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But not yet.
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she said coldly. ‘Such an agenda couldn’t be further from my mind.’
He felt a nerve flickering in his cheek. ‘I’m glad we understand each other.’
‘Perfectly.’
‘So. Why are you ringing?’
She couldn’t say it over the phone. She couldn’t. It was the coward’s way out and she wanted to see his face. Needed to see his face.
‘There’s some paperwork I need you to look at.’
And what? Look into those big sapphire eyes again and start seeing what he wanted to see instead of what was real? Letting himself confide in her and share his thoughts with her? Start wanting to tear her clothing off, with her letting him? Or would she? Maybe this time she would torment him by saying no, by flaunting her magnificent body and torturing him because it was hands-off.
‘Can’t you get someone else to deal with it?’ he questioned impatiently.
‘That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it, Matt? Why bother doing something when you can pay someone else to do it for you? No wonder you’re becoming increasingly remote from reality!’
There was a short, angry pause. ‘Do you really think I want to see you?’ he demanded hotly. ‘That I would voluntarily put myself in a position where I lay myself open to being insulted by you?’
‘Matt, you have to see me.’
‘Have to?’ he repeated dangerously. ‘Cara, nobody, but nobody, tells me that I have to do something.’
She realised then that there was no way out of telling him over the phone. And maybe this way was best. At least it would be short—if not sweet. She would provide the information in the starkest way possible and leave him with the options. Maybe the best one was for him to leave her completely alone.
‘I just thought you’d better know that I’m pregnant,’ she said, and then she hung up.
For a moment Matteo listened blankly to the burr of the dial tone, his eyes staring unseeingly at the wall in front of him. And then her words slammed into the forefront of his mind with the impact of a sledgehammer.
‘Jenny!’ As if saying that would suddenly put her back on the line! He dialled her number, but predictably she let it go through to voicemail.
He shook his head as a floodgate of feelings swamped him. Disbelief and anger and frustration made his heart-rate soar, but the tiniest flicker of hope and joy dazed him.
A baby?
He didn’t even know where she was!
Strega!
His mind worked around all the possibilities. She could be anywhere…but it was most likely that she was in their London flat. Her London flat, he reminded himself. He knew she wasn’t crazy about staying in hotels—not if she was on her own. And then he remembered the night in Cannes, and his heart contracted.
He frowned as he rang the service number of the exclusive apartment block and spoke to the concierge, using blatant influence, charm, and a hefty bribe to ensure that his enq
uiry was not passed on to Signora d’Arezzo. But, yes, she was there.
He allowed himself a brief, hard smile of satisfaction and then set about flying to England. Normally he might have cursed at a back-to-back flight from the States, but this wasn’t normal. He didn’t get told he was going to be a father every day of the week.
Beneath the knitted black brows his ebony eyes glittered with a hundred questions. But the one uppermost in his mind was the most important.
Was she telling him the truth?
CHAPTER SIX
The knocking on the door wouldn’t stop, and Jennifer knew that she could not lie there for ever, pretending that the outside world did not exist.
Slowly she made her way to the hallway and began to unslide the great bolts which had made their flat into a fortress. When she finally opened the door she was not surprised to see Matteo standing there, but it was a Matteo she scarcely recognised.
