Mrs Warren’s heavily made-up eyes flicked over her daughter and came to rest on Matteo again. She shook her head in disbelief. ‘But I’m too young to be a grandmother,’ she declared.

Matteo’s expression didn’t flicker, and he did not risk glancing over at Jennifer. He squeezed her hand instead. ‘Of course you are,’ he said smoothly. ‘Everyone will believe that you are the baby’s aunt!’

‘Do you really think so?’ Mrs Warren looked slightly mollified as she automatically patted her faded blonde hair. ‘Does this mean the marriage is back on?’

This time he did risk it, and he read the understanding in Jenny’s eyes. ‘Si,’ he said slowly. ‘It is. We have settled our…differences.’

Mrs Warren nodded. ‘Well, I suppose I’d better look on the bright side—I always got much better service on airlines when I mentioned that Matteo was my son-in-law!’

Matteo’s mouth twitched. ‘Then that is a good enough reason for the marriage to continue, surely?’ he said gravely.

‘Mum, Matteo’s going up to London on business, and I thought that I might stay here with you for a day or two. We could have lunch, if you like.’

Mrs Warren brightened. ‘In a restaurant, you mean?’

Jennifer nodded. Her mother loved eating out with her famous daughter, and all the attendant fuss. ‘If you like.’

Matteo’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’re sure?’

She shrugged. ‘Why not? No good hiding away—we were spotted and snapped at the airport, after all.’

‘I’m sending two minders with you,’ he said grimly.

‘Ooh, goody!’ squealed Mrs Warren.

In a pale restaurant overlooking the beautiful old city of Bath, they ate exotic seafood and salad, and Mrs Warren drank copious amounts of champagne ‘to celebrate, darling!’ while the minders sat a not-so-discreet distance away. Jennifer even posed for a photo with a little girl who was waiting outside the restaurant with her mother.

Maybe I’ll have a little girl too, she thought as she crouched down and smiled. And she’ll have dark eyes, just like Matt’s, and gorgeous curly hair.

But when they got back to her mother’s house there was a crowd of pressmen milling outside, and the minders had to barge their way through.

‘What the hell is going on?’ asked Jennifer, frowning. ‘How ridiculous! Surely one pregnant actress doesn’t merit this kind of interest?’

The phone was ringing when they got inside, and Mrs Warren took the call, her face growing white as she listened. ‘Yes, she’s here—I’ll see if she’ll speak to you.’ She held the phone towards Jennifer. ‘It’s a reporter. Wants to speak to you.’

Jennifer pulled a face and took the phone. ‘Hello? Jennifer Warren speaking.’

‘Jennifer—were you aware that Sophia Perotta has given an interview to a London evening paper about her affair with your husband?’

‘I wasn’t,’ she said calmly.

‘Did you know that he was cheating on you with her throughout your marriage?’

There was a pause. ‘I’m not going to comment on that,’ she said, still in that strange, small voice of calm. ‘And now I’m really going to have to go. Goodbye.’

She put the phone down and ignored all her mother’s questions, but inside she felt queasy, and the feeling of nausea just grew and grew inside her. She only just made it to the bathroom before she started vomiting—and the frightening thing was that she couldn’t stop.

‘I’m calling an ambulance!’ her mother exclaimed dramatically. ‘I knew you should never have got back with that cheating bastard!’

Feeling as if she was taking part in one of her own films, Jennifer was rushed to hospital with sirens and lights blazing, wishing that her mother would just go away. She rolled around in agony, clutching her abdomen—her stomach was empty but she was unable to stop the dry retching which was making her throat burn. ‘Am I going to lose my baby?’ she cried.

‘Shh! Try to calm down,’ soothed the nurse in the emergency room. ‘The doctor is on his way down now to see you.’

Which did not answer her question at all. And Jennifer closed her eyes as tears began to creep from behind her tightly shut lids.

All this for nothing. Now she would lose the child she had longed for, and along with that terrible heartache would come her final separation from Matt—for he would not want her without the baby. Why would he?

* * *

Around a large table, Matteo sat with his lawyers—his face chalk-white beneath the tanned skin. On the front page of London’s biggest-selling evening newspaper was a huge photo of a pouting Sophia Perotta—her brown eyes as widely innocent as a baby deer’s. And there was the splash:

Cheating Matteo Was A Stallion In The Bedroom!

‘Can she say this?’ he demanded hotly.

‘She already has.’

Matteo’s fists clenched and he banged one down hard onto the table, so that the lawyers jumped. ‘Let’s sue her. Let’s take the bitch for every penny she’s got!’

‘Are you certain you want to, Matteo?’

‘It’s a pack of lies!’

The lawyer coughed delicately. ‘Did you or did you not have sex with her?’

Matteo flinched. ‘Once!’ he gritted, a feeling of disgust creeping over his skin. ‘And only when my wife was divorcing me.’

‘That’s your story,’ said the lawyer stolidly.

Matt turned on him, his black eyes flashing with anger, and suddenly he understood. ‘Oh, I see,’ he said slowly, and nodded his dark head. ‘It’s her word against mine.’

‘Precisely. She’s deliberately vague about dates and times, but explicit enough about your er…skills…in the bedroom department to make it clear that you did have sex with her. The dispute is when. She says it was during your marriage. You say it was not. We can try fighting it, if you want, but the publicity…’

He let his voice tail off, and Matteo knew what he was saying. ‘I’ve only just got back with my wife,’ he said urgently.

And she’s pregnant.

Oh, Jenny.

Jenny.

It was at precisely that moment that one of his aides came grim-faced into the room, with a message from the hospital.

The journey back to Bath was a like a trip to hell. The worst thing was the not knowing—but no one would tell him anything and he couldn’t get hold of Jenny’s mother. It was an exercise in powerlessness, and Matteo had never felt so frighteningly out of control.

He made silent pleas to God. He prayed for their baby, and he prayed for much more than that, too. But Jenny would never forgive him for this. How could she?

‘I want to see my wife!’ he said to the overwhelmed receptionist at the desk.

‘Mr d’Arezzo?’ she verified breathlessly.

‘Let me see her,’ he pleaded.

‘The doctor wants to see you first, sir.’

‘Jenny!’ he cried.

‘He looked like a broken man,’ the receptionist was to tell her colleagues in the canteen later.

Fearing the worst, Matteo paced the room they’d placed him in, and his eyes were bleak when the doctor walked into the room.

‘My wife? How is she?’

‘Your wife is fine, sir—’

‘And the baby.’ Matteo swallowed. ‘She has lost the baby?’

The doctor shook his head and smiled. ‘No, the baby is fine.’

‘It is?’

‘Absolutely. The heartbeat is perfect—the scan is normal. We’ve put a drip up, of course, because your wife was dehydrated, and we’d like to keep her in for—’

‘But why has this happened?’ breathed Matteo, and dug his nails so hard into his clenched palms that he did not notice he had drawn blood. ‘It is shock which has caused this?’

‘Shock? Oh, no. Your wife has food-poisoning, Mr. d’Arezzo. You should tell her to keep clear of prawns in future—particularly during pregnancy.’

Hot on the heels of exquisite relief that his wife and his baby were going to be all right came the bleak realisation that Jenny would never want him now. How would he feel if the situation were reversed? Could he bear to think of her in the arms of another man? And then to read about it in graphic detail in a newspaper, even if the facts had been twisted?