy the site and get the necessary permissions to develop on it. Her sister-in-law was possibly the most determined person Natasha knew and she wished she had an ounce of her drive and a fraction of her tenacity.

For herself, she seemed to have lost whatever drive she’d ever had. She felt so tired, like she could sleep for a lifetime.

Where this lethargy had come from she didn’t know, had to assume it was one of those stages of grief she’d been told to expect. Everyone was an expert on grief, it seemed. Everyone was watching her, waiting for her to crumble under the weight of it.

And despite everything, she was grieving, but not for the reasons everyone thought. Her grief was not for the future she had lost, but the seven years she and Matteo had both wasted.

Mixed in with it all was that awful sick feeling in her belly whenever she remembered how the night of the funeral had ended.

God, she didn’t want to think about that but no matter how hard she tried to block the memories, they was always there with her.

The bell rang out.

She blew a long puff of air from her lungs and tried to compose herself while the housekeeper let Francesca in.

Footsteps sounded through the huge ground floor of the house Natasha had shared with Pieta and then Francesca entered the study with her brother, Daniele. It was the figure who appeared behind her brother-in-law that almost shattered the poise Natasha had forced on herself.

As was the custom with her Italian in-laws, exuberant kisses and tight embraces were exchanged with whispered platitudes and words of comfort. Then it was time to greet Matteo.

Bracing herself, she placed a hand loosely on his shoulder, felt his hand rest lightly on her hip as they leaned in together to go through the motions of something neither could forgo without arousing suspicion. When the stubble on his warm jaw scratched her cheek she was hit by the vivid memory of that same cheek scratching her inner thigh and had to squeeze her eyes tightly shut to block the image, something she must forget.

But she could smell his skin and the scent of his cologne. Smell him. Feel the strength of his body, the curls of his dark hair between her fingers...

It had been a terrible mistake, something neither of them had needed to vocalise.

She didn’t know it was possible for someone to hate themselves as much as she hated herself. She owed Pieta absolutely nothing, she knew that, but...

She just couldn’t believe it had happened. Couldn’t believe she had lost all control of herself, couldn’t work out how it had happened or why.

It was as if some madness had taken hold of them both.

For one hour she had left behind the girl who had done everything she could to please her parents to the point of abandoning the life she’d so desperately wanted, and had found the hidden woman who had never been allowed to exist.

Protection had been the last thing on either of their minds.

They’d been stupid and so, so reckless.

Francesca hadn’t said she would be bringing her brother and cousin with her. It hadn’t occurred to Natasha to ask. Daniele and Matteo both ran enormously successful businesses that took them all over the world. She’d assumed their input for the hospital—especially Matteo’s—would come at a later date.

But then she looked properly at Francesca and understood why Daniele at least had stuck around in Pisa. Her sister-in-law looked more bereft than she had at Pieta’s funeral. More than bereft. Like the light that had always shone brightly inside her had been extinguished. Daniele would never leave his sister in this state.

And Francesca looked closely at Natasha in turn. ‘Are you okay? You look pale.’

She gave a rueful shrug. None of them could pretend they were okay. ‘I’m just tired.’

‘You’re holding your back. Does it hurt?’

‘A little.’

The housekeeper brought in a tray of coffee and biscotti, which distracted them all from Natasha’s health. They sat around the large dining table onto which Francesca placed a stack of files.

Natasha couldn’t even remember what the meeting was for. Matteo being under the same roof as her had turned her brain into a colander.

Why had he come? Was it to punish her?

Every time she’d seen him over the past seven years had been a punishment she’d accepted. She’d let him kiss her and then hours later had agreed to marry someone else, in front of him, in front of everyone. Not just someone else, but his cousin and closest friend. She’d let the moment when she should have told him about Pieta slip by in the haze of his kiss.

Would things have been different if she’d told him, either then or in the weeks beforehand when Pieta’s intentions had suddenly become clear? Or would the outcome have been the same?