Page 143 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

‘Just another of these.’ She indicated the glass she’d been sipping from.

‘When will you be allowed alcohol again?’ he asked.

This total ban seemed alien and unnecessary to him. Did pregnant women in Italy deprive themselves so? He had no idea—he did not socialise with pregnant women either in Italy or here, or anywhere. They were an unknown species to him.

‘When I stop breastfeeding,’ came the answer.

He looked across at her. ‘You intend to breastfeed?’ he asked.

He strove to keep the question neutral, not wanting her to pick up any criticism, implied or not, in any answer she might give. This entire purpose of the evening was his attempt—finally, wearily, resignedly—to get them beyond the warfare that raged between them.

Warfare that was as wearying as it was pointless.

In his head, memory stabbed again—not of the fateful night that had led to this moment, but of her words, hurled at him repeatedly, telling him that he should leave her and go back to Italy, get on with his life, have nothing more to do with her...

Or the child she carried.

Hischild.

Does she really want me to do that?

She was speaking again, and he made himself pay attention to her and not to his turbid thoughts.

‘Yes, unless there’s some kind of problem. It’s nature’s way, after all...breastfeeding. It helps the baby’s immune system develop. And anyway—’ she made a face ‘—from what I’ve read so far it seems to be a lot easier than faffing about with sterilising bottles all the time.’

‘Does it not tie you to the baby?’ Vincenzo heard himself ask.

She levelled a look at him. ‘Since I don’t have anything else plannedexceptlooking after my baby, that isn’t exactly a problem,’ she said.

He frowned. ‘You mentioned previously that you’d inherited some money, so could afford to support a child.’

Whatever the sum was, judging from her clothes, it clearly did not run to anything lavish.

‘Yes,’ she acknowledged.

She added nothing more. He tried to draw her out.

‘You never did tell me what your line of work is—other than temping at your friend’s office.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ she answered shortly.

He looked across at her, trying to recall their conversation that first night over dinner at the Falcone. But there had been nothing about her life in England. They’d talked about Italy in general, and the city she was named after but had never visited. She’d been interested, and made conversation, and had not been unintelligent in her questions to him.

The waiter was there, hovering, ready to take their orders, and it was a timely distraction. As the man departed, Vincenzo drew breath. He needed to keep going with this new, tenuous neutrality between them.

‘So, what did you do before—?’ he started, and then realised the only way to finish the sentence was by sayingbefore you found yourself pregnant by me.

But he didn’t have to say it. She said it for him.

‘Before I found myself in this unholy mess?’ she said.

She hadn’t said it angrily, or accusingly. But there was a bleakness in her voice that he could not help but hear. He could feel it reaching him, settling around them like a thickening mesh, winding around them, binding them.

Another spike of memory came, from that episode in the park—her saying, so vehemently and so bitterly, that they were handcuffed together...shackled...

Rejection flared in him. He wasn’t going back to that. He’d come here tonight specifically to get beyond that. Whatever it took.

‘Does it have to be a mess?’

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