‘You’re kidding, right?’ he said incredulously.
‘No, Luca, I’m not. In fact, the minute I heard that you were about to get married...’
‘No one’s bought a hat yet! Isabella has always been destined to be my wife. I am now thirty-four years old and the time has come. At this point it is an understanding rather than an arrangement with a fixed date.’
‘Whatever. The fact remains that the minute you told me about...about... Isabella...’ she could barely get the name out ‘... I made up my mind to leave without saying anything at all, but then I fainted and when you offered me that brandy, I thought of the baby and out it all came.’ She shifted. ‘But I don’t intend to stick around here, messing up your life. I’m going to head back home and, like I said, you can do whatever you want to do.’ She began getting to her feet.
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Luca gritted.
‘I’m fine. I won’t be fainting again, trust me. I’m as strong as an ox.’
‘Repeat, you’re not going anywhere. You don’t get to drop a bombshell in my life and then tell me that you’re going to walk away as though nothing’s happened.’
‘I don’t like the word bombshell.’
‘And I’m not particularly in love with the notion of being a daddy in nine months’ time, but there we have it. You’re going to sit back down and we’re going to discuss what happens next in this scenario.’ His eyes involuntarily flickered to her stomach.
Fatherhood had always been something vague on the horizon. Naturally, he would have a child, preferably a son. It would all be part of the destiny lying in wait for him. Marriage to Isabella and the uniting of two great Italian families. Then a child, an heir to the throne, so to speak. Like him, Isabella would do what was expected and nothing beyond that. They were both very well aware of the circumstances of their individual situations and accepting of it. They were on the same page when it came to their future.
All pre-planned, laid out with precision. No room for emotion. It was the way he liked it anyway. He didn’t believe in getting carried away. Love, and all the disorderly chaos it entailed, had never been for him. He’d seen too much and witnessed too much. Nothing good ever came from yielding to emotion and allowing it to carry you away until you became a helpless object, drifting wherever it decided to take you. His father had allowed emotion to dictate his life. His ex-wives...the constant upheavals...the shouting and crying and then the vindictiveness born from relationships gone sour. Too much.
And then his mother. He thought of his mother. He thought of the hole she had left in his father’s life. And in his own. He would never revisit any situation that could put him in that distressing and vulnerable place again. If he could control his emotions, he could control his life. Control. That was what Isabella would bring to the table. He knew where he stood with her.
The woman looking at him in stubborn silence was the very opposite of Isabella. She’d brought out something in him that had been free and reckless and unchained and there was no place for that man here, in Italy. That man belonged back in Cornwall.
Did she think that she would find that man again? If so, she was very much mistaken. The Luca Baresi who lived here was not that man, which didn’t mean that he could cheerfully send her on her way, not now that she had lit that fuse under him, a fuse that would spark a fire that would gobble up everything he knew and every plan he had ever made.
‘I told you—’ Cordelia began.
‘I heard every word you said,’ he murmured smoothly, ‘and now you’re going to hear every word I have to say.’
CHAPTER SIX
‘FIRST OF ALL I will need to have the pregnancy confirmed. I have a trusted doctor.’
‘I don’t see the point. I’m not lying and I don’t want anything from you. If you choose to disbelieve me, then that’s okay. I will have done what I came to do and I’ll leave here with a clear conscience.’ She burned with curiosity about this woman he had chosen to be his future wife. Were they lovers? She didn’t want to let her mind drift down those disturbing paths but she couldn’t block out images of him with another woman. Her hormones were all over the place and just thinking those thoughts brought the sting of tears to her eyes.
‘Provided there is a confirmed pregnancy, the announcement of our marriage will...not be a straightforward affair.’
Cordelia’s mouth fell open and she stared at him in astonishment. He didn’t notice. He was frowning, thinking, calculating. She realised that he was working out how to deal with the mess that had landed on his lap.
But marriage?
‘I will have to convene a family meeting,’ he continued, still seemingly oblivious to her gaping incredulity. He was thinking aloud and she could have been a potted plant in the corner of the room for all the attention he was paying to her. She was a problem that had to be addressed and he was in the process of addressing it.
‘“Convene a family meeting”?’ she asked, when in fact the question on the tip of her tongue was, Marriage? Are you insane? What on earth are you talking about?
‘Firstly, I will, of course, have to break the news to my father.’
It struck Luca that his father was probably not going to hit the roof, contrary to what everyone else might expect. He knew his father. Giovanni Baresi, like the entire Russo clan, of whom Isabella was one of four daughters, expected him to marry
