‘Central Africa, you mean? War-torn zones?’
Bethany nodded. ‘I sent you there because it would have been easy for you to disappear…’
‘Easy. For. Me. To. Disappear.’
‘I mean I could have sent you to New York or Tokyo or even the other side of the planet…New Zealand, maybe, but it would have made things more complicated…’
Cristiano nearly choked at the notion that things could get more complicated than they already were. Bethany, staring
off into the distance, relieved that she was unburdening herself because she had known that it would come to this the second he had walked through the front door, hardly noticed his staggered expression.
‘But if you were based in say…
the Congo
…then our relationship could just have drifted. I mean, how easy would it be for an engaged couple to keep up their relationship across such a hefty distance?’
‘Engaged couple?’
Bethany, once again looking at him, nodded and slowly extended her hand to reveal a very discreet engagement ring. ‘It’s not real, of course, but I had to have something to show Mum and Dad.’
He hadn’t noticed the ring, but then he hadn’t been paying much attention to her hands and he realised now that she had kept them out of sight as much as she could, tucked up in those long sleeves of hers. Cristiano stared at her in utter disbelief.
‘You think I’m nuts, don’t you?’
‘Nuts? That’s putting it mildly.’
‘Okay. Hear me out. I know you might be a bit angry…’ Her keen ears detected the sounds of approaching parents. It was now or never and never wasn’t an option. ‘I had to tell this little white lie…’
‘
Little white lie?
Please, do me a favour and define
big
!’
‘Because, like I said, Mum and Dad are pretty old fashioned and they would have been bitterly disappointed if they had known that their daughter had had a two week fling with a guy abroad and returned home pregnant.’
C
RISTIANO
finally discovered what it felt like to have a bomb detonate in the epicentre of his life. He stared at her in stunned silence and he could feel the colour draining away from his face. He looked, Bethany thought, like a man who had leapt out of a plane only to find that he’d forgotten his parachute. He was in shocked free fall and she could understand why. From being a carefree, single guy he was now an engaged man with a kid on the way. All in the space of a couple of hours and, worse than that, he was engaged to a woman whom he considered a scheming liar with an eye to the main chance. Did it get any worse?
With impeccable timing, her parents arrived on the scene, postponing the inevitable showdown, for which Bethany was grateful, although it might have been better for her to have just got it out of the way. As it was, they were both at the mercy of both her parents, who had innumerable tales to tell of their dearest daughter and her fabulously loving childhood where money was stretched to its limit, what with three children and their menagerie of pets. And then, when her mother had disappeared to rustle up something to eat, at the mercy of her father who immediately installed a drink in Cristiano’s hand and called him to account on his many varied travels.
‘Africa,’ he mused, settling down on the sofa for the long haul. ‘Never been there myself. Must have been a hell of an experience for you. Great to know that there are still young people out there who care enough, though, son.’
Bethany groaned to herself as her father tilted his head to one side and looked at Cristiano with keen interest.
‘Cristiano…’ She cleared her throat and smiled weakly at her dad. ‘He…er…doesn’t really like to talk about his good works out in…um…Africa…and other places…He’s very modest…you know…’ She hazarded a laugh, which fizzled out into silence. Thanks to her parents’ happy belief that they were really engaged, she had found herself stuck next to Cristiano on the sofa, which was richly ironic, she felt, considering the only reason he would choose to be this close would be to strangle her. Now, he reached across and gathered her hand in his and gave it a little squeeze.
‘That’s very sweet of you to say that, Bethany…’ He turned to her profile and was gratified to see that she was as jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof. Doubtless her poor innocent father would put all that blushing and trembling down to her delight at her so called fiancé’s unexpected arrival but he knew better. ‘But don’t you remember all those pictures I showed you…?’
‘Pictures?’ She turned to look at him and tried, uselessly, to wriggle her hand out of his grasp.
‘You know the pictures…the ones in my album,
my Africa album
.’
‘Oh, yes, right.’
‘So why don’t
you
give your dad the gist of what I did over there…?’ He gave her hand another squeeze and felt her dig her nails into his palm, at which point he promptly released her fingers, only to insinuate his hand on her thigh, a gesture of demonstrable affection, except to her. His smile
of encouragement earned him a thinly concealed glare and it was all he could do not to tell her how much he was going to enjoy watching her dig herself out of her lies.
Bethany read all of that in his fleeting look and that warm smile on his lips was anything
but
encouraging. She took a deep breath and crossed her fingers behind her back as she launched into a flowery description of a community centre which was one hundred per cent lifted from something she had recently seen on television. As she finally came to a stop, she heard Cristiano say softly, ‘Now
that
deserves a round of applause.’ He looked at John. ‘Your daughter has a very persuasive way with words. She could sell snow to the Eskimos…couldn’t you,
darling
?’
Bethany braved his eyes, which were coolly at odds with the smiling mouth. She forced herself to smile back. At least in the company of her parents she would have to try to look enraptured or, if not enraptured, at least pleased that her gallivanting fiancé had turned up.
Seen from another angle, she guessed that the farce being enacted might have seemed hysterically funny. Unfortunately, caught in the middle of it, it was more tragedy than comedy.
‘I don’t know about that,’ Bethany muttered, but Cristiano was undeterred.
‘I mean—’ he turned to face her father but his hand remained firmly glued to her thigh, a gentle reminder that he was right here on the sofa next to her and was not going to let her out of his reach until he was good and ready ‘—when she described her house here, in Ireland, I almost got the impression that she was talking about a castle!’
‘Couldn’t be further from the truth, as you can see!’ John shook his head, smiling at his daughter. ‘But you’re right. I know she’s going to pull a face when I say this, but our Bethany was always top of the class in her English!’
‘I can well imagine.’
‘But now that circumsta…’
From the kitchen, Bethany heard her mother carolling them in for dinner and she breathed a small sigh of relief. Her father preceded them and it gave her a vital chance to move out of Cristiano’s reach as they both stood up.
‘Stop it!’ she hissed at him under her breath.
‘Stop…what?’
‘Stop touching me!’
‘Now why would you say that?’ Cristiano’s voice was as hard as nails. ‘You’re a conscienceless liar and I’m supposed to play the part of the lucky husband-to-be. Surely a bit of touching is only to be expected? And, correct me if I’m wrong, but nothing’s been mentioned of any so-called
pregnancy
. Funny, that, wouldn’t you say?’
‘What are you getting at?’
She was spared an answer to her question by her parents beaming at them as they entered the kitchen. Hand in hand. The loving and now united couple. Bethany reminded herself never to trust appearances. She felt pretty sure that the man standing next to her was thinking the very same thing.
‘Just fetched some chicken casserole I had in the freezer,’ Eileen confided as they all settled at the long pine table in the kitchen, the surface of which bore the hallmarks of homework past. ‘Tell me what you think, Cristiano…’ She looked at him expectantly and puffed up with delight when he went into profuse compliment mode while next to him Bethany tortured herself by wondering what he had meant when he had said that it was
funny that her parents hadn’t mentioned a word about the pregnancy
. Had he thought that she’d been lying? Made the whole thing up? What if he let slip some killer remark about
never wanting kids?
She
racked her brain to remember if he’d ever mentioned anything of the sort. Never had she felt more need for something alcoholic, if only to survive her mother’s questions about
where they had met, how they had met
. No amount of attempts to drag the conversation onto neutral territory could derail the older woman from her curiosity. Bethany was only thankful that her father was no longer quizzing him on all those wonderful things he had done in darkest Africa.
What had seemed a good idea at the time, a way of saving her parents from the anguish and disappointment of their daughter turning up on their doorstep pregnant and single, had returned to bite her.
Almost worse was the reality that Cristiano was charming the socks off them. He drew on amusing anecdotes like a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat and it was only when they were clearing away the dishes that Bethany found a sudden spark of inspiration and, while she was loading the dishwasher with her mother, she managed to insert in a casual voice, ‘Now you understand what I meant when I told you that he was dashing!’
‘Oh, darling. I’m so happy for you. Of course, it’s such a shame that you’ve had to put your university course on hold, but he seems such a lovely guy. I don’t think he’d mind one bit if you resumed your studies in due course, do you?’
Bethany leaned against the kitchen counter, ears alert for the sound of any approaching feet from the dashing man in question, who had been taken to the sitting room with her father. ‘Well, I might have to…’
‘What do you mean?’ Eileen paused to look at her daughter with concern.
‘I mean…’ The sound of yet another lie, piling up on top of the multitude she had already told, raced towards her like a galloping horse that was out of control and Bethany sighed.
‘Nothing. I just meant that…it’s always good to have a degree up your sleeve.’
‘But don’t forget that you have other duties now, darling.’
Bethany grimaced. ‘Fat chance of me forgetting that.’ In truth she had gradually become accustomed to the thought of having a baby. What had been an enormous shock to start with had levelled off to a calm acceptance that her pregnancy wasn’t going to go away and she would have to deal with it. It was a blessing that she had had her parents to support her, for continuing with university had been out of the question and she had had no desire to remain in London as a single mother.
‘I told your dad not to mention anything about the baby,’ Eileen rattled on, as happy as a bunny in a field of carrots. ‘I thought you might like to break it to Cristiano yourself and I wasn’t sure if you had said anything…’
‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘You don’t seem as thrilled at Cristiano’s arrival as I might have expected, Beth,’ her mother said anxiously. ‘I know you thought that he might be stuck out there for months on end with his building project…’
‘But here I am!’
From behind them, and latching on to that last pensive observation, came the all too familiar voice of Cristiano. He strolled across to Bethany and casually slung his arm over her shoulder, pulling her towards him. Reluctantly, Bethany extended her hand around his waist. Through his shirt, she could feel the rock hardness of his body and a convulsive shiver made her feel temporarily giddy.
‘And, as I mentioned to John in the sitting room, the bearer of glad tidings, my darling.’
‘What’s that?’ Bethany looked up at him, horribly aware that both her parents were watching them with eagle eyes.
She could almost
hear
her mother’s breathless, expectant silence.
‘No more projects…’
Bethany’s jumble of thoughts lagged behind her mother’s and it was only when her mother clapped her hands that it dawned on her exactly what he was saying.
‘Yippee!’ She tried to insert some enthusiasm into her voice as she watched the last glimmers of any excuse for his disappearance from her life take wing and fly through the window.
‘That’s right,’ Cristiano expanded, just so that she was in no doubt as to what he was saying. ‘My priorities are here now. Aren’t they, sweetheart? Right here with you and…our baby.’
Suddenly the world was full of rainbows and angels. At least, as far as her parents were concerned. Her mother could barely contain her excitement and while the babble of voices resounded around her Bethany felt nothing but a dull awareness of a situation that was now no longer in her control. Had she thought that she might persuade him to disappear out of her life? He didn’t love her. He never had. Yet he had found himself landed with the prospect of fatherhood in a little under four months, welded against his will to a woman he now loathed, a woman he considered an inveterate liar and heaven only knew what else. When had it ever been her dream to find herself expecting a baby by a man she loved who felt nothing but scorn towards her? Since when was that
any woman’s
dream?
‘I wasn’t sure if Beth had mentioned it to you…’
‘We were shocked when she broke the news to us…’
‘But now that we’ve met you, we couldn’t hope for a better son-in-law…’
‘Dad!’
‘Of course, we wouldn’t dream of rushing you into anything,’ Eileen hastened to add. ‘You just have to excuse us because we’re a little old-fashioned when it comes to things like that…’
‘So, as it happens, is my own mother.’ Had he really thought that she had been lying about the pregnancy? She had lied about pretty much everything else but, in that one area, she had been telling the truth. Her father had tactfully asked him whether he knew or whether he had already disappeared to Africa by the time Bethany had found out, and at that split moment in time Cristiano had kissed sweet goodbye to his freedom. Two weeks of fun in the sun and he would be paying the price for the rest of his life. What choice did he have? It was a mess but it was a mess from which he could not walk away. He tried to imagine how his mother and his grandfather would react and for a fleeting few seconds he could understand why she had fabricated this particular lie. His mother would have been devastated if he had shown up with a child in tow and no mother in sight.
‘You’ll have to tell us all about her…about your family…I’m afraid Bethany has been a bit economical on information…’
Your daughter, it was on the tip of his tongue to tell them, has been economical on a number of things.
‘But right now—’ John put his arm around his wife with affection ‘—Eileen and I are going to hit the sack.’
‘And we may be old-fashioned—’ Eileen gave Cristiano a warm smile ‘—but we’re not so old-fashioned that we expect you two love birds to sleep in different rooms…’
‘But
Mum
!’ Bethany’s voice bordered on a screech. ‘You’ve
never
let Shania or Melanie bring their boyfriends home and share a bedroom!’
‘Slightly different situation here, don’t you think, pet?’
‘Well, yes,’ Bethany huffed, ‘but that’s no reason…I mean, I wouldn’t want to disrespect…’
‘Thank goodness we got rid of that single bed of yours a few years ago! Remember how upset you were at losing the headboard?’ This to Cristiano. ‘She had collected a range of stickers on it from when she was just knee high to a grasshopper! Can you believe it? Detached all of them and stuck them in a scrapbook!’
Bethany felt herself go crimson. Did her mother imagine that that somehow made her sound
sweet
? Couldn’t she see that the flip side of
sweet
was
fruit loop
, which was what Cristiano was already thinking? No, she thought unhappily, why on earth should her mother think that her dearly beloved and only recently engaged daughter might not want to share a bedroom with her sexy,
dashing, adventurous
fiancé who couldn’t wait to rip her to shreds?