The Doctor's Runaway Bride. Sarah Morgan

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      ‘You do not need to support yourself,’ he said with icy cold clarity. ‘That is my responsibility.’

      She took a deep breath. ‘But, you see, I don’t want to be your responsibility. I need to work.’

      ‘No,’ he contradicted her fiercely. ‘You do not need to work.’

      Tia looked at him sadly. ‘Which just goes to prove my point that we don’t really know each other. If you knew me, you’d understand. But the truth is that our relationship is nothing more than a wild affair that got out of hand. And now we need to move on. I’ve been offered my old job back, Luca, and I intend to take it. In fact, I’ve already taken it. I’ve been working at the Infirmary for the past ten days. I’m surprised Sharon didn’t mention it when you had your little chat.’

      ‘Well, she didn’t.’ Luca stared at her, a muscle working in his dark jaw. ‘Now that I am here to support you, give me one good reason why you need to work.’

      His arrogance made her defiant. ‘I don’t have to give you a reason for anything I do. You can’t bully me, Luca.’

      A flush touched his tanned cheekbones and he had the grace to look uncomfortable. ‘It was not my intention to bully you, merely to try and understand—’

      ‘It’s too late for that now,’ she said stiffly, and his mouth tightened.

      ‘It is not too late,’ he ground out. ‘We are having a baby and we stay together. And you will not work while you’re pregnant.’

      Tia stared at him, fascinated that he seemed so totally unashamed of blatantly expressing such chauvinistic opinions. Hadn’t the man ever heard of equality or political correctness?

      ‘Plenty of women work when they’re pregnant.’

      ‘But not you,’ he growled, raking long fingers through his hair, clearly hanging onto control by a thread. ‘I refuse to allow you to risk your health and our baby’s health when you don’t need to.’

      Tia had always known that Luca was very traditional, but his flat dismissal of her new job was starting to make her blood boil.

      ‘Stop trying to run my life,’ she said angrily, wrapping her arms around her body in a gesture of self-protection. ‘I have to work, Luca. For all sorts of reasons that you wouldn’t begin to understand. Except for the few months I spent in Italy with you, I’ve always worked and fended for myself ever since I was young. I don’t need or want to be supported. Especially now I’m back in England.’

      Glittering dark eyes rested on her pink cheeks. ‘But now you’re pregnant,’ he pointed out, his voice lethally soft, ‘and I assume the reason that you were ill last night was because you were working all day. Am I right?’

      Tia flinched at his tone but nodded slowly. ‘Perhaps, but—’

      ‘And then came home and virtually passed out,’ Luca pointed out, sarcasm evident in his smooth tones as he cut through her attempts to justify herself. ‘Working is obviously going to do you and the baby a world of good.’

      ‘I just don’t understand you.’ Tia stared at him, baffled by the strength of his reaction. ‘All of a sudden you’re thinking about nothing but the baby. But when I first told you, you barely reacted. What’s changed, Luca? Is this baby really so special to you, or is it just that you’re such a primitive, unreconstructed male that you can’t bear other people to see the mother of your child working?’

      ‘Other people’s opinion is of no interest to me whatsoever,’ he responded grimly. ‘But to answer your question, yes, of course the baby is special to me. And if you’d given me time to get used to the idea and not run off like a child in a tantrum, you would know that already. We could have discussed it.’ His gaze was distinctly cool. ‘But talking about things isn’t something you’re very good at, is it? You prefer to run and hide.’

      Because all her life she’d had no one to rely on but herself.

      It was obvious now that the baby was the reason he’d followed her. Luca was Italian through and through, with all the family values of his ancestors. There was no way a man like him would let his pregnant wife leave. Even if he did regret marrying her.

      She tried hard to pull herself together. She’d known that he didn’t love her so why did it hurt so much that he wanted their marriage to work because of the baby?

      ‘Like I said last night, the baby isn’t the issue here,’ she said stiffly. ‘It’s our relationship, Luca. We—we don’t really know each other.’

      His eyes locked with hers, his expression impossible to read. ‘Then we will get to know each other.’

      She looked at him with exasperation. ‘Luca, this is ridiculous. We’re completely wrong for each other.’

      Not least because he was still in love with someone else. All right, he might be here with her at the moment but that was clearly because of the baby, not because he was in love with her. Had the man once mentioned the word ‘love’? No.

      ‘If we don’t know each other,’ he said smoothly, ‘then how can you possibly know that we are wrong for each other?’

      She bit her lip. ‘I just do.’

      ‘You’re talking nonsense. One of the reasons we haven’t talked much is because we spent the whole time making love,’ he reminded her gently, and Tia’s cheeks coloured at the look in his eyes.

      It was absolutely true.

      They’d been unable to spend time together without ending up in bed. Even when they’d returned from Venice and Luca had been working all hours, their physical relationship had sizzled with passion. Tired or not, where sex was concerned the man was one hundred per cent hot Italian.

      There was a long silence and Luca’s gaze roved slowly over her flushed cheeks and rested on her mouth. She knew that he was remembering those nights, too, and heat pooled in the pit of her stomach.

      ‘There is a simple solution to all this,’ he said softly, dragging his eyes back to hers. ‘If you think we don’t know each other, then we get to know each other.’

      Tia shook her head. ‘It’s too late for that, Luca. You want someone to stay at home and keep house, someone who will happily spend your money and rely on you. I’m not like that. I’ve never relied on anyone in my life. I can’t do it. I’m not the right woman for you.’

      ‘You are having my baby,’ he said steadily, his eyes never leaving hers. ‘That makes you the right woman.’

      Tia opened her mouth to argue and then noticed the clock on the wall and gave a gasp of horror. She was going to be late. Was that his plan? To make her so late they wouldn’t want her working for them?

      ‘I don’t have time for this, Luca,’ she muttered, standing up and making for the kitchen door. ‘I’m going to have a shower and then I’m going to work. I don’t know what time your flight back to Italy is but you can stay in the cottage until you go. Just post the keys through the door when you leave.’

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