Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

E VER SINCE GEORGIA COULD REMEMBER, she'd wanted to be a surgeon. She'd wondered, over the years, exactly what had led to that desire, but the truth was, it had just always been a part of her, like her arms and legs and nose and ears. And not once had that determination wavered.

If anything, life and the twists hers had taken, had embedded that desire far more firmly in her heart.

Losing her mother to a stroke had made Georgia ache for all the answers. Her father's death a scant two weeks later, from a heart attack, had made her understand that she would move heaven and earth to fix everyone she possibly could.

It was all she'd wanted to do.

Only the far more pressing need of raising two boys who were actual Mensa-level geniuses had temporarily pushed her to move her dream to the back burner.

And while she couldn't study surgery—she wasn't stupid enough to think it was a degree she could attempt around the edges of essentially being a mother and father to her brothers at such a vital stage of their lives—she had maintained a rabid interest in medicine. She'd read hundreds of pre-print studies, volunteered at the hospital so she could observe whatever she could, and she'd learned a lot.

So when, four weeks after being summarily dismissed from the home of Dante-whoever-he-was, her breasts began to ache and throb, she knew.

She knew.

In the way she'd always known she wanted to be a surgeon and that she would move heaven and earth to care for her brothers.

But even without that knowledge, the absence of her cycle, which had always been like clockwork, would have made it impossible to doubt. Nonetheless, ever the optimist, and aware that a pregnancy to anyone would be the last thing Georgia wanted, a pregnancy to that horrible, awful, rude beast of a man would be by far the absolute worst thing that could happen to her. Even someone like Georgia, with an enviable ability to look on the bright side of life, couldn't dress up such a scenario.

There was no alternative though.

There was no physical possibility of anyone else being the father.

So, with all her fingers and toes crossed, she bought three pregnancy tests, different brands, and took them back to her hostel. She'd long since left Lake Como, and was now in the stunning south of Italy, so when she used three different test sticks and they all showed the horrifying, dreaded second line, it was easy to contemplate booking the next flight out of Italy and never seeing him again. Never telling him.

But how could she? Two wrongs didn't make a right. As much as she hated the idea of so much as seeing him, she was the least morally-bankrupt person on earth. Her parents had instilled a strong value system in her and Georgia had felt it was her job to honour them by following that system every day of her life. She had faithfully raised her brothers because of it, because love and decency guided her every action and now, with a sinking feeling of despair, she realised she was destined to yet again fall into the service of others.

It was selfish. And horrible. She knew how many women struggled with fertility and infant loss, and if she'd been asked, she would have said that parenthood was a true blessing, that each child was a gift. These sentiments were true, but not for Georgia.

For Georgia, this pregnancy, at this point in time, was her worst nightmare.

All she'd wanted was one year to finally see the world and live for herself. To go where she wanted to go, whenever; to not be answerable to anyone else's needs.

She curved a hand over her belly and sobbed, because already, stirrings of love were wrapping around her heart, but there was also fear. How could she do this? Denial was her saving grace. She couldn't even bring herself to go to a doctor to confirm the pregnancy or have a scan or do anything that might make this more of a reality.

Instead, she continued her exploration of Italy, ignoring every symptom, willfully refusing to think of her pregnancy until the date on her calendar that indicated she'd hit the second trimester. Only then would she deal with this. And that meant, she grudgingly accepted, contacting Dante .

It was not an easy matter to inform a man whose last name she didn't even know of her pregnancy. She'd phoned the hostel and tried to find out who he was, but without knowing his address, or any other pertinent detail besides his name, and given the staff in the hostel were ever-changing, and not local, she realised she'd have to travel back to Como, to do this face to face. Maybe that was for the best anyway?

She booked a flight, far more expensive now that the depths of winter were behind them. Spring beckoned, and it did so wonderfully, but on a trip such as this, even Georgia couldn't appreciate the beauty of the area. She barely registered the burgeoning of new green leaves on trees and blossoms on the ground, the azure shade of an early-spring sky. She thought only of the jagged, angular face of the man she'd sworn she'd never see again.

Dante sat at the head of the table, listening to the swirling of his family's conversation, familiar with its turbulent back and forth, the loud, vivacious, good-humoured interactions only serving to anger him now. As many things did.

He was angry, almost all the time.

Losing Bianca and Livvie had damned near killed him. He'd thought that grief the worst thing he could know. But somehow, he felt as though he was losing his wife all over again. He'd been feeling it ever since that night. Every time he thought of Georgia, he felt that he was losing Bianca. Whenever he dreamed of her, he woke in a cold sweat, because it was Georgia he was craving, Georgia his body was aching for, Georgia who's voice he heard. He was furious with himself, and furious with Georgia, for the way she seemed to have overtaken him. How dare she?

He couldn't get the feeling of betrayal and failure from his mind, so it was impossible to engage with his family.

He went through the motions, as he felt like he'd been doing for years, but this was worse. Harder. He wondered if they looked at him and saw how much he'd let them down. Not them, the Santoros, but the small, perfect family, whom he'd promised to love for the rest of his life.

"Dante Santoro's office," a clipped, British accent greeted her.

Georgia sat on the edge of her bed, heart in her throat.

She knew she should be doing this face to face, but she couldn't. She just couldn't. It had been hard enough before she'd known who he was, but the name Santoro was synonymous with wealth and power. Everyone in the world knew about them.

That she'd been stupid enough not to know, to have slept with him, not used protection, fallen pregnant, was an overwhelming reality. But far greater was the fear that someone like Dante might do something she didn't want. He was rich. Powerful. She couldn't risk that he would call the shots. And so she'd tell him over the phone, and if he was unreasonable, she'd hang up, and disappear. He didn't know who she was. She had that up her sleeve.

Yes, this was a far better option.

"Hello?" The voice again, so calm, and somehow likeable.

"Is Dante—may I speak to Dante?"

"May I say who's calling?"

Her heart pounded against her ribs .

"I—," her throat slicked with adrenalin and her palms felt sticky and wet. "Tell him it's Georgia." She cleared her throat. "From Como."

"Oh." A hint of surprise shifted in the woman's voice and then she was calm and assured again. "Please hold the line; I'll see if he's available."

Georgia crossed her fingers, hoping against hope that he wouldn't be. Hoping he'd refused the call and she could abandon the idea of telling him with a clear conscience. And do what? Raise this baby alone? Of course. As if she was going to raise the baby with Dante! Like she'd want her child being influenced by such a rude, horrible person. She shuddered at the mere thought.

The silence of being on hold stretched and the longer she waited the more she hoped. He wasn't going to take her call. Excellent.

She was just about to hang up—her finger was a few millimetres above the red button on screen—when a deep, dark voice rumbled down the phone line, a timbre that was straight out of her worst nightmares, and deepest, most secretly-held fantasies.

"Georgia."

Her pulse thundered. She almost dropped the phone in shock. It was like being electrocuted.

"Are you there?" Terse, commanding, sharp.

"Yes," she was galvanised into saying, but her voice was thick and groggy.

Silence fell. Silence that was laced with dark, angry emotions and accusations. She hated, absolutely hated, what she was about to do. But she'd had two months to grapple with this. Two months to slowly come to terms with the dissolution of all her dreams, to accept she would never become a surgeon, that she would be busy raising a child for a long time to come, and she knew that raising a child meant loving a child, and loving a child meant doing what was right for them. On no planet would she ever be able to justify making a choice to keep the baby a secret from its father.

"What do you want?"

She sucked in a sharp breath. His rejection had hurt her. The rudeness of it, the inference that what they'd shared had been transactional, it had all stung. This was almost as bad.

"Clearly not to indulge in a long, happy chat about our lives," she muttered.

"I'm glad to hear it."

She really hated him then. She gripped the phone more tightly.

"I'll keep this brief, seeing as it's clear that the last thing either of us wants is to waste time talking."

Silence.

She swallowed, aware that she was on the tipping point of a major life change. Once spoken, these words could never be undone.

She pressed a hand to her stomach, as if she could take solace from the baby's proximity. And somehow, it worked. She sucked in a deep breath, opened her eyes and focussed with renewed determination on the wall opposite.

"I'm pregnant. You're the father."

He didn't say anything and she was glad. This was easier without hearing his voice.

"To be honest, I was devastated when I found out. Children aren't something I'd really thought about, and the timing is particularly…inconvenient. But there you have it. I'm pregnant."

The line crackled with silence .

She waited, frowning. Then, "Dante?"

"Are you certain?"

She laughed, because it was so ludicrous, but something in the desperate tone of his voice had her sobering. "Yes."

"You've done a test?"

"No, I read the tea leaves. Of course I've done a test. Multiple tests in fact, and I've stopped getting my period and I can't eat anything that remotely resembles meat or smells like cheese and my lower back feels like hell on earth pretty much all the time. I'm pregnant."

He swore.

It was pretty much exactly the reaction she'd had.

"Look," she almost took pity on him. "I really would prefer you not have anything to do with us. I can do this on my own. I already have, sort of. I don't need you, and we clearly don't want an ongoing connection."

"Then why are you telling me?"

"Because it's the right thing to do."

Another curse. "You must be mistaken."

She scoffed. "Because you don't want it?"

Silence. Then, "Where are you?"

She held the phone more tightly. Once she'd learned where he worked, she'd flown to London and booked into a cheap hotel on the Edgeware Road side of Marble Arch. She wasn't against seeing him again if it was to talk about the future of their baby, but she also had no intention of seeing him if he was in his dictatorial, rude, angry mood.

"It doesn't matter where I am. You don't need to know that."

"I want to see you."

"No, you don't. Neither of us ever wanted to see the other again. You want to see that I'm pregnant."

"I'm a very wealthy man," he pointed out. "How do I know this isn't about money?"

She was shocked. She let out a tight laugh, anger whipping her spine. "Dante, let me give you the good news. There is no fortune on earth that could induce me into having anything to do with you, ever again. The only reason I would bother calling you is because I think it's the very least our baby deserves. For my part, I would just absolutely love you to tell me that you don't want a bar of our family and let me go on with my life without you in it. So?" She waited, feeling elated at having thrown such home truths at his feet.

"Where are you?" His voice was harsh, angry, rich with disbelief.

"I'm not going to tell you. But I will give you my phone number," she said. "Once you've had some time to get to terms with this, you can call me." When he didn't respond, she rattled off her temporary UK number then disconnected the call, half hoping he'd missed the digits in their entirety and wouldn't be able to contact her again. God knew, duty done, she wouldn't reach out to him.

Dante stared at his familiar desk in his familiar office of his familiar building and recognised nothing. The whole world had changed. A thousand images cut through him, like shards of broken glass. He saw Bianca, her happy face when she told him she was pregnant. Her rounded belly. Their baby being born. He saw Livvie, held her, breathed her in. He heard the words that had tortured him for years: there was nothing we could do. The world turned, too fast. He felt woozy, dizzy. His balance slipped.

And there she was: Georgia. He'd tried to blank her from his mind, but she so easily filled it. Her voice flooded his veins.

I'm pregnant.

He dropped his head forward, barely catching it in the palm of one hand, his fingers tormenting his hair as these two sentences flooded his brain and sought to coexist. There was nothing we could do. Enormous pain. Loss. Impotence. Despair. I'm pregnant. Not again. How could he do this again, knowing what the loss of a loved one felt like? He couldn't. It would break him if he had to go through that again. I'm pregnant. There was nothing we could do.

He would never love again. At least with Georgia there was no risk of that. They didn't know each other, and after the way he'd treated her, she probably hated him. Good. He deserved that. And it would make it all so much easier if there were no emotional complications between them.

But what about the baby?

Livvie's eyes filled his mind, sparkling and full of wonder. He ran his fingers through his hair faster, angrier, seeking answers.

He didn't groan, he didn't speak. Silence was the only appropriate outlet for the torment of his mind.

The exhaustion of the first trimester had faded a little, and feeling somewhat more like herself, Georgia actually enjoyed leaving her tiny room and stepping out onto the sunlit streets of London. The weather was perfect for exploring. While the sky was blue and the sun was shining, the temperature was still cool enough to require a denim jacket over her shirt, and pleasant enough for Georgia to be able to walk comfortably for miles, through Hyde Park, admiring the flowers, and into Knightsbridge, where she wandered into the Harrods food court, ravenous, and chose a small selection of deli food to enjoy on her walk back to the hotel. Her palette and cravings were ever changing, and she noted with a whisper of amusement that the cornichons she'd adored two days ago now made her stomach roll in disgust. She stuck to the dry crackers and hummus, before finishing with a small pot of yoghurt and muesli.

She walked home more slowly than she'd set out, and before turning into her street, paused to buy a small decaf cappuccino from a local café. She'd been there a couple of times a day since arriving in London and the staff now knew her name and order, and enjoyed hearing about her exploration of London.

Today though, Dante was on her mind. Two days after calling him, she had to face the reality that he probably didn't want to be involved. And while she was delighted with that outcome, she couldn't help feeling a little peeved for her baby. Rejecting her was one thing, but to willfully ignore your biological child only served to underscore how cold and unfeeling he was.

She removed her jacket and draped it over one arm, catching a glimpse of her reflection in the café window as she left. She didn't look so pregnant that a stranger would notice, but for Georgia, who was used to being slim, she clocked the rounding of her belly with a strange rush of emotions she couldn't put into words. She wouldn't even try. Her feelings were too jumbled and she worried that if she bothered to analyse them too deeply, she might still find resentment and grief at the forefront. She refused to feel either of those things—her baby deserved better.

She stifled a yawn as she approached the hostel and was too distracted to notice the black SUV parked on a double yellow line in front of it. She sipped her coffee gratefully, moved up one step, her hand on the railing, and was about to take the next step when his voice wrapped around her, forcibly, fully, in an all-consuming way.

"Georgia."

She almost vomited. Panic slicked her spine and the hairs on her body stood on edge. She whirled around fast, disbelief etched into her features.

She gaped, her mouth moving but unable to say anything at first. She could only stare, until she knew she needed to take matters into her hands. "What—what are you—how did you find me?"

His eyes though had dropped to her stomach and they stayed there for what felt like an eternity. She curved a hand protectively around her belly. "What are you doing here?" She asked again, determined to keep her mind, not to let him throw her off kilter, even when just by arriving he'd already done that.

"You're pregnant."

She crossed her arms over her chest, careful not to spill her coffee. "Yeah. I'm aware of that."

His face paled and finally, he dragged his gaze to her face. "We need to talk."

She feigned a sense of calm she didn't feel, lifting the coffee to her lips and taking a sip. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Not here."

"Why not?" She shrugged belligerently. "I have coffee. I'll wait if you want to go get something."

"I don't care about a damned drink," he snapped, so she winced, her veneer of calm slipping momentarily. His voice softened. "Is there somewhere inside? Your room?"

"No," she rejected instantly. "We can go to the café," she held up her cup. "It's just at the end of the street."

"This is a private conversation."

She shook her head. "I don't think so."

"Georgia—you were right. This is about the pregnancy, not you and me. Let's say from the outset that neither of us ever wanted to see the other again, that there's no pleasure in this reunion, for either of us, and just go somewhere to talk about how the hell we sort out this mess."

She flinched again. Even though she had, many times, thought of this situation as a mess, hearing him say it was a whole other matter. She felt there was accusation in his tone. He was, however, right, and she knew they needed to talk. The sooner they got this over with, the better.

"Fine." But even though she didn't want to be in the car with him, the thought of walking the kilometre or so back to the café was almost impossible to fathom. "Let's just talk in the car." It was better than her hotel room, which had a bed taking up almost all the space. At least this way she could get the conversation over quickly.

He nodded once, moving to the front passenger door and opening it, reminding her bitterly of the way he'd done the same thing in Como.

She lifted up into the seat, the signs of wealth all around her, from the luxe features of the obviously state-of-the-art Range Rover to the smell that was distinctly new-car, to the wallet in the centre console from which several fifty pound notes were visible carelessly poking out of the top.

He hopped in beside her with a lithe athleticism that she couldn't help but be aware of.

"When did you find out? "

"Does it matter?"

"Is there a reason not to tell me?"

She compressed her lips, the warmth of the morning after her long walk making it hard to think straight. "Can you please put on the air conditioning?"

He started the car and concentrated on the settings, making beautiful cool air blow from the vents, immediately offering relief.

"Better?"

She refused to be placated by his solicitous question. Besides, he didn't seem to want an answer; he moved the conversation along swiftly.

"You said you've done this before?"

She angled her face away. "In a sense."

"In what sense?"

She wanted to ignore him, but was there really any point? Besides, he'd probably be more likely to stay out of her life if he understood how capable she was of running it. "My parents died a little over six years ago. My twin brothers—Ben and Mitch—were thirteen at the time. If I hadn't taken custody, they'd have gone into foster care."

"How old were you?"

"Eighteen."

"So you raised them?"

She didn't look at him, but nodded once.

He let out a low whistle, but Georgia didn't care what he might say in response to that. She wasn't interested in his reactions.

"I know what I'm doing. A baby will be a learning curve but I have no doubt I can do it. I really don't want anything from you, Dante, except to be able to tell our child, one day, honestly, that I did the right thing by them."

"And that I didn't?"

She frowned. "I didn't mean that."

"I take it you've decided then? "

"Decided that I don't want you in our life? Yes. Definitely."

His eyes flashed to hers and bounced away again before she could respond to the darkness in their depths.

"I meant about keeping the baby."

Her eyes widened as she turned to face him. "I'm in my second trimester," she said, rubbing a hand over her stomach, as if to block their ears. "That decision is well behind me."

A muscle jerked in his jaw. "Did you consider?—,"

"No." She pleated the bottom of her shirt. "That might seem strange. I was—am—terrified, but this is my child." Knowing her own little son or daughter was inside her tummy had begun to burrow into her heart from almost the first moment she'd known.

He faced the front windscreen, hands tightening on the steering wheel.

"Anyway, I'm going to go back to Australia in a few months. I'll have the baby there, where I'm familiar with things and have friends to help me. I know the good schools, how the health system works, it will be easier for me to cope. I'll have support. So you can let me go without another thought. Your conscience is clear: this isn't at all what I'd planned for my life, but given the circumstances, it's what I want."

His eyes flicked to hers, then to his side mirror, his fingers tapping the steering wheel before he jerked on it, pulling them out into traffic so her heart picked up and she looked at him with saucer-wide eyes.

"Dante," she said, breathlessly, "What are you doing?"

"I'm not having this conversation in the middle of the goddamned street, Georgia. Fasten your seatbelt.

Her jaw dropped .

It hadn't occurred to her—stupidly—that getting into his car and asking him to start the bloody thing would render her in some way his prisoner. Her pulse was gushing and she was shocked and terrified even when there were other feelings too, feelings she daren't analyse.

"Well, I'm not having this conversation, or any other, with someone who's basically kidnapping me."

"You think?" He responded, throwing her a sidelong glance. "Seatbelt."

A heady rush of fury flashed in her veins as she reached for the safety device. "I hate you so much."

"Wonderful." His voice was low and gruff. "I can't think of a better way to start our life as co-parents, can you?"