Laura Iding - Pregnant with His Baby!

‘This was my nursery … I thought you could use it as a study. The view is really magnificent.’

He pretended not to see the pain and hopeless longing in her face as she touched the carved wood of the antique crib in the corner. Guilt gnawed at him, he hadn’t wanted to see it.

‘A study would be nice,’ she agreed quietly.

‘Of course, you can redecorate just as you please. I’ve got the names of some very good interior designers.’

‘What would I want with an interior designer?’ she asked, shaking back her tawny curls.

Gianfranco was relieved to see no trace of the previous sadness in her eyes as she looked up at him with that half-quizzical teasing look of hers.

‘An interior designer isn’t going to live here, silly, we are. A home should evolve …’ she explained earnestly. ‘Be filled with memories.’

Gianfranco was pretty sure that by memories she had meant some of the curious and totally valueless objects she took pleasure in discovering and producing for his admiration, and not the memories that were causing him torture of an unbearable kind.

At the time making love to his wife in every room of their large and many-roomed home had seemed an excellent idea, but now that good idea had come back to haunt him. Quite literally! He couldn’t walk into a room without being assaulted by sweet erotic recollections.

‘We thought she seemed a little … quiet …?’

Gianfranco shook his head to free himself from the images playing in it. He dragged his eyes up from the floor, where presumably he had been staring like some catatonic moron, until his friend’s face came into frame.

He gave a careless shrug and ignored the question in his friend’s eyes.

If he had been going to confide in anyone it would have been Angelo, but it was not his way to offload his problems on others.

‘She was a little tired.’

Angelo grinned. ‘Nine months ago Kate had some similar symptoms.’

Gianfranco’s jaw clenched. ‘Dervla is not pregnant.’

Angelo stepped into the lift, his expression openly speculative. ‘Sorry, my mind is a bit one-track at the moment.’

Gianfranco unclenched his fists and struggled to respond appropriately to the social cue. ‘How is Kate?’

‘Fine. Give Dervla our love, Gianfranco, and I hope she’s feeling less … tired soon.’

Gianfranco nodded absently, thinking that this message would take lower priority than many things he needed to say to his wife when he saw her.

He was mentally polishing the more personal messages as he walked into the office and dialled his son’s number. As he was not fully concentrating on what Alberto said he assumed initially he had misheard him.

‘What did you say, Alberto?’

‘I said I’m running away.’

OF COURSE you are.

Gianfranco dragged a hand through his hair and glanced at his reflection in the mirrored surface of a wall cabinet. Despite the concerted efforts of his nearest and dearest there were no white streaks in the hair of the man who looked back at him.

But it could only be a matter of time.

‘I’m assuming this is some kind of joke?’

It seemed a safe assumption. Having broken family tradition, he had sent his son to a day school in Florence. Alberto was on a school field trip to Brussels to see the European Parliament in action, safely supervised by teachers.

‘I’m in Calais at the moment, but the ferry leaves in a few minutes.’

Staring out of the window at the traffic below, he shook his head, still feeling slightly more irritation than concern. ‘You’re in Brussels.’

‘No, Calais.’

Gianfranco felt the concern versus irritation dip towards concern.

‘Calais?’

‘I told you—I’ve run away.’

Gianfranco’s stomach muscles clenched in icy dread as he realised this was no warped teenage sense of humour he was dealing with, but a genuine situation.

‘You are actually in Calais …?’ Gianfranco struggled to get his head around it.

How could a thirteen-year-old schoolboy meant to be in Brussels in the care of teachers be in Calais?

Thoughts of abduction and kidnap flashed into his head to be almost immediately dismissed. Alberto’s voice was not that of a scared victim. Like someone coming out of a trance, he dragged a hand down his jaw and exhaled.

‘You’ve run away? From me?’ Why not? It was becoming quite a fashionable thing to do. If this was true Alberto wouldn’t be sounding so chirpy once he got his hands on him, Gianfranco decided grimly.

‘Yes, I just said so, didn’t I? So if the school contacts you tell them I’m fine. They might have noticed I’m missing by now.’

‘Might have noticed!’ Gianfranco choked. He pushed aside the thought of what he would say to the teachers who had failed so miserably in their duty. There were more important things to think about. ‘How did you get to Calais? Are you alone?’

‘I hitched.’

His teenage son’s explanation made Gianfranco’s blood run cold. ‘You hitched a lift?’

Impervious to the horror in his father’s voice, the teenager added tetchily, ‘You’re not usually this slow, Dad. I know what you’re thinking but the lorry driver was a really nice guy, not a pervert or anything. I told him I was seventeen and he believed me.’

Gianfranco bit back a curse and rolled his eyes heavenwards. He was having a nightmare, that was the only explanation, he decided.

Every parent knew it was a delicate line—the one between wrapping your children up in cotton wool and letting them run around oblivious to the dangers that lurked for the unsuspecting.

Like every other parent he wanted to keep his child safe. He had always been conscious that there was also a danger that an overprotective parent could stifle any sense of adventure in a child. In his efforts not to quash the spirit of adventure in his son he might, Gianfranco acknowledged grimly, have gone a little too far the other way.

‘Listen to me very carefully,’ Gianfranco said slowly.

‘I can’t. My battery’s low and, don’t worry, I can look after myself, you know, Dad.’

‘Would it be pushy of me to ask why you’re running away?’

‘You might be divorcing Dervla, but I’m not.’

‘Divorce!’ Gianfranco yelled down the line. ‘There will be no divorce.’

‘That was my eardrum you just perforated. And if anyone asks I’ll tell them I’d prefer to live with her.’

‘Thank you very much,’ Gianfranco inserted drily in response to this warning. ‘Let me remind you again, nobody has mentioned divorce.’ And nobody will.

‘Not yet,’ his son said darkly. ‘But it doesn’t take a genius to see where things were heading left to you two. So I decided you needed some help.’

‘This form of help involves you running away?’ Gianfranco tried to control his temper as he made a rapid mental calculation of how soon he could get to England before his son got into any more trouble.

‘But where, or rather who, am I running to? I mean as a responsible parent you have to come get me, it’s totally legit and there’s no question of you chasing after her. I reckon you’ll be all over each other about twenty seconds after you see each other.’

Not many things shocked Gianfranco to silence, but this nonchalant prediction did.

I’m being manipulated by a thirteen-year-old. A reluctant laugh was torn from his throat. If he’s like this now, what will he be like by the time he’s eighteen?

Hearing the laugh, the boy gave a sigh of relief. ‘I knew you’d like my plan. Cool or what? Which reminds me, Dad, would you ring Dervla and ask her to pick me up at the ferry terminal? I think the boat gets in around six. Look, my battery really is low. I’ll be in touch later …’