Modern Romance April 2019 Books 1-4. Heidi Rice

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СКАЧАТЬ the next few months and surely it is better to lean on me than on others?’

      Vivi paled at that unwelcome point, thinking of how under par Winnie had been in the initial months of her pregnancy while simultaneously recognising in dismay how her grandad might react to news of her condition. Disapproving as he had been of her sister being a single parent, he would not be pleased even though Vivi would be legally married before her child was born. Furthermore, the idea of having to approach the older man for any form of help, financial or otherwise, during her pregnancy was equally off-putting and would decimate her pride. She would have to put her money where her mouth was, as the saying went, and manage on her own. Accepting Raffaele’s support might be an unpalatable concept but as he was as responsible for the child she carried as she was, it would hurt her pride less.

      Raffaele scrutinised her tense stance and wondered if anyone had ever resisted him to such a degree. It annoyed the hell out of him that she refused to see common sense, that she was determined to deny the obvious benefits of remaining his wife while she was pregnant. Shouldn’t she want that security and support? Her slight frame was drooping a little and it crossed his mind that she was not only tired but also very slender.

      Healthily slender? It seemed to him that she had lost weight. Had she been worrying too much to take time out to care for herself? Of course, she had been worrying, he told himself impatiently. Hadn’t he threatened redundancies at her place of work? He had put a lot of pressure on her quite deliberately. Was it any wonder that she should now struggle to see him as a potentially supportive partner with whom she could share her pregnancy?

      ‘You don’t trust me,’ Raffaele murmured grimly.

      ‘Oh, don’t be offended!’ Vivi urged with an embarrassed gesture of dismissal. ‘I don’t trust anyone but my sisters and John and Liz. It’s safer that way and you don’t get disappointed or...hurt.’

      Raffaele reached for her knotted fists and slowly smoothed out the tension in her thin fingers. ‘I will not disappoint or hurt you. I will look after you to the best of my ability and once the baby is born you will have your freedom back.’

      Vivi glanced up involuntarily and collided with dark golden eyes. Her colour heightened, a knot tightening in her throat. She swallowed convulsively, her eyes prickling. His hands over hers were soothing but he was her enemy and she would be foolish to forget that for a second. Nor could he possibly appreciate that if she lost control of her feelings for him again he was very likely to hurt her. ‘I feel like bursting into tears,’ she confided chokily. ‘And I don’t know why. Think it might be pregnancy hormones or something.’

      ‘Maybe so. I’ll feel better once you’ve had a doctor check you over,’ Raffaele admitted tautly.

      ‘I’m so tired,’ she whispered unevenly. ‘I’m so tired I could go to sleep standing up.’

      ‘Stress,’ Raffaele framed, hoping she didn’t choose that moment to remind him that he had put her under that stress. ‘I have to fight for what’s right, bella mia.’

      ‘But I don’t agree with you,’ she muttered ruefully.

      ‘You never agree with anything I say,’ Raffaele countered with sardonic amusement. ‘But right now, all I want to do is whisk you home to London and ensure that you consult a doctor. Is that acceptable?’

      Just at that moment the image of her own comfortable bed had immense appeal and she nodded grudgingly, uncertain that she wanted to see a doctor as yet but reckoning that it couldn’t do any actual harm to be clued up on what lay ahead, even if her sister’s experiences had already warned her of most of the physical pitfalls.

      ‘And while we’re with your foster mother, we’ll work out some way of getting her and your foster father to London for the wedding,’ Raffaele concluded with assurance.

      ‘It won’t work. They’ve got too many responsibilities on the home front with the kids.’

      ‘Somehow we’ll make it work,’ Raffaele proclaimed with immoveable assurance.

      And Vivi wondered what it said about her that even when Raffaele was endeavouring to be decent, she wanted to slap him. She bit her tongue, compressed her lips and said nothing and reckoned that that was possibly the best way of dealing with him.

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      ‘IT DOESN’T LOOK too tight?’ Vivi pressed anxiously, sucking in her breath and turning this way and that in front of the full-length mirror to check her reflection.

      Her sister looked nervous, stressed, not her usual cool, snippety self, Winnie acknowledged worriedly, crossing the room to pour her sister a drink and give her some Dutch courage. That was the joy of them all having spent the previous night in their grandfather’s grandiose split-level London apartment. Every room came equipped with more extras than an exclusive hotel.

      ‘It’s a figure-hugging dress,’ Winnie pointed out. ‘It’s supposed to be a good fit.’

      ‘But she had to have the seams let out yesterday because it was too tight over the bust in the final fitting.’ Zoe chuckled from across the room. ‘The designer was aghast. I mean, who puts on that much weight there of all places?’

      ‘Yes,’ Vivi muttered. ‘She was distinctly irritated behind the understanding smiles.’

      Winnie thrust a glass of spirit into her sister’s hand. ‘Here, drown your sorrows,’ she advised. ‘Obviously you’ve been comfort-eating. You shouldn’t be letting all this get to you to that extent.’

      ‘It got to you as well,’ Vivi reminded her elder sibling.

      ‘Yes, but I had to stay on after the wedding because Eros still had Teddy. You’re not required to stay beyond the reception today,’ Winnie pointed out breezily.

      Vivi paled and abstractedly tipped the glass to her lips and then remembered what she couldn’t forget for even as long as two minutes and she hurriedly set the glass down again, her nerves twisting in a climbing spiral of tension. Her boobs ached in the tight confines of the corseting beneath her dress. Never before had she sported such generous curves. All part of the process of change taking place in her body, the nurse at the swanky medical practice Raffaele had taken her to the day before had told her cheerfully. Vivi didn’t feel quite so cheerful about those changes, which were happening sooner than she had expected.

      ‘You know, that is a truly fabulous dress.’ Zoe sighed appreciatively, studying her sister’s lithe and slender silhouette in the off-the-shoulder gown fashioned from rich gold lace sprinkled with shimmering embroidery. ‘That colour against your hair is breathtaking. Quite the fashion statement too.’

      ‘Teamed with the tiara and the diamonds that Raffaele sent you yesterday, you look like a queen,’ Winnie murmured with an amused smile. ‘Very dignified, very elegant.’

      ‘Yeah,’ Vivi muttered, scrutinising the platinum and diamond tiara anchored in her upswept hair, not to mention the diamond necklace and the drop earrings. ‘I don’t know what Raffaele was thinking of offering me such expensive jewellery to wear. I don’t feel entitled to wear his family stuff.’

      ‘He has close relatives attending today,’ Winnie reminded her wryly. ‘He’s having СКАЧАТЬ