The Sicilian's Wife (10 page)

But she had only to look into his face to know that there was no hope of her wish being granted. His expression had closed up, withdrawing totally from her, his jaw setting hard and his mouth just a thin, slash of a line. His eyes were like coal-black chips of ice, no emotion, no trace of warmth in them anywhere, and she anticipated his move even before he got to his feet.

‘No,' he drawled cynically, his tone an insult in itself. ‘I'm not going to deny it. I'd be a fool to even try when after all it's nothing but the truth. I wanted you in my bed, yes, and by asking you to marry me, I saw the perfect way to achieve that.'

She had been anticipating it, it was only what she had expected, so why did it hurt so much? Surely knowing already that that was all he wanted from her should have armoured her a little, protecting her vulnerable heart from
the tearing pain of discovering that he was Gary Rowell all over again?

But somehow knowing that was what he was going to say only made it all the harder to take. It was like having her heart ripped out twice, giving her just long enough to experience the first pain as lethal before she experienced it once more, with new intensity this time.

‘Well, thanks for telling me straight!' she returned with bleak flippancy. ‘After all, I wouldn't want to labour under any delusions!'

Cesare's smile was grim, no trace of light reaching his eyes.

‘Oh, I always speak the truth,' he snarled. ‘Unlike some people.'

‘I thought I was pregnant!'

‘
Thought
isn't good enough!'

Cesare pushed himself upright, standing glowering down at her so ferociously that she shrank back against the pillows piled behind her.

‘If you'd actually
thought
at all,
mia cara
, you would have done something more practical and not trapped both of us in this travesty of a marriage that we must regret for the rest of our days.'

‘I—'

She had opened her mouth to declare that ‘I will never regret it,' but looking into the cold, inimical depths of his eyes, she hastily bit back the words instead. He wouldn't believe them for one and seeing the mood he was in she was afraid to let him know the truth. It would make her too vulnerable, put her too much at risk where he was concerned. ‘I couldn't agree more,' she quickly substituted instead.

‘
Bene.
So now we both know where we stand. At least we agree on something.'

He was turning towards the door as he spoke. He had to get out of here now, he told himself. Had to leave before he opened his mouth really wide and said something he would always regret completely. The words were all there in his head, crowding into his thoughts so that he had to fight to hold them back and not let them come spilling out, betraying him for the fool he was.

Of course he hadn't thought to check whether she was truly pregnant. It hadn't even crossed his mind. All he had seen was the perfect opportunity to make Megan his and he had snatched at it without thinking. He hadn't even cared about love or the way she felt about him. She needed him and that was enough. He could fill that role until she decided she needed something more. And he had hoped that, given time, she might truly come to love him properly and they could turn their fake marriage into a real one for their own sakes, not just for the baby's.

But now it seemed that there was no baby after all. And without her back up against the wall, without the metaphorical gun pointing at her head, Megan had clearly realised just what a mistake she had made in marrying him. Every word she spoke revealed how much she regretted her impetuous action, and made it plain just how she felt at being trapped with him.

‘What a pity you didn't start your period twenty-four hours earlier! That way you could have saved us both from a lot of heartache!'

‘I was thinking exactly the same thing! That's something else we agree on!'

The irony was so dark, so savagely bitter that Cesare actually laughed out loud at it.

‘
Now
we start to see eye to eye! What do you think,
cara
—perhaps if we stick at it, we might become soul mates in the end?'

‘Never!'

Driven to the end of her control by the lash of his tongue, Megan couldn't control her own.

‘I'd sooner spend the rest of my life in hell than have that happen! In fact, I'd prefer it if I never ever saw you again.'

‘Your wish is my command…'

The sense of shock was like a blow to her head as she saw him sweep a low, mocking bow, the expression on his face turning the courtly gesture into something that was a million miles away from any politeness.

‘That at least is something I can easily do for you.'

He meant it too, Megan realised shakenly as he turned on his heel again and marched to the door. She couldn't let him go! Not like this!

‘But Cesare…' she croaked, not knowing if he had heard.

At first it seemed that, if he had, he was going to ignore her, but then, just in the doorway, he slowed, stilled.

‘What?'

He didn't even turn; didn't look at her. He just tossed the question back over his shoulder without so much as a glance in her direction.

‘The doctor said I could go home today. How am I going to get there?'

Cesare's breath hissed in between his teeth in a sound of barely-controlled fury and exasperation.

‘I'll send the car for you,' he said at last. ‘It'll be ready whenever you want it. Forgive me for not offering to come myself, but I truly believe that the less we see of each other right now, the better.'

‘I
TRULY
believe that the less we see of each other right now, the better,' Cesare had said and he had meant it. If Megan had had any doubts that that was true, then they vanished very quickly in the days that followed her return home from the hospital.

The car and the chauffeur appeared to pick her up as he had promised, but of Cesare there was no sign, and he certainly didn't appear again in the house that night. Somehow he arranged for a housekeeper to move in on extremely short notice and be there in case she needed anything and to prepare meals, take care of the upkeep, but he never put in an appearance.

He stayed well away from the house until long after midnight when, worn out by the emotional upheaval of the day's events, she had finally crawled into bed. The sound of his car roaring up the drive and coming to a halt outside the door stirred her from the deep sleep of exhaustion into which she had collapsed, but she only had the energy to lift her head for a moment before dropping back onto the pillow with a sigh of despair and drifting away again.

He was gone again before she woke up in the morning. And he had slept somewhere else in the house. The other side of the big bed was unrumpled and undisturbed by the lean muscular frame of the man who was her husband in law, if not in reality. There was no trace of the scent of Cesare's skin, no imprint of his head on the pillow, no lingering warmth of his body on the sheets. He might not have existed for all the evidence he left behind.

And that was how life was for the next week. Day after day Megan tried desperately to catch a glimpse of the man she had married, and failed. She sat up late at night, only to find that he had stayed out so long that she fell asleep before he returned. Or she woke up early in the morning, determined to catch him before he left. But it seemed that he had some sort of sixth sense where she was concerned and on the one day she was sure that no one could have got up and out before her, it turned out that he had stayed in town, booking into an hotel instead.

It was ten days before she saw him again. And then that was only because she totally refused to give in this time. She turned all the downstairs lights off so that it looked as if there was no one in the house then seated herself in the most uncomfortable chair in the sitting room, where there was no chance at all of her dropping off to sleep. Positioning the chair by the doorway, looking out into the main hall so that she would know immediately if the front door opened, she settled herself—and waited.

And waited.

In the end she nearly missed him. In spite of her discomfort, the lateness of the hour almost caught up with her. Her eyes began to close, and it was only the sound of a key in the lock that stirred her from her doze and, blinking hard, she watched the big, carved oak door swing open.

He was dressed for the office, in one of the sleekly tailored, elegant business suits he always wore to work. His shirt was fine white linen, slightly crumpled after the heat of the early-August day, and his understated maroon and blue tie had been tugged unfastened and hung loose around his neck, giving him the slightly dissolute look of someone returning home from a late-night party.

Megan's heart kicked hard at just the sight of him. It seemed as if, in the short time since she had seen him, her
need for him had grown stronger, her appetite for his appeal sharpening with each day's deprivation until she was hungry for his presence. Never before had the appeal of darkly tanned skin against the crisp whiteness of his shirt, the long, lean lines of his body, the strong chest tapering to a narrow waist and then moving down into the power of seemingly endless legs, come home to her with quite so much force. The sensual impact of his appearance took her breath away and deprived her totally of the ability to speak.

And in the same moment Cesare caught sight of her sitting in the doorway. He stood stock-still, glanced behind him for a second as if considering the chances of escape back into the night, then obviously decided against it. Shutting the door with what seemed to Megan to be totally unnecessary and excessive precision, he shrugged himself out of his jacket, hooked one finger into the collar and tossed the coat casually over his shoulder. Strolling forward with an apparently casual and relaxed attitude, he came to a halt a couple of feet away from her and looked straight into her wary face.

‘Good evening, Megan. And to what do I owe the pleasure of your presence here tonight?'

Privately Megan took the liberty of doubting that it was any sort of a pleasure, and she suspected that the question, as well as the tone in which it had been delivered, was meant to put her mentally off balance. It very nearly succeeded, and she had a nasty little fight with herself in order to hold her ground and not actually give in to an impulse to run from the obviously hostile expression in his dark eyes.

‘Do you know the phrase about Mohammed and the mountain?' she managed unevenly.

‘I believe I've heard of it. Something about if Mohammed won't come to the mountain…'

‘Then the mountain must come to Mohammed.'

‘And in this case, am I to understand that you are taking on the role of the mountain? Really, Megan, you do yourself a great disservice. No man alive could ever describe you as being at all mountain-like. As a matter of fact, I think that you appear to have lost some weight since I last saw you.'

Megan didn't doubt it. Her appetite had totally deserted her over the past week and the housekeeper had been openly disapproving of the way the tempting meals she served every day had been sent away virtually untouched, barely a few mouthfuls actually consumed. And when Megan had put on the mustard-coloured cotton dress tonight she had been painfully aware of the way that the waist hung loose on her, the V-neck gaping at the front.

‘If that's meant to distract me, then I'm afraid it won't work. If anything, it simply emphasises just how long it is since we've actually seen each other.'

‘I've been busy.'

‘During your
honeymoon
? I doubt if that's the way most newly-married husbands carry on.'

‘But then I'm not exactly a traditional newly-married husband, am I?' Cesare shot back cynically. ‘And I hardly think that anyone would describe this as a conventional sort of a marriage.'

‘Perhaps not,' Megan had to concede. ‘But you were the one who insisted that people should believe that we did have a proper marriage. That in public at least we should give the impression that we're truly husband and wife. We're hardly going to do that if you're never here and I'm on my own all day.'

‘So now I'm neglecting you!' Cesare drawled satirically. ‘
Perdone me, cara
, I thought you never wanted to see me again. I did not know that you had changed your mind.'

‘You know perfectly well that what I said was an exaggeration! Just as you know we can't go on like this. Cesare, we have to talk!'

‘Have to?' he echoed dangerously, making her nerves twist themselves into tight, painful knots of apprehension and fear.

But then, just when she had convinced herself that he was not prepared to listen to a word she said; that he was about to turn right round and walk out of the house again, not even sparing her a backward glance, he lifted his broad shoulders in a dismissive shrug and spread his hands in a very Italian gesture of surrender.

‘D'accordo, innamorata!
If you wish to talk then we will talk.'

He strolled into the room sliding past her chair with elegant care so that in spite of the narrow and constricting space he avoided all contact with her by the merest inch.

Crossing to the drinks cabinet, he pulled out a bottle of red wine, splashed a lavish amount of it into a glass, and sipped appreciatively.

‘So talk! Oh,
scusi
…'

His apology was a deliberate and overelaborate afterthought.

‘Did you want a drink, darling?'

Knowing she was being deliberately provoked, Megan could only shake her head silently. It was either that or explode completely, ruining any possible chance she had of holding any sort of reasonable discussion with him.

‘No thanks.'

Realising the way he had put her at a disadvantage if she remained where she was, needing to twist her head awkwardly on her neck in order to be able to see him, she got up and walked over to the soft leather chesterfield set into the wide bay window of the room. Sinking down onto it,
she curled her legs up underneath and settled in for what she suspected was going to be a very hard and very long night.

‘Are you sure? You seem on edge—it might relax you. And as we both know, you don't have to worry about your alcohol intake any more. There's no one else you can harm if you have a drink.'

‘I'm fine without a drink, thanks.'

She wanted to keep a clear head. Cesare in this mood was dangerous and she didn't dare risk provoking him any more than she could help.

‘And if that nasty dig about my being able to drink now was meant to point out to me the stupid mistake I made in believing I was pregnant, then let me assure you I don't need any reminding of that fact. I've thought about it all week—in fact, I've hardly thought about anything else. And I've made up my mind just what we have to do.'

‘You have?'

Cesare had lifted his glass to his lips, had been about to take a sip of his wine, but now he lowered it again slowly, looking at her across the top. The suspicion in the sharply narrowed brown eyes was like a brutal knife in Megan's already vulnerable heart. Did he really hate her so much that he didn't trust a word she said?

‘And what conclusion have you come to?'

He moved to take a seat opposite her, leaning back in the big armchair with an apparent ease and nonchalance that did nothing to disguise the way he was watching her, the cold, assessing stare that was fixed on her face. Megan felt dangerously exposed and vulnerable, unable to meet the burning force of his scrutiny head-on.

‘One I think you'll approve of.'

She had looked at the problem from every possible angle all through the long, lonely hours when he was avoiding
her, and had come up with the only possible answer she could think of. It would be so very, very hard. It would break her heart, but it was the one thing she could do for him. If he didn't want her love then at least she could give him his freedom. Biting her lip to regain control and force back the weak tears that threatened, she forced herself to continue.

‘Oh, don't look so worried Cesare. What I plan to do is to set you free. It's quite simple really—it's the obvious answer.'

‘Is there an obvious answer?'

‘I think so.'

‘Enlighten me.'

‘This marriage was a mistake from the start—and it's even more so now. But we don't have to stay together. It'll be so easy to separate. And as we never actually—never…'

‘Consummated the relationship,' he finished for her with an understanding that was blatantly insincere.

‘Well, yes…so we don't even need a divorce. We can just get an annulment.'

‘
No
!'

‘No?'

Megan couldn't understand it. Wasn't this what he wanted? She had felt so sure he would appreciate the chance to get free of her.

‘No!'

Cesare flung himself to his feet, his eyes cold, his jaw tight with rejection. Even his nostrils flared in disgust and disapproval. He was pure, unreformed, Sicilian male from the top of his silky dark hair to the soles of his handmade leather boots. ‘You think that I would let you do that? That I would let you go—just walk out on our marriage—not even a
fortnight after our wedding night, for God's sake! It isn't going to happen. I won't let you!'

It was the roar of a wounded lion, and he knew it. Deep inside, he admitted to himself that if she was determined to go, if she didn't want to stay, then nothing he could do would keep her there. And the appalling thing was the way that, in spite of everything, he still wanted to keep her.

He had been furious at first; blinded by the blazing anger that had possessed him when he had learned that she wasn't actually pregnant. At that moment he had been the one who had thought of walking out on their marriage, ending it right then and there. He had forced himself to go into work, running the gauntlet of joking, disbelieving comments from his staff who had known that he had just got married and couldn't believe he wasn't with his wife, in order to give himself time. Time to think, to calm down and look at what had happened objectively. To try and decide just what he wanted out of this relationship now.

And the one thing that he had kept coming back to was that he still wanted Megan. He didn't care how much she wanted out of the marriage; he wasn't going to let her go without a fight. And if that meant fighting her as well, then that was how it had to be. All he wanted was to win a little time. Time to try and redeem something from this nightmare of a marriage into which they'd fallen.

And to be perfectly honest, he didn't really give a damn how he went about it.

‘You are not walking away from me, or this marriage. What the hell do you imagine people will think?'

‘I don't care what people will think.'

‘Well I do! You'd destroy any pride I have amongst my family, my people. I'd be a man who couldn't even keep his wife by his side for a month or more! A man who, if
you ask for an annulment, apparently cannot even
make love
to his wife.'

‘Oh…I hadn't looked at it that way. But what else can we do? There's no other alternative.'

‘There is one. We stay married.'

‘No…'

Her shudder revealed how much the idea horrified her. ‘We
can't
!'

‘We can,' he contradicted flatly. ‘And we will. Oh, Megan,
cara
, don't look so horrified. I promise you it won't be as bad as you think.'