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There was a pause. ‘I’m not going to comment on that,’ she said, still in that strange, small voice of calm. ‘And now I’m really going to have to go. Goodbye.’
She put the phone down and ignored all her mother’s questions, but inside she felt queasy, and the feeling of nausea just grew and grew inside her. She only just made it to the bathroom before she started vomiting—and the frightening thing was that she couldn’t stop.
‘I’m calling an ambulance!’ her mother exclaimed dramatically. ‘I knew you should never have got back with that cheating bastard!’
Feeling as if she was taking part in one of her own films, Jennifer was rushed to hospital with sirens and lights blazing, wishing that her mother would just go away. She rolled around in agony, clutching her abdomen—her stomach was empty but she was unable to stop the dry retching which was making her throat burn. ‘Am I going to lose my baby?’ she cried.
‘Shh! Try to calm down,’ soothed the nurse in the emergency room. ‘The doctor is on his way down now to see you.’
Which did not answer her question at all. And Jennifer closed her eyes as tears began to creep from behind her tightly shut lids.
All this for nothing. Now she would lose the child she had longed for, and along with that terrible heartache would come her final separation from Matt—for he would not want her without the baby. Why would he?
* * *
Around a large table, Matteo sat with his lawyers—his face chalk-white beneath the tanned skin. On the front page of London’s biggest-selling evening newspaper was a huge photo of a pouting Sophia Perotta—her brown eyes as widely innocent as a baby deer’s. And there was the splash:
Cheating Matteo Was A Stallion In The Bedroom!
‘Can she say this?’ he demanded hotly.
‘She already has.’
Matteo’s fists clenched and he banged one down hard onto the table, so that the lawyers jumped. ‘Let’s sue her. Let’s take the bitch for every penny she’s got!’
‘Are you certain you want to, Matteo?’
‘It’s a pack of lies!’
The lawyer coughed delicately. ‘Did you or did you not have sex with her?’
Matteo flinched. ‘Once!’ he gritted, a feeling of disgust creeping over his skin. ‘And only when my wife was divorcing me.’
‘That’s your story,’ said the lawyer stolidly.
Matt turned on him, his black eyes flashing with anger, and suddenly he understood. ‘Oh, I see,’ he said slowly, and nodded his dark head. ‘It’s her word against mine.’
‘Precisely. She’s deliberately vague about dates and times, but explicit enough about your er…skills…in the bedroom department to make it clear that you did have sex with her. The dispute is when. She says it was during your marriage. You say it was not. We can try fighting it, if you want, but the publicity…’
He let his voice tail off, and Matteo knew what he was saying. ‘I’ve only just got back with my wife,’ he said urgently.
And she’s pregnant.
Oh, Jenny.
Jenny.
It was at precisely that moment that one of his aides came grim-faced into the room, with a message from the hospital.
The journey back to Bath was a like a trip to hell. The worst thing was the not knowing—but no one would tell him anything and he couldn’t get hold of Jenny’s mother. It was an exercise in powerlessness, and Matteo had never felt so frighteningly out of control.
He made silent pleas to God. He prayed for their baby, and he prayed for much more than that, too. But Jenny would never forgive him for this. How could she?
‘I want to see my wife!’ he said to the overwhelmed receptionist at the desk.
‘Mr d’Arezzo?’ she verified breathlessly.
‘Let me see her,’ he pleaded.
