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‘That was the past.’ She said it to herself as much as him and started to walk down the stairs, holding tight to the bannisters to help support her wobbly knees. ‘You no longer have the right to undress me.’
‘I refuse to discuss this with you now.’ His tone was even as he followed her into the kitchen. ‘Sit down and I’ll make you some breakfast.’
She gaped at him, sure that she’d misheard.
Luca was offering to make her breakfast?
Well, that really was a first!
As far as she could recall, Luca couldn’t so much as boil a kettle. He certainly hadn’t done so in the three months that she’d known him.
‘I thought Italian men were totally undomesticated,’ she commented, watching with fascination as he yanked open cupboard after cupboard and finally tried the fridge. This was not a man who knew his way around a kitchen.
‘Dio, there is nothing here! What were you planning to eat?’ His tone was incredulous as he stared into the empty fridge. ‘Thin air?’
‘At least that won’t upset my stomach,’ she joked weakly, shrinking slightly at the black expression on his face. ‘OK, there’s no need to scowl. I haven’t had time to shop yet. I was going to do it on my way home from work this evening.’
The minute she said it she could have bitten her tongue off. Bother. She hadn’t intended to tell him about the job yet.
There was an ominous silence and Luca straightened up from his exploration of the empty fridge, his smooth dark brows locked in a frown.
‘Work?’ His eyes were suddenly cool. ‘What do you mean, you were going to shop on the way home from work?’
She gave a long sigh. ‘Luca, I’m going to be a single mother. I need a job—’
The fridge door closed with a muted thud. ‘You are not going to be a single mother.’
‘Luca…’
He walked towards her, his eyes flaming with anger and his broad shoulders tense. ‘And you do not need a job.’
‘I need to support myself, Luca.’
‘You do not need to support yourself,’ he said with icy cold clarity. ‘That is my responsibility.’
She took a deep breath. ‘But, you see, I don’t want to be your responsibility. I need to work.’
‘No,’ he contradicted her fiercely. ‘You do not need to work.’
Tia looked at him sadly. ‘Which just goes to prove my point that we don’t really know each other. If you knew me, you’d understand. But the truth is that our relationship is nothing more than a wild affair that got out of hand. And now we need to move on. I’ve been offered my old job back, Luca, and I intend to take it. In fact, I’ve already taken it. I’ve been working at the Infirmary for the past ten days. I’m surprised Sharon didn’t mention it when you had your little chat.’
‘Well, she didn’t.’ Luca stared at her, a muscle working in his dark jaw. ‘Now that I am here to support you, give me one good reason why you need to work.’
His arrogance made her defiant. ‘I don’t have to give you a reason for anything I do. You can’t bully me, Luca.’
A flush touched his tanned cheekbones and he had the grace to look uncomfortable. ‘It was not my intention to bully you, merely to try and understand—’
‘It’s too late for that now,’ she said stiffly, and his mouth tightened.
‘It is not too late,’ he ground out. ‘We are having a baby and we stay together. And you will not work while you’re pregnant.’
Tia stared at him, fascinated that he seemed so totally unashamed of blatantly expressing such chauvinistic opinions. Hadn’t the man ever heard of equality or political correctness?
‘Plenty of women work when they’re pregnant.’
‘But not you,’ he growled, raking long fingers through his hair, clearly hanging onto control by a thread. ‘I refuse to allow you to risk your health and our baby’s health when you don’t need to.’
Tia had always known that Luca was very traditional, but his flat dismissal of her new job was starting to make her blood boil.
