An Enticing Proposal. Meredith Webber
saying she will be all right! Then nothing for months. We all assume she’s dead! Dio Madonna!’
Perhaps it was as well she didn’t speak Italian. The intonation of the words told her it was a phrase unlikely to be repeatable in polite company. Not that the man didn’t look magnificent in his rage, on his feet now and prowling the room like a sleek black animal, still muttering foreign imprecations under his breath and moving his hands as if to conduct his voice. But watching him perform, that wasn’t getting them anywhere, and no matter how magnificent and full of sex appeal he was, he’d be out of her life by tomorrow so the sooner she got rid of him now, the sooner she could tackle Lucia.
And the thought of her reaction to this latest development wasn’t all that appealing! Paige stood, drew herself up to her full height and assumed her most businesslike expression. The one she used when asking for government funding from petty officials put on earth to frustrate her plans for the community centre.
‘If you rant and rave at her like that, I can understand why she ran off,’ she said crisply. ‘Now, if you tell me where you’re staying, I’ll have a talk to her and get back to you.’
‘Staying?’ He sounded as shocked as if she’d suggested he strip naked in the main street. ‘I am not staying! I have work to do. I must get back to Italy. I am—in fact, we, Lucia and I, are booked on a flight out of Sydney tomorrow morning.’
Paige stared at him in astonishment.
‘You flew out from Italy to Australia for a day? You thought you could arrive here, drive up, wrest Lucia forcibly into the car, then career back down the highway and be out of the country within twenty-four hours?’
Maybe her amazement caught his attention for he stopped his pacing and faced her.
‘I did not know where this town was—how far away from the capital,’ he said stiffly. ‘I gave the telephone number to a person at the embassy. He found the address—this address—and arranged to bring me here. It was not until I was in the car I learned she was at a far-off place—a regional centre I think Benelli called it.’ He paused, then added, ‘He said it was still possible to be back in Sydney late this evening and make the flight tomorrow.’
As that pause was the first hint of weakness she’d seen in the man—apart from the fatigue—she took it as an opening and pounced.
‘Well, I suggest you see Mr Benelli again and ask him to arrange accommodation for you, and rearrange your flight home. Apart from anything else, I doubt Lucia is well enough to travel.’
She watched the colour drain from his face.
‘What is wrong with her?’ he demanded, and a hoarseness in his voice told her of his love for Lucia.
CHAPTER TWO
HOW to answer? Tell a man his wife had gestational diabetes mellitus when he didn’t know she was pregnant? And Marco wouldn’t know because Lucia hadn’t known herself—hadn’t even guessed what might be wrong with her. The diabetes was an added complication, one not usually occurring until late into the second trimester of pregnancy when the foetus was extracting more nutrients from the maternal source, but the trauma of leaving home could have triggered a possible predisposition to it, bringing it on earlier than usual.
The thoughts rushed through Paige’s head and she studied him as she decided what to say. He didn’t look like a man who’d give in easily and telling him Lucia was carrying his child, that would hand him an added incentive to force her to return to him. It would also betray Lucia’s trust. Again!
Hide behind professional discretion?
She didn’t think this man would take too kindly to this ethical solution to her dilemma but what the hell.
‘I need to speak to her before I can give you any information about her health or where she’s staying,’ Paige replied, already feeling the waves of his anger as it built again. ‘Give me an hour—or maybe two—and I’ll contact you, or, better still, you could phone me here.’
She opened a desk drawer to get a card for him then realised it would show this building as her home address as well as that of the health service. Bring him closer than she wanted at the moment. Pulling out a scrap of paper instead, she jotted down her number and pushed it across the desk.
He was standing opposite her, staring at her with an unnerving intensity.
‘I already have your phone number, Miss Morgan,’ he said softly. ‘What I don’t know is Lucia’s whereabouts. Now, are you going to tell me where she is or do I call in your police force?’
She did her straightening-up thing again, hoping to look more in control.
‘Lucia is an adult—able to make her own decisions. No police force in the world can compel a woman to return to a situation from which she’s fled.’
She wasn’t absolutely certain about the truth of this statement but he wasn’t to know that. Not that he seemed to be taking much notice. In fact he was laughing at her.
Derisively!
‘Fled, Miss Morgan? Aren’t you overdramatising the situation?’
Damn her cheeks—just when she wanted to appear super-cool they were heating up again.
‘You said yourself she ran away,’ she countered hotly. ‘And now you’ve arrived, like some vengeful gaoler, to take her back—threatening me with the police force! No, I think if anyone’s overdramatising, it’s you, Prince Highfaluting-whatever. Sweeping in here, making demands. I’m the one who’s being reasonable about this!’
OK, so she didn’t sound very reasonable right now, but he’d made her mad. And that superior expression on his carved-rock face made her even madder.
He ignored her rudeness, nodded once, stepped back a pace from his position near the desk and said, ‘I will give you an hour, Miss Morgan, but that is all. For some reason you are under the impression Lucia will not wish to see me. You are wrong. She will be glad and grateful that I have arrived to take care of her.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Paige muttered with as much cynicism as she could muster, though why his sudden switch to politeness was aggravating her more than his anger had she didn’t know. ‘Well, we’ll let her be the judge of that. Will you phone?’
His eyes scanned her face, as if he wanted to imprint it on his mind, and when he finally replied—saying, ‘No, I will return to this house,’—Paige felt a tremor of apprehension flutter down her spine.
And dealing with Lucia wasn’t any easier. When Paige confessed she’d found the number in the passport and had phoned it, her guest had pouted and turned her face to the wall, prepared to sulk.
‘I had to let someone know you were alive,’ Paige said desperately. ‘It wasn’t fair that all your friends and family should have been worrying themselves to death—imagining the worst of fates for you. I just didn’t expect him to come.’
The slim figure shot upright, delight and apprehension illuminating her usually pale face, giving her a radiant beauty.
‘He’s here? Marco’s here? Oh, why did you not tell me straight away? Where is he? Bring him to me! Now, Paige, now!’
One of the few things she had told Paige was that she’d only been married two months before she’d left. It hadn’t taken her long to learn imperious ways!
‘Are you sure you want to see him?’ Paige asked, mistrusting this swift change of mood. ‘He’s here to take you home.’
The beauty faded, leaving her visitor pale again.
‘Of course! He would have come for that reason. Trust him to do such a thing, thinking he would persuade me.’ She pouted again, then tossed the cloud of soft dark hair and added defiantly, ‘Well, I won’t go!’
There was another pause, and Paige