Page 36 of The Housekeeper's One-Night Baby
He stared at her, at first in disbelief and then with suspicion. ‘If this is your way of trying to negotiate, Lizzie, I can tell you now that it won’t work.’
‘It isn’t,’ she said simply. ‘It’s the way I feel. The answer is no.’
‘Then there’s nothing more to be said, is there?’ he questioned, his voice cooling. ‘If you wait while I turn off the lights and close up the house, I’ll drop you back at your cottage.’
Lizzie felt numb yet emotional as she got back into Niccolò’s car, trying to process the things which had been said. She had to bite down very hard on her lip to stop it from trembling—glad the darkness hid the rapid blinking of her eyes as she attempted to keep rogue tears at bay. But her heart was twisted with pain and hurt and disappointment. She felt as if they’d come so close. He’d bought the house of her dreams, which was a pretty thoughtful thing to do. And though his marriage proposal hadn’t been the stuff of fantasy, it had been a start—a foundation to work on. If he’d taken just one more step... If he’d opened up a little and let her get closer... But he hadn’t. When it had come to the crunch, he had retreated from her questions and turned back into an emotional iceberg, and she couldn’t live like that. It wasn’t fair. Not to any of them.
Neither of them spoke during the journey back through the cold winter’s night. She guessed there was nothing left to say. But when they reached the cottage, he insisted on opening the car door for her and seeing her safely up the path and Lizzie wanted to cry out—toimplorehim not to be so damned protective, because it was making her long for more of the same. But she was quickly brought back down to earth by his reluctance to set foot inside—as if the interior of her humble abode might contaminate him. She waited for him to mention Freddy, but he didn’t do that either—and a fierce pride began to take shape inside her because she certainly wasn’t going tobeghim to talk about his unborn son. She suddenly pictured a future. A horribly realistic future, where the billionaire’s occasional visits to see his unplanned offspring became more and more sporadic—until in the end they tapered off completely. She shivered.
‘It’s cold. Go inside,’ he said roughly. ‘And think about what you want to do. You can move in to Ermecott any time you like, but if you’d rather choose somewhere else to live, I will understand. Just let me, or my office, know.’
‘I will.’
‘Goodbye, Lizzie.’
‘Goodbye.’
Niccolò turned away from her, steeling his heart against the sombre note in her voice, telling himself throughout the drive back to London that he had made the right decision—for all of them. He shook his head. She was ungrateful. Unrealistic. He couldn’t give her what she wanted—and she wanted way too much.
He gave his car keys to the waiting valet. He would spend the night here at the hotel and have his plane made ready for his return flight to Manhattan in the morning. He would order dinner to be delivered to his suite and catch up on a little work, just as he always did.
But his gourmet meal remained untouched, and the figures on his computer screen were a meaningless blur. Night-time brought no relief either, for the hours were disturbed by images he couldn’t seem to ignore. Of hair the colour of a faded Halloween pumpkin, and the softest lips he had ever kissed. Her sweet, virginal tightness. Her understanding. Angrily, he slammed his fist into the goose-down pillow, then turned to stare up at the ceiling as the pale glow of dawn crept in through the windows.
Better get used to it, he thought grimly, because this was his new normal.
He was free.
Unencumbered.
And he didn’t like it.
He didn’t like it one bit.
At breakfast time, the strongest coffee the Granchester hotel could offer didn’t help, and his plate of eggs remained untouched. Several times he took out his phone to call his pilot, and several times he slid it back into his pocket. At a quarter after ten, he gave up the fight and retraced the drive he’d made last night, his mouth dry and his heart thumping as he stopped the car outside Lizzie’s little cottage. He thumped on the door with his fist and when she answered, she didn’t smile. She looked at him questioningly.
‘I’d like to come in.’
‘Sure. But I’m not sure we’ve got anything left to say to each other, Niccolò—particularly at the moment,’ she responded calmly. ‘So shall we just try and keep it amicable?’
His mouth grew even drier as he closed the door behind him and the pounding of his heart was almost deafening. The fire was unlit and the room was chilly and suddenly he knew there was no time for prevarication. ‘You want to know why I’ve never talked about my father?’ he demanded hoarsely. ‘Because I don’t know anything about him. Not any more. We haven’t spoken for nearly twenty years,’ he continued, dragging in a ragged breath, which burned his throat even more.
She had grown very still as she stood in front of him, her green eyes still burning with questions. Close enough for him to touch, but never had she seemed so distant.
‘Not since the morning after the accident, when he told me that if I hadn’t been so selfish then my mother and my sister would still be alive. That his child—hisfavouritechild—wouldn’t be lying in a satin-lined casket, surrounded by white roses.’ His bitter laugh was edged with self-contempt. ‘And that he wished above all else I could take her place.’
He could see her swallowing, her neck working convulsively as she tried to work out what to say, and suddenly all that distance was gone as her face grew soft. ‘People often say things they don’t mean in the heat of the moment, Niccolò.’
‘But hedidmean it. Every word,’ he emphasised harshly. ‘And since I wished for exactly the same fate, I accepted those words and his anger as my due. And that was the last time we spoke. He sent me away, to the home of my maternal grandmother.’
She seemed to absorb this. ‘And what was that like?’
Now it was harder to speak. Harder to articulate words without his voice breaking. ‘She lived in Tuscany. So you could say it was the perfect opportunity to discover one of the most beautiful regions of Italy.’
‘What was itlike, Niccolò?’ she persisted quietly.
The pain of remembering twisted at his heart. Was that the reason why he had refused to think about it all these years? ‘My grandmother adored her daughter and her granddaughter,’ he said slowly. ‘And she was obviously influenced by my father’s version of the accident.’ He swallowed. ‘Like him, she held me responsible for their deaths and perhaps that was understandable.’
‘And was she...cruel?’
