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Raffaele gazed back at her, the pulse of desire thrumming through his lean, powerful frame, tensing his muscles and accelerating his heartbeat.
Her gaze colliding with those dark golden eyes, damp heat seemed to coat her entire skin surface, her nipples snapping taut, her mouth running dry. She tore her attention from him but still he lingered in her mind’s eye, sleek and dark and beautiful with a sensuality that burned and made her ache unbearably. She swallowed hard on that grudging acknowledgement and suppressed it even quicker because they had far more important questions to consider and she was mortified by her lack of mental discipline.
‘So, we let the wedding go ahead because I’m pregnant and you think it’s safer for our child to be born legitimate with regard to the law and all that sort of thing,’ she concluded in a weary surge.
‘And because I believe that you should have my support throughout your pregnancy.’
Vivi’s eyes opened wide and violet disbelief darkened them as she glanced back at him again. ‘Throughout? Look, I’m prepared to go through with the wedding but I don’t want anything to do with you beyond that!’
‘That’s no longer an achievable objective when you’re carrying my baby,’ Raffaele spelt out with finality.
‘Oh, yes, it is!’ Vivi argued vehemently. ‘I don’t need you for support while I’m pregnant.’
‘But I want to be there for you,’ Raffaele countered levelly.
‘Oh, stop being so pious!’ Vivi flashed back at him as she sprang to her feet in passionate annoyance. ‘Maybe you think you’re saying what I want to hear! Or maybe you think I couldn’t cope without you! Or maybe even you simply suffer from an over-developed conscience! But you don’t ever get to attach strings to me just because you knocked me up!’
Raffaele grimaced. ‘Don’t be crude.’
Vivi tossed her head, copper hair glinting like polished metal in the sunshine, her triangular face flushed and glowing with resentment as she hurriedly turned away from him. What a nightmare she would be storing up for the future if she allowed herself to become dependent on a guy who had no feelings for her other than those of obligation! If she wasn’t careful, she might start getting attached to him again, she thought fearfully. Heaven knew she could already hardly keep her hands off him and what more might result from such a powerful attraction? ‘You get to attach strings to the baby after it’s born, not to me.’
‘While you are carrying my child I have a duty of care towards you both,’ Raffaele contradicted drily. ‘A desire to be supportive is not attaching strings. I want you to agree to stay married to me and live with me until our child is born, at least.’
Vivi took an outraged step back from him. ‘Absolutely not! Are you crazy? Our agreement was that we go through with the ceremony and then go our separate ways!’
Raffaele groaned out loud in frustration. ‘And now we have something much more important to factor into that calculation...our baby,’ he reminded her. ‘Nothing is the same now. Our priorities have to change.’
‘Well, they have changed,’ Vivi proclaimed defensively, angry that he was unappreciative of the sacrifice she was already making and indeed was now demanding even more from her. Here she was struggling to hold him at arm’s length and minimise their interaction while he was demanding that she expose herself to much more. ‘Obviously I’m willing to agree to go ahead with the wedding without any further argument but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to sacrifice my freedom for the whole of my pregnancy.’
‘What vital freedom will you have if you live separately from me?’ Raffaele demanded. ‘Are you planning to continue drinking and dating while pregnant? Is that the freedom that you fear losing?’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Raffaele, I haven’t even thought about stuff like that!’ Vivi fired back at him in exasperation. ‘I won’t be doing anything against medical guidelines, and right at this minute dating has about as much appeal for me as plunging into an ice pool! But on the other hand, living with you when you’re so arrogant and judgemental and domineering has even less appeal!’
Raffaele, unaccustomed to criticism and prepared from the teenage years to see himself as a very eligible partner, released his breath in a controlled hiss. ‘What will you do when you don’t feel well? Surely there will be such times? Who will you lean on then? Who will look after you?’
Vivi gritted her teeth. ‘I don’t need looking after and I don’t lean on people for support!’ she fielded with distaste and a proud toss of her head.
Raffaele stood poised and cool and resolute, impervious to the wash of her angry denial of vulnerability. ‘But you may need to over the next few months and surely it is better to lean on me than on others?’
Vivi paled at that unwelcome point, thinking of how under par Winnie had been in the initial months of her pregnancy while simultaneously recognising in dismay how her grandad might react to news of her condition. Disapproving as he had been of her sister being a single parent, he would not be pleased even though Vivi would be legally married before her child was born. Furthermore, the idea of having to approach the older man for any form of help, financial or otherwise, during her pregnancy was equally off-putting and would decimate her pride. She would have to put her money where her mouth was, as the saying went, and manage on her own. Accepting Raffaele’s support might be an unpalatable concept but as he was as responsible for the child she carried as she was, it would hurt her pride less.
Raffaele scrutinised her tense stance and wondered if anyone had ever resisted him to such a degree. It annoyed the hell out of him that she refused to see common sense, that she was determined to deny the obvious benefits of remaining his wife while she was pregnant. Shouldn’t she want that security and support? Her slight frame was drooping a little and it crossed his mind that she was not only tired but also very slender.
Healthily slender? It seemed to him that she had lost weight. Had she been worrying too much to take time out to care for herself? Of course, she had been worrying, he told himself impatiently. Hadn’t he threatened redundancies at her place of work? He had put a lot of pressure on her quite deliberately. Was it any wonder that she should now struggle to see him as a potentially supportive partner with whom she could share her pregnancy?
‘You don’t trust me,’ Raffaele murmured grimly.
‘Oh, don’t be offended!’ Vivi urged with an embarrassed gesture of dismissal. ‘I don’t trust anyone but my sisters and John and Liz. It’s safer that way and you don’t get disappointed or...hurt.’
Raffaele reached for her knotted fists and slowly smoothed out the tension in her thin fingers. ‘I will not disappoint or hurt you. I will look after you to the best of my ability and once the baby is born you will have your freedom back.’
Vivi glanced up involuntarily and collided with dark golden eyes. Her colour heightened, a knot tightening in her throat. She swallowed convulsively, her eyes prickling. His hands over hers were soothing but he was her enemy and she would be foolish to forget that for a second. Nor could he possibly appreciate that if she lost control of her feelings for him again he was very likely to hurt her. ‘I feel like bursting into tears,’ she confided chokily. ‘And I don’t know why. Think it might be pregnancy hormones or something.’
‘Maybe so. I’ll feel better once you’ve had a doctor check you over,’ Raffaele admitted tautly.
‘I’m so tired,’ she whispered unevenly. ‘I’m so tired I could go to sleep standing up.’
‘Stress,’ Raffaele framed, hoping she didn’t choose that moment to remind him that he had put her under that stress. ‘I have to fight for what’s right, bella mia.’
‘But I don’t agree with you,’ she muttered ruefully.
‘You never agree with anything I say,’ Raffaele countered with sardonic amusement. ‘But right now, all I want to do is whisk you home to London and ensure that you consult a doctor. Is that accepta
ble?’
Just at that moment the image of her own comfortable bed had immense appeal and she nodded grudgingly, uncertain that she wanted to see a doctor as yet but reckoning that it couldn’t do any actual harm to be clued up on what lay ahead, even if her sister’s experiences had already warned her of most of the physical pitfalls.
‘And while we’re with your foster mother, we’ll work out some way of getting her and your foster father to London for the wedding,’ Raffaele concluded with assurance.
‘It won’t work. They’ve got too many responsibilities on the home front with the kids.’
‘Somehow we’ll make it work,’ Raffaele proclaimed with immoveable assurance.
And Vivi wondered what it said about her that even when Raffaele was endeavouring to be decent, she wanted to slap him. She bit her tongue, compressed her lips and said nothing and reckoned that that was possibly the best way of dealing with him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘IT DOESN’T LOOK too tight?’ Vivi pressed anxiously, sucking in her breath and turning this way and that in front of the full-length mirror to check her reflection.
