Happy Mother’s Day!: Accidentally Pregnant, Conveniently Wed / Claiming His Pregnant Wife / Meant-To-Be Mother

With all the stealth of a cat-burglar, Aisling wriggled slowly from beneath the muscular body of Gianluca—but he was so deeply asleep that she was able to extricate herself and her clothes and handbag and slip from the room without him waking. She found a bathroom down the corridor and as silently as possible scrambled into her underwear and jeans and tugged on her top. Then she pulled her mobile from her back pocket and found two text messages there from Jason.

‘Where are you?’ read the first. ‘Gone back 2 Rome. C U on flight 2moro?’ said the second.

Aisling breathed a sigh of relief. At least Jason wasn’t stranded out here as well—which meant that she didn’t have to worry about finding him.

The question was how she intended getting back to Rome in order to guarantee catching her early morning flight and putting as much distance between her and Gianluca as possible. Surely that was the best possible scenario—allowing them both the dignity of pretending it had never happened.

If only she weren’t stranded.

But then Aisling remembered Gianluca’s entrance in the gleaming sports car and an idea began to slowly grow in her mind. A plan so unlike what the usual cool and careful Aisling would have devised that it made her realise just how much her senses were spinning. But not enough to stop her thinking it through.

What was to stop her borrowing his car to get back to Rome? He was bound to have a satellite-navigation system to guide her to the city—and the roads would be empty at this time. He’d easily be able to find another form of transport.

She bit her lip. True, he wouldn’t be best pleased that she’d taken his car without asking—but it wouldn’t be the first rule of etiquette she’d broken. Sleeping with the boss without him ever having taken her on a date was right up there with the major social no-nos.

It might be completely out of character, but so what? Things couldn’t really get much worse. Her contract with Palladio’s would inevitably be over after this—so what did she have to lose? And what the hell would Suzy, her partner, have to say about that?

Her cheeks burning with remorse, Aisling crept back into Gianluca’s bedroom, breathing a sigh of relief as she located his car keys in the back pocket of his discarded jeans and carefully extracted them—and still he slept on.

She stole towards the front door and her heart pounded with guilt and she quietly took from her bag a pen and a postcard of the Trevi fountain, which she’d never got around to posting. Silently, she wrote: ‘I’ve borrowed your car—will leave it at your office.’

And then she hesitated. How should she end it? Love Aisling?

No.

Just her name, then?

No. Just stick to facts and fade away into the dawn. Propping the note onto a small table, she gave a wry smile. Why, he might even thank her for it. They would both be spared the embarrassment of the morning after. The long, shared journey back to the city, heavy with awkward silences. Not that she’d ever had a one-night stand—but from everything she’d read, she knew it wasn’t the best way to earn his respect or admiration.

But it wasn’t until she was out on the open road, being guided by the rather spooky robotic female voice of the satnav system and heading towards Rome that she dared to put her foot down, her heart sinking with the horror of what she’d done as the sun began to rise high over the Umbrian hills.

CHAPTER FOUR

AISLING’S head pounded.

Unsteadily, she rose from her chair to close the blinds in her office, and the unanswerable question spun round and round in her head like dirty water whirling down the plug-hole.

Oh, what had she done?

Nearly a month had elapsed since she had woken up in Gianluca’s bed—or rather on Gianluca’s bed, she corrected herself, and flinched. There was no point in giving the incident an air of respectability which it certainly didn’t merit. Saying that they had been in bed might have implied that there’d been a little forethought about that wild bout of sex, instead of the stark and unpalatable truth.

That she’d had a one-night stand with a client!

Aisling’s palms felt clammy as she sat down at her desk once more.

What kind of a woman did that? Risking everything she’d worked so hard for. Especially a woman who had known real poverty when she was growing up—who had learnt the hard way that you couldn’t rely on anyone except yourself to earn a living.

Her mother had always put men before everything—even her daughter. Janie Armstrong had sacrificed everything in her futile search for love. Jobs had gone by the wayside and she and Aisling had moved around the country—relocating at the drop of a hat if there was some promise of emotional happiness, which had never seemed to materialise.

Time after time, Aisling had seen her mother let down by a man—and time after time she had repeated the same needy and dependent behaviour which had seemed to drive the men further away. As her beauty had faded, so had the opportunities—and that had bred a new desperation.

Aisling had vowed to be different. That was the reason she had slaved away to establish her business, why she had put her social life on hold, working long hours to build up her small but thriving firm which now employed three people. A firm she had been so proud of—but which must now surely be threatened by a single act of madness?

How terrifying it was to discover this dark and unknown side to her character. Maybe she carried more of her mother’s traits than she had previously imagined.

After leaving Gianluca’s vineyard, Aisling had caught the London-bound flight from Rome airport with minutes to spare. She’d left Gianluca’s car in the underground car park of the Palladio Corporation, deposited the car keys with his bemused secretary and walked out with a feeling of terrible remorse making her cheeks sting pink.

Next there had been Jason to face—and that had been Aisling’s first real test of mental determination. How much was it permissible to pretend when facing your young assistant, to whom you were supposed to be setting a good example? She didn’t want to lie—but how could she tell him the truth when, if the situation were reversed, she would have sacked him on the spot? There was nothing to be gained from showing her embarrassment and her guilt—she was just going to have to live with them. As it was, her former prim and proper image stood her in good stead.

‘Whatever happened to you?’ Jason asked curiously. ‘One minute you were there—and the next you were gone!’

‘Oh, Gianluca gave me a tour of the property—and we ended up talking about business,’ she answered quietly, her blue eyes just daring him to say any more on the subject, and to her relief he didn’t. Quite what Jason thought about it all only added to her discomfiture, but frankly she couldn’t allow herself the luxury of wallowing in self-pity.

For days, Aisling waited.

At first she wasn’t really sure what she was waiting for—until she woke up one morning after a night spent tossing and turning and realised that she was in fact waiting to hear from Gianluca. They still had a meeting scheduled to discuss his Miami project, didn’t they? Her guilty conscience had made her assume that he would want to pull out of it—and that he would take great delight in telling her exactly why. But she was wrong.

There was nothing. Not a word, a phone call or e-mail to cancel—and somehow this only compounded her silent sense of agony and self-recrimination. Was he planning to send someone else from the Palladio Corporation in his place? she wondered.

And it wasn’t until her period arrived that Aisling realised she had been waiting for something else, too—the reassurance that there weren’t to be any lasting repercussions from that night of passion. And thank God, there weren’t.

But her behaviour made her think—logically, rather than emotionally. It shocked her into making an appointment at the family planning clinic. Because, yes, Gianluca had used protection—but what if he hadn’t had any? She had been so caught up in mindless need for him that she’d been beyond caring—and, whether or not that was the Palladio effect, she didn’t dare risk it happening again. A one-night stand was bad enough—an unplanned pregnancy would be unforgivable. And then there was the troublesome question of their upcoming appointment and how she might react if Gianluca turned up and tried to seduce her. Would she honestly be able to resist him?

The phone on her desk rang and Aisling picked it up.

‘Aisling Armstrong here,’ she said.

It was Ginger Jones, her secretary, who had taken to looking at her with frowning concern ever since she’d returned from Rome, even if she hadn’t quite had the nerve to ask her if anything was wrong. Unlike Suzy, who had been fishing like mad—but Aisling had deflected all her questions without blushing.

‘There’s someone here to see you,’ Ginger announced.

Aisling frowned as she scanned the appointments page of her diary. ‘But I don’t have anything scheduled.’ And it was almost seven o’clock. It had been a long day, which had started with a breakfast meeting, and she wanted nothing more than a bath and to pick at some food and then go to bed and pray for the oblivion of sleep.

‘I know that,’ said Ginger rather dramatically, and something in the tone of her voice made the small hairs on the back of Aisling’s neck prickle with apprehension.

‘Who is it?’ she questioned hoarsely.

‘Signor Palladio.’

Aisling gripped the phone so hard that her knuckles turned the colour of milk. ‘But his appointment isn’t until next week,’ she said hoarsely. An appointment she had been expecting and praying that he would cancel. And praying that he wouldn’t.

‘So I believe,’ said Ginger smoothly.

‘Can’t you tell him to go?’ Aisling whispered, and to Ginger’s huge credit and diplomacy she didn’t seem to find anything wrong in a question which Aisling would never have asked under normal circumstances.

‘I’ve tried,’ Ginger said, in a smoothly unfamiliar tone which suggested that the Italian billionaire might be standing right by the telephone.

Aisling thought quickly.