The Italian's One-Night Consequence Read online

  His mouth twisted as he followed that thought through to its logical conclusion.

  She was bone-deep honest, and while he would happily have said the same for himself—despite his ruthlessness when it came to business dealings—he knew that she distrusted him. He’d ferreted out information about her, and even though he’d told her that he wasn’t going to use it, the fact that it was out there, in his possession, had awakened that distrust of him.

  Added to that was the small technicality of him keeping his true identity under wraps when they’d first met, and it was little wonder that she was desperate to find the nearest exit.

  Tough.

  He hadn’t banked on this, but he wasn’t a man who dodged any bullet.

  He looked at her with brooding intensity. Never had he felt so restless, and yet, confined in their ten-by-ten metal box, he had no choice but to deal with the riptide of emotions flooding through him without moving a muscle.

  She was keeping her eyes studiously averted. She looked as though she would break in two if he so much as reached out and touched her.

  ‘I’m not going to your apartment with you,’ Maddie said as the elevator doors opened, disgorging them back into the foyer where she had sat earlier, awash with nerves.

  ‘Well, sorry to be a party-pooper, but if you think you’re escaping back to Dublin before we can talk about this...this...situation then you’ve got another think coming.’

  ‘You need time to mull it over,’ she said, and her voice held an urgent, panicky undertone. ‘You need time to digest.’

  Leo didn’t bother to dignify that suggestion with an answer. Walking out of the building, he was simultaneously calling his driver and keeping an extremely watchful eye on the bombshell dragging her feet alongside him. If she was searching for the most effective way of vanishing, then she was out of luck.

  To his satisfaction, he saw that James, on the ball as always, was pulling to a stop in the black Jag. Leo opened the back door and propelled Maddie in without skipping a beat.

  Maddie barely knew what was happening. One minute she was racking her brains to try and think of a way of avoiding Leo and his crazy suggestion that they go to his apartment to talk, and the next minute she was somehow in the back seat of a car, which was being driven by a young man with curly dark hair and lots of gold jewellery.

  She was almost distracted enough by the sight to forget why she was in the back seat of Leo’s car. Then it slammed back into her with force and she turned to him and hissed, ‘You can’t do this. You can’t just...just...kidnap me...’

  ‘Kidnap you? Stop over-dramatising, Maddie. And instead of wasting your energy trying to fight me, just accept that I intend to have this conversation you’re obviously desperate to avoid.’

  ‘I’m not desperate to avoid anything! I just thought that you might need time to...to...’

  ‘Get to grips with the grenade you’ve just detonated in my life?’

  Maddie looked at him furiously. Conscious of the strange driver at the wheel, Maddie resorted to resentful silence—which Leo did not attempt to break.

  She wished she could read what was going on in his head. What was he thinking? She’d imagined that when she broke the news he would be furious. Shocked to start with, but then furious.

  She had pictured herself backing out of his office, leaving him to plot how he could get rid of her and a baby he hadn’t asked for as quietly and efficiently as possible. She hadn’t envisaged a scenario in which she was being driven to his apartment.

  In silence.

  The drive took half an hour, and then she was treated to the splendour of London at its finest as the car pulled up outside a redbrick Victorian mansion, with very precise black railings and a row of perfectly groomed shaped shrubs edging the shallow bank of steps that led up to a pristine black door.

  It turned out that his penthouse apartment ranged across the top two floors. In a daze, she followed him into a wide, ornate hallway, where a porter made sure uninvited riff-raff were kept out, into a mirrored lift and then straight up into his apartment.

  The lift was obviously for his use only.

  Inside, greys and creams blended with wood and dull chrome. On the walls, impressive abstract art provided splashes of colour. It was all very open-plan, and configured in such a way that the most was made of the soaring ceilings and the two floors were connected by a glass and iron staircase.

  Leo was walking towards a sitting area dominated by two oversized white leather sofas and Maddie followed him.

  ‘When did you find out?’ he asked without preamble. ‘And there’s no point perching on the edge of the sofa as though you’re about to turn tail and run. You won’t be going anywhere until we’ve discussed this...this...nightmare.’

  ‘It’s not a nightmare...’

  ‘Well, it’s certainly not a dream come true. When did you find out?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘And your plan was to show up in my office, hand me the keys to the store, inform me that you were carrying my child and then what? Head for the hills? Disappear under cover of darkness?’

  Maddie reddened because, roughly speaking, he wasn’t too far from the truth.

  Eyes narrowed, Leo said coolly. ‘It’s not going to happen.’

  ‘Which part?’ Maddie asked faintly.

  ‘The trade-off. I get the store, you get to run away. Not going to happen.’

  ‘Leo...’ Maddie breathed in deeply. ‘We had a few hours of fun. Neither of us planned on having to deal with any consequences...’

  A few hours of fun? Leo was inexplicably outraged to hear himself dismissed as a few hours of fun. He knew, rationally, that this was exactly how he would have categorised most of his exploits with women. Maybe slightly more than just the few hours, but essentially the same sentiment. Fun on the run.

  That didn’t make it any more acceptable.

  ‘You didn’t bank on my getting pregnant,’ Maddie said, ignoring his glowering expression and ploughing on, ‘and I get it that you’re a bachelor through and through. The last thing you need or want is the sort of lifelong commitment that a child brings—especially when you didn’t ask for this situation. No one wants to find that their nicely ordered perfect life has suddenly turned into a nightmare.’

  Leo knew that she made sense. He was a committed bachelor. She wasn’t to know why that was so deeply ingrained in him, but she had hit the nail on the head anyway. She had also been right when she’d said that the last thing he’d ever have asked for would be the lifelong commitment of a child—a duty of care stretching into infinity.

  ‘I didn’t ask for this,’ he grated, ‘but I’m honest enough to admit that no one held a gun to my head and forced me into having unprotected sex with you.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s happened, and I’m not going to be responsible for lumbering you with a burden you didn’t ask for.’ She angled her head stubbornly and firmed her mouth. ‘Well?’ she pressed into the silence between them. ‘You’re not saying anything,’

  ‘I’m waiting for you to finish what you want to say.’

  Maddie breathed out a sigh. ‘That’s good.’

  She cleared her throat to move on to stage two of the speech she had prepared in her head. It was a rough outline of the only solution she could think of, bearing in mind that she, herself, was still coming to terms with the fundamental change to her life looming on the not too distant horizon.

  ‘If I sell the store to you then I will have more than sufficient money to make a life for myself and the baby. You won’t have to take on any lifelong financial commitment. In fact you won’t have to take on any commitment at all. In this day and age, single parent families are the norm.’

  ‘I’m touched by your thoughtfulness and generosity,’ Leo drawled. ‘I can’t think of a single other woman who, given the same circumstances,
would be so overjoyed to see me walk scot-free.’

  ‘Well...’

  ‘Maybe it’s because of your father.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The stupendously low opinion you have of men.’

  Maddie reddened. ‘I’m giving you the option of not having your life ruined—’

  ‘That’s a very emotive word. Ruined.’

  ‘So is nightmare,’ Maddie countered, without batting an eye.

  ‘Well, we won’t be using either, because I won’t be walking away scot-free. You’re assuming that I’m the type of guy who’s so self-interested that he’s happy to get a woman pregnant and then leave her in the lurch.’

  Maddie stiffened. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I may not have asked for this situation, but now that it’s arisen walking away from it isn’t going to be the solution I’ll be taking.’

  ‘You want the store.’

  ‘It’s bricks and mortar. I’m prepared to put that particular want on the back burner.’

  ‘But I can’t handle the responsibility of turning the place around when I’m going to have to deal with pregnancy and a newborn!’

  ‘You can’t handle it alone...’

  ‘Even with help from a team of managers and workers...’

  ‘Of course we’ll have to discuss what the way forward with the store should be,’ Leo mused, rising to his feet in one lithe, graceful movement to stroll towards the high-tech open-plan kitchen, where he proceeded to get them both something cold to drink.

  Bewildered, Maddie twisted round to follow him. The accoutrements of a businessman had been shed along his way. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled to the elbow, and she hadn’t noticed but he had slipped off his leather shoes and socks and was barefoot. He looked so stunning, so sophisticated...so completely out of her league.

  She thought of Adam and her foolishness in falling for someone else who had been out of her league. She thought of the way he had stood back, siding with his family, accusing her of theft and not caring that her whole life was unravelling.

  She thought of Leo, accessing that private information. Even if he had decided to withhold using it against her to get what he wanted she knew that he would have considered that option because that was the kind of man that he was.

  She didn’t know what was going on, but she felt a shiver of apprehension slither down her spine.

  ‘Leo, I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ she confessed, having accepted the mineral water he had poured for her only to place it on the glass coffee table next to her.

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘What way forward with the store?’

  ‘Like I mentioned to you before, the day of the dinosaur department store, jack of all trades and master of none, is coming to an end.’

  He was covering the room in ever-diminishing circles and finally he was standing directly in front of her, navy eyes unreadable, oozing just the sort of unfair sex appeal that made a nonsense of her attempts to get her brain in working order.

  Maddie frowned. ‘I don’t know where you’re going with this. Yes, I would have loved to have held on to the store, kept it as it was, but if you have it then what you do with it is no longer my concern.’

  ‘You haven’t listened to me, have you, Maddie?’

  ‘I...’

  ‘I’m not buying the store. Neither am I going anywhere. You’re pregnant, and this completely changes the basis of our relationship.’

  ‘But, Leo, we don’t have a relationship.’

  ‘You’re the mother of my unborn baby. What do you call that?’

  Faced with this direct question, which seemed to beg a sensible answer she was struggling to provide, Maddie could only stare at him speechlessly.

  ‘Believe me,’ Leo said heavily, moving to sit on the chair adjacent to her, stretching out his long legs at an angle and then relaxing back with his fingers linked on his stomach. ‘I hadn’t banked on any of this happening. But happen it has, and as far as I can see there’s only one sensible solution that’s going to work. I will have to marry you and legitimise my child.’

  Maddie’s mouth fell open. Before she could say anything he held up one assured hand, as though to stop her before she could interrupt. Which she wasn’t about to do because her vocal cords had seized up.

  ‘I won’t lie to you, Maddie, marriage has not been on my radar. I’m a red-blooded male and I’ve had my fun, but I haven’t been tempted to turn fun into anything more serious. You have your past, and that’s shaped you. I have mine.’

  ‘What? What past? This is exactly what I’m talking about. I don’t know anything about you! How can you sit there and start talking about marriage when we don’t know one another? It’s crazy.’

  ‘Crazy it may be, but we’re in the most intimate situation it’s possible for two people to be in.’

  ‘And, as you’ve just said, you’ve never considered marriage! So how on earth do you expect me to react when you sit there now, telling me that’s the only solution to this situation?’

  ‘You’re looking at this in the wrong way—putting an unnecessarily negative spin on it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Marriage in the conventional sense of the word isn’t something I believe in, and there’s no point in my pretending otherwise.’

  ‘“The conventional sense of the word”? Would that be the convention of two people being together because they’re in love?’

  ‘The world is littered with kids who end up in therapy because of parents who got married because they thought they were in love. Your mother,’ he inserted shrewdly, ‘thought she was in love, and absconded to the other side of the world in complete defiance of common sense only for the marriage to end in tears.’

  Maddie flushed. ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘It’s precisely the point. You had all contact with this country and your grandfather severed because of your mother’s headstrong pursuit of love.’

  Maddie didn’t answer because he had a point. ‘You’re twisting everything to suit your argument,’ she muttered, shooting him a fulminating look from under her lashes. ‘I didn’t see this side of you when we...when I...’

  ‘When you were overwhelmed with lust and jumped into bed with me?’

  ‘You’re so arrogant. I should have known that you couldn’t be a carefree wanderer. Someone like that would have been a lot more humble, a lot more down-to-earth. He wouldn’t have had an ego the size of a cruise liner.’

  Leo grinned, because in spite of the tenseness of the situation he was enjoying her dry sense of humour and the way she wasn’t caving in to him. Yet.

  ‘One of those humble, down-to-earth, carefree wandering souls would have hit the high seas the minute you told him you were pregnant. Generally speaking, perpetual Peter Pans don’t cope well with the thought of being tied down. Which brings us back to the matter in hand. What I’m proposing is a union for the sake of our child. A practical solution. Something that makes sense.’

  ‘Oh, wow, Leo. You’re really selling it to me,’ Maddie said acidly. ‘I always dreamed of love and marriage and then the pitter-patter of tiny feet. Now you’re presenting me with marriage, the pitter-patter of tiny feet, and forget about love because love doesn’t count for anything.’

  ‘You thought you’d found love with a loser who turned on you because he thought you were a thief. So much for the myth that love can survive through thick and thin. Convince me that love is all that matters when your mother learnt the hard way and so did you. Love is all a crock of—’

  ‘Stop!’ Maddie stood up to pace the room. ‘Look...’ She breathed in deeply. ‘I know you mean well, and you have good intentions, and your offer is very generous, but I can’t think of anything worse than being stuck with someone with whom I have no emotional connection.’
<
br />   Stuck with? Was she actually trying to enrage him?

  ‘But this isn’t about you, is it?’

  ‘Not entirely.’ Maddie reddened. ‘But it’s not all about our child either. Yes, every child deserves two parents—but only if those parents are happy and committed to one another.’

  Leo could no longer contain his impatience. ‘Strip back the jargon and how many couples tick all the boxes?’ Restless, he stood up to prowl the room, just as she was, until they were facing one another like opponents in a ring.

  ‘I don’t care about how many couples tick the boxes or don’t,’ Maddie muttered stubbornly, tearing her eyes away from his ridiculously beautiful face. ‘I care about whether I would be able to tick the boxes with my partner.’

  ‘Oh, bring on the violin music!’ Leo fought down the urge to thump something in sheer frustration. How was it that he was having to wage war in an effort to persuade someone to share a life of obscene wealth and privilege?

  ‘I couldn’t bear the thought of being married to someone because he felt responsible for a situation he hadn’t banked on.’

  ‘Are you telling me that you would rather jeopardise the well-being of a child for your own selfish concerns?’

  ‘It’s not selfish.’

  ‘You of all people should be able to understand the limitations of a life with only one parent. Yes, it’s common. Yes, single parent families are a statistic. But you are turning down the option of two parents. Do you think our child will thank you for that in the years to come?’

  Maddie glared, buffeted by the pull of his arguments, all of which made perfect sense in a way, but...

  ‘We don’t love one another,’ she cried in protest.

  She thought of those moments they’d shared and was embarrassed at how powerful her instinct was to read into them a bonding and a meeting of minds that hadn’t been there. There had been something about that brief time they’d spent together that had made her feel as though she’d found her soulmate.

  ‘What happens when we get bored with one another? What happens when you start resenting the fact that you’re tied to someone you don’t want to be with?’