KIM LAWRENCE - Secret Baby, Convenient Wife

‘You mean children are permanent and wives are temporary.’

His irritation was written clear in his steely stare as he retorted coldly, ‘If you wish to put it that way.’

She hid her hurt behind aggression. ‘You put it that way.’

His careless shrug made her resentment spill over into an unwise—she knew it the moment it left her lips—reference to his dead first wife.

‘I don’t suppose you told Alberto’s mother it was not for ever when you proposed to her?’

His expression iced over, making him seem austere and distant. ‘My marriage to Sara is not relevant. I did not marry you to give Alberto a mother.’

‘I sometimes wonder why you married me at all,’ she slung back childishly.

The white-hot blaze in his eyes as he grabbed her by the shoulders and dragged her up against his long, lean body made her knees fold as he gave his driven response to her question.

‘I married you because you wouldn’t be my mistress, because I couldn’t think straight without you in my bed and because I will not share you with another man.’

No mention of love, but he kissed her and she told herself she didn’t care. About three seconds later she stopped thinking entirely.

Dervla sighed. It was always that way the moment Gianfranco touched her: her principles and pride vaporised. Which was why she had ended up married to a man who never even pretended he loved her, though for one split second when he had proposed her mind had made that understandable assumption.

‘But you barely know me!’ she protested. ‘It takes time to fall in love, Gianfranco and—’ She stopped, the colour seeping from her face as the truth—as she saw it then—hit her.

Time had not the first thing to do with falling in love. And for some people it actually didn’t take long at all…in her case it had taken about a second, and now it seemed that amazingly it had been the same for Gianfranco…? Only he had had the sense to recognise it.

She lifted her dazed eyes to his lean, devastatingly handsome face and thought, I really do love you. A shuddering sigh left her parted lips; a smile of wondering joy spread across her face.

Gianfranco, she saw, was smiling too, only his smile twisted his mobile lips into a cynical grimace and left his incredible eyes unusually cold.

‘I am not looking for love.’

Her face remained frozen in the smile, but the light had gone out of her eyes as he expanded on the theme.

‘If such a thing actually exists…?’

‘You don’t think so, I take it.’

One dark brow moved in the direction of his hairline and he sketched a sardonic smile. ‘Outside fairy tales? Do you know how many marriages actually last more than a few years?’

‘So how long do you propose our—our hypothetical marriage will last?’

‘You cannot fix a specific time when there are so many unknown variables.’

God, and they say romance is dead! ‘So when you say for better or worse, what you actually mean is until the gloss wears off or something better comes along?’

‘You think it’s somehow more courageous and noble to stay in a marriage because of a sense of obligation?’ Lip curled, he shook his head. ‘That’s not nobility. At best it’s habit, at worst it’s laziness and fear. I’m being a realist. You might prefer me to trot out the clichés about us being fated to be together through eternity?’

‘People are. My parents had been married thirty-five years when they were killed.’

‘An accident?’

‘The coach they were travelling in went across the central reservation of the motorway and hit a lorry coming in the opposite direction. Ten people were killed, including my parents.’

‘You were how old?’

‘Eighteen, in my first year of nurse training.”

‘I am sorry, and I am glad your parents had a happy marriage, but I cannot see into the future. I have no idea what I will feel in five, ten years’ time, but I know what I feel now.

‘Now,’ he told her, in a voice that made every single nerve ending in her body sigh, ‘I want you.’

That had been a year ago and he still wanted her, and any future plans he spoke of included her.

What are you going to do when he doesn’t and they don’t?

Fear tightened and clenched inside her and with a small cry she turned and buried her head in Gianfranco’s chest. ‘I’m happy!’ she declared defiantly.

Startled by her abrupt action, Gianfranco stared down for a moment at the top of her head before lifting a hand to stroke a fiery curl, stretching it and then letting it spring back softly into shape.

‘Happy?’

Dervla felt his hands on her shoulders and burrowed deeper into him, her eyes closed, feeling the solid warmth of his lean, hard male body seep into her as his arms folded across her ribcage.

‘Yes, I’m happy.’

Everyone had a different recipe for happiness, but she knew that hers had one vital ingredient: Gianfranco.

So things might not be perfect, the alternative was no Gianfranco. It was an alternative she could not bring herself to contemplate; it was the reason she had said yes when he proposed.

Gianfranco prised her face from his shirt. One big hand framed the side of her face, the other sliding into the lush silky curls on her nape to cradle her skull as he scanned her face.

An image superimposed itself in his head of Dervla’s face when she had told him that she couldn’t marry him because she wasn’t able to have children.

Dio mio, I’m about as sensitive as that stone, he thought, kicking a wedged rock free with the toe of his shoe.

How, he asked himself, did you expect her to feel, when you have her spend the entire weekend with a heavily pregnant woman who babbles incessantly about babies? Of course she cared more than she pretended.

Dervla had been up front about it from the beginning.

He had not been so honest in his response.

He had seen the gratitude shining in her eyes when he had promised her that her inability to conceive made no difference to him; she clearly hadn’t believed a word he said, but he hadn’t made any real push to dissuade her from her clear belief in his nobility.

Contrary to what she thought, there was no sacrifice on his part; when she had told him of this tragedy in her life his reaction had been relief!

Relief he would never now need to have that awkward conversation—the one where he would have to dredge up his past mistakes.

‘Happy? So that,’ he teased lightly as he blotted with his thumb the sparkling tear that was sliding down her cheek, ‘is a tear of joy?’

Dervla didn’t respond to his comment. Instead she tilted her head and asked, ‘Are you happy, Gianfranco?’

‘What is happy?’

She saw the trace of irritation in his face at the question, and thought, If you were happy you wouldn’t need to ask.

‘I would be happier,’ he said, taking her hand, ‘if Carla decides to go home this evening.’

GIANFRANCO’S wish was not granted.

When they got back to the house Carla, wearing a swimsuit encrusted with sequins and quite obviously designed more for displaying her perfect body beside a pool than swimming in, asked Gianfranco if she could beg a seat in his helicopter the next morning.

‘I thought you had things to get back to.’

‘No, I’m all yours,’ the older woman responded, apparently oblivious to the strong hint. ‘And the staff are back so you won’t need to vanish into the kitchen. You’re both so eccentric,’ she murmured, shaking her head before pleading with a pretty smile for Gianfranco to apply some sunscreen to her back.

Dervla stiffened, her hands balling instinctively into fists as an image of Gianfranco’s hands on the other woman’s warm, smooth skin formed in her head.

‘I don’t think you’re in danger of burning, Carla. It’s six-thirty.’

With a quick smile at Carla, Dervla followed him indoors. ‘Will you not be so rude to Carla,’ she hissed.

He arched a brow. ‘You wish me to put cream on other women? I think not. I saw your face. You’d have pushed her into the pool if I’d tried.’ He did not sound displeased by the discovery.

The colour flew to Dervla’s cheeks. ‘No, I’d have pushed you into the pool, but this is Carla—she doesn’t mean anything by it.’ Be tolerant, Dervla, be tolerant. ‘She’s like that with all men.’

He gave a grimace of fastidious distaste. ‘You mean she comes on to all men.’

Dervla’s eyes flew wide. She pressed her hand to her stomach feeling suddenly nauseous. ‘She’s never…with you, has she?’

‘A gentleman does not speak of such things.’

‘So that leaves you free to spill the dirt.’

Gianfranco threw back his head and laughed. ‘She is really not my type, cara,’ he promised, lifting a hand to stroke her cheek. ‘And you need not worry about her feelings. She has the skin of a rhino. Short of showing her the door, we’re stuck with her until tomorrow. I suppose we’ll just have to grin and bear it.’

During dinner Gianfranco showed very little inclination to follow his own advice, so it was left to Dervla to supply the extra smiles.

By the time the Italian woman was midway through a lengthy description of the famous people she had rubbed shoulders with at a recent celebrity auction Dervla’s facial muscles were aching from the marathon.

‘What charity was the auction for?’ she asked when Carla paused for breath.

‘For…?’ The older woman looked at her blankly for a moment.

‘The charity it was raising money for?’

‘I really can’t recall.’

Dervla bit her lip, and didn’t dare look at Gianfranco, she knew he’d make her laugh.

‘Did I mention that I spoke to the prince? A charming man.’

Before Dervla had a chance to adopt an appropriate expression of polite enquiry Gianfranco cut in with a dry, ‘Yes, you did, Carla—several times.’

Dervla shot her husband a look of warning from beneath the sweep of her lashes and said brightly to fill the awkward silence, ‘Are you sure you won’t have some of this lemon tart, Carla?’

‘No, no pudding, I’m watching my weight.’ The glance she slid the second slice on Dervla’s plate suggested that she thought Dervla ought to be doing the same. ‘But, you could lend me your husband, just for a few minutes. Boring financial stuff…’ She angled a look of enquiry at Gianfranco. ‘If it wouldn’t be too much of a bother…?’

There was a pause and for one awful moment Dervla thought Gianfranco was going to say yes, it would be too much of a bother, when he got to his feet, his attitude more polite resignation than eagerness. ‘If it’s urgent?’

‘Well, you probably won’t think it is, but I have been worried.’

‘Would you like to come to the study?’ His enquiring glance slid towards Dervla.

‘I’ll wait here.’

Carla smoothed her creaseless skirt down over her slim hips and patted Dervla’s hand. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t keep him a minute.’

The minute Carla had spoken of stretched into an hour while Dervla sat alone at the dinner table drinking coffee. When the maid came in she refused the offer of another pot and told the girl with a smile she could clear away.

Another five minutes and she decided she might as well go to bed. As she passed the door of Gianfranco’s study she heard some very unfinancial-sounding laughter before she shouted her intention of retiring.

‘I’ll be up in a moment!’ Gianfranco called out.

It turned out his grasp of time was just as sketchy as Carla’s. It was actually midnight when Gianfranco finally did join her in their bedroom. Hearing his footsteps in the corridor outside, Dervla leapt into bed, picking up a magazine from the table on her way.