The Sicilian's Wife (15 page)

‘It must have cost you a fortune. I hope it was worth it.'

Caught off guard, Cesare couldn't quite hide his surprise.

‘You did that for me,' she explained. ‘To get me to marry you. I hope I was worth the expense.'

‘Worth it?'

Leaning forward, Cesare slammed his glass down on a nearby coffee-table with a lack of care that showed no respect at all for the delicate crystal.

‘How could you be anything else?'

The next moment his arms were round her waist, pulling her down onto his lap. His hand went under her chin, lifting her face up to his and his mouth took hers in a kiss that was positively sinful with its promise of heated passion and deep, deep sensuality. She longed to give in to that sensuality, lose herself in the desire that was stirring her blood so hotly, but she knew that that was what she had done all through their marriage and now she needed more.

‘I wanted you all my life it seemed. I tried to distract myself with other women, but it didn't work. You were always there—in my blood it seemed—a hunger I could never assuage.'

Wanted
, a sad little voice repeated inside Megan's
thoughts.
A hunger. In my blood.
Words of sexual desire. Of passion that she knew he felt. But where were the words she truly needed? Where was the love? The deep, deep caring that would see them through a lifetime together? Them, and this baby. Because she had another life to think about now.

Without those deeper feelings, she was little more than a slave. Bought and paid for with the clearing of her father's debts.

‘And so when you thought I was pregnant, it all worked out so well for you. You had the perfect opportunity to manoeuvre me into marriage, so as to get what you wanted. And you threw in helping my father as an added sweetener so that I wouldn't be able to resist.'

Green eyes blazed into brown and to her horror she saw there the shadow of something that twisted in her soul. Guilt? Embarrassment? At what he had done, or simply at being found out?

‘No wonder you understood my father's mistakes, Cesare.'

With a rough movement that tore at her heart more than her body, she wrenched herself free from his arms and scrambled inelegantly to the floor. As soon as her feet touched the ground she took several awkward steps back, away from him. She needed to put a distance between them, both mentally and physically so that she could think.

‘You're making exactly the same ones—following in his footsteps right up to the trying to buy me and my affections. Well, I'll tell you straight,
mio marito.
It isn't going to work! You can't buy people! You can't keep them with you if they don't want to be there. You can't
bribe
people to love you!'

Now, fight back—
please
! With all the strength of her mind, she tried to will him to argue, to tell her it wasn't
so. All she wanted—needed—to hear was that there was more to it than that. That he felt more for her than just wanting to have her in his bed.

He didn't even have to say the word love. If she had to, she would wait for that. If only he would give her
something.
Something to hold on to.

He didn't.

Instead he kept her waiting. His silence was shocking, bewildering, frightening. He let it drag on and on, stretching her nerves to breaking-point, twisting in her soul, making each beat of her heart seem endless, agonising.

And all the time he simply watched her. Heavy, concealing lids hooding his dark eyes, his jaw set and tight, his expression blank and unreadable.

More silence.

And then at last he moved. So suddenly and unexpectedly that she jumped back, startled, as he put both his hands on the arms of his chair and pushed himself to his feet.

He walked away from her, pacing the floor as he had done on the night in the library, making her think once again of the restless prowling of a hunting cat. Then, just as she was about to beg him to stop, to please speak to her, say something, anything, he swung back to face her.

And immediately she wished he hadn't. There was no light in his face, nothing that was soft or gentle or warm. There was only withdrawal and distance, and cold—a cold so deep and intense that even from this distance it chilled her blood and made her shiver fearfully.

‘Tell me something,' he said and the quiet, almost conversational level of his voice made her head spin in disbelief.

He might have been talking about the weather forecast, or the price of fish. Anything other than something so fun
damental to the future of their relationship that she knew she could never go on without it.

‘The way you talked about living here—that day we went to the cove…'

‘When I described being here as like being in a prison?'

His nod was so brief as to be almost non-existent.

‘Did you mean it?'

There was only one way she could answer that. She had come this far; she couldn't back down now. It was all or nothing. Her whole future and that of her baby, staked on what happened right here and now.

‘Yes.'

To be in his life and not have his love was like being in a terrible hell-hole of a prison. To love him as she did and know that he only wanted her for sex, for the completely unemotional gratification of a very basic physical appetite, was like the worst form of torture anyone could devise.

And the worst thing was that she adored her persecutor.

‘Yes, I did. I do.'

It was the answer Cesare had been dreading. The answer that told him he had failed completely. He had used up all his ideas, and he had no idea at all what to put in their place.

Because the truth was that he was guilty as charged. He had made every one of the same mistakes as her father. He had tried to buy her affection. He had thought that if he could only get her married to him; if he could only keep her in the arrangement long enough, then she must inevitably come round. That if they spent long enough together, she would finally, eventually, fall in love with him and…

And what? They could live happily ever after?

He almost laughed aloud at the thought but then a swift glance into Megan's face, seeing the distress in her eyes stopped him dead. Every last trace of humour, even the
black, grimly cynical amusement that had just twisted in his gut, fled, leaving him icy cold and fatalistically resolved.

And scared out of his life.

He had come hard up against the one answer—the only answer—he could think of. He might have followed in Tom's footsteps, compounding all the older man's mistakes, to get this far, but at least he could learn the lesson his father-in-law had never understood. He could stop everything now, before it got any worse. He could accept the inevitable. And it was inevitable that Megan was never going to love him.

He had to accept that—and let her go. If he didn't, then she was going to end up hating him as her mother had hated her father. And that he couldn't bear.

So he had to stop this now. Even if it killed him to do it.

Drawing a deep, rawly painful breath, he forced himself to speak.

‘Okay then, you don't have to suffer any more. You can go.'

‘What?'

It was the last thing Megan had been expecting, and because of that she couldn't believe she had heard right. Her head reeled in shock, her thoughts spinning.

‘What did you say? I don't understand.'

‘It's quite simple. You said that living here was like being in prison. Well, I'm putting that right. I'm taking off the shackles, unlocking the door…'

To Megan's horror he actually marched into the hallway, wrenching open the big front door, letting in the soft evening breeze, the low, distant sound of the sea.

‘You can go—walk—anytime you want. This marriage was a mistake right from the very start. I can't give you
what you want and quite frankly the appeal of what I was getting from you had already started to fade.'

Not the physical desire, he admitted. But sex without emotion—without love—was not what he wanted. In fact it had become its own form of torture to him, growing more disturbing with every day.

It wasn't that the passion was waning. That was still there. Always would be. He doubted if anything could ever take that from him. In fact, the worst thing about this moment—this terrible, appalling, hateful moment—was the way that even as he had walked past her his body had been responding to the tug of hers.

Foolishly, weakly, he had gone too close to her, and his arm had brushed her. Just his arm, but everything that was masculine in him had leapt in excitement, the ache of hungry need adding to and aggravating the other, emotional agony he was enduring.

And that made it impossible to think straight. To try and couch his feelings in reasonable words. To say what he had to say clearly but gently.

‘There's nothing else to understand. I'm ending it. A clean break—finish—here and now. I'll start divorce proceedings first thing in the morning. Don't look at me like that! I'm giving you what you wanted! I'm setting you free. Just go!'

Please go! Please leave now, before I say something so weak, so foolish that you'll despise me for ever.

But still she hesitated, dragging out the moment, the pain, until it was more than he could bear.

‘But…I can't go…I…I think I might be pregnant.'

And that was just too much. It was the final, the destructive straw on the camel's back. And just like that one burden too many, it broke him completely, shattering his thought-processes into a million, myriad pieces.

‘Oh no, lady! No way! You caught me that way before. I won't put my head in the noose a second time! Not even for you.'

And before Megan could reach him; before she could catch his arm, restrain him, try to get him to listen, he had gone. Walking out of the door and out of her life. And she had no idea at all how—or if—she could ever get him back.

‘O
H
, C
ESARE
,
fratello mio.
You have to be the world's greatest fool—or at least the worst one that I know!'

His brother Gio's voice sounded in Cesare's head as he brought the car to a halt outside the villa and switched off the engine.

‘I thought you told me that you loved this woman!'

‘I do!' Cesare had told him. ‘I adore her! I love her more than life itself! But I can't live with her!'

‘And why not?'

‘Because it would kill me to live with her and know that she can never love me.'

‘And who told you this? Did Megan? Did you ever ask her? And did you ever tell her how you feel?'

He hadn't waited for an answer. He'd read it in his brother's face and he flung up his hands in a gesture of exasperation and disgust.

‘
Madre de Dio
, Cesare—what has happened to your brain? Do you expect the poor girl to read your mind? Let me tell you something…'

And the something he had to say had had Cesare racing for his car, slamming it into gear and heading back to the villa as swiftly as the winding, narrow roads would let him.

But now that he was here he found that his heart was pounding as if he had run a marathon. He wanted this moment to be over so that he would know once and for all where he stood. And he also knew that if he could delay it for ever, then he would.

At least right now he still had a chance either way. But
if he asked her how she felt and the answer was not the one he wanted, then he was done for; his future—the future he hoped for—blocked once and for all and no hope left.

And then there was the problem of the taxi.

It had passed him on the way here—heading away from the villa. And, as it was empty and this road went nowhere else but to his house, then the taxi's passenger had to be still at the villa. Who did Megan know on the island who she could call to come and see her like this?

Some instinct kept his movements careful and quiet as he made his way into the house. He didn't want to alert anyone until he saw just how the land lay. And what he discovered made him thankful he had adopted such a plan, his heart clenching in bitter anger when he saw just who the visitor was.

They were out by the pool at the back of the house, which was why they hadn't heard his car arrive. Megan was beautiful as ever in a long, white dress, short-sleeved and scoop-necked, her glorious hair slightly tousled by the breeze. The man with her he had never seen before in his life, but he didn't need any introductions or explanations to work out just who he was.

‘You and Gary Rowell could have been brothers,' Megan had said, and looking through the open patio doors at the man who stood beside his wife, he knew that her description had been totally accurate. If it wasn't for the fact that he had just left Gio in his half-brother's house where he had spent the night after walking out on Megan yesterday, then he would have assumed that that was who this visitor was. But of course there was only one man he could be.

‘Rowell!'

The name hissed through his lips as he stepped back hastily, moving out of sight of either of the two people by
the pool. He didn't want to be seen until he had worked out just what was going on here.

And what he feared was the worst.

How could Gary Rowell have come to be here, at his villa, unless Megan had let him know where she was? And to do that, she must have known that he was in London and looking for her. There was just enough time for her to have phoned him after their argument last night, told him to get on the first plane out here… And if she had done that, then she must still love him.

For a moment he was tempted to leave. But even as he turned he heard Gio's words, harsh and stark inside his head, and knew that he couldn't give in now. Sighing, he turned back again.

Megan was still in shock from Gary's sudden appearance. When she had heard the sound of a car drawing up outside the villa, she had assumed that it was Cesare, coming back at last. And so she had rushed to the door, pulled it open and, at first, she had almost believed that the tall, dark man outside was in fact her husband.

But then she saw the blue of his eyes, heard the voice.

‘Hi babe.'

Only one man had ever called her ‘babe' in just that drawl. Only one man had ever grinned that ‘Aren't you glad to see me?' grin. And that man was someone she had never wanted to see again.

But here he was, large as life, on her doorstep. And the worst thing was that she couldn't tell him to turn right round and go away because, even as she registered just who he was, the taxi driver, obviously paid and dismissed, was heading off down the road far too fast to be called back.

And she couldn't just leave him standing outside, much as she might like to. She had felt obliged to offer him at least a drink and somewhere to sit while he waited for
another taxi to take him away again. Which couldn't be soon enough as far as she was concerned. She had spent a long, desperately lonely night waiting for Cesare and she certainly didn't want him to find Gary here when he got back.

He
had
to come back. He couldn't stay away for ever. If nothing else, he had to return to the villa to get some clothes. And so she had waited for him. And waited. And waited. Until at last she had fallen asleep on the settee, sleeping in total exhaustion until just twenty minutes before the taxi had arrived.

‘Lovely place, you have here.'

Gary was clearly determined to make conversation.

‘It's my husband's house. He and his family are Sicilians.'

‘So I heard. I have to admit that I couldn't believe my ears when your father told me you were married and where you lived. But then I heard just
who
you'd married and it all fell into place.'

Megan frowned lightly in confusion.

‘I don't know what you mean.'

‘Oh, come on, babe, you know exactly what I mean. Cesare Santorino—friend of the family—loaded from what I hear. You've done very nicely for yourself. And you always did have the hots for him.'

Megan bit her lip hard. She'd forgotten how one night, in a foolish attack of honesty, she'd told Gary all about Cesare, and how he'd callously (or so she had thought then) rejected her at the New Year party.

That had been part of her downfall, she remembered bitterly. Gary had been very understanding. Apparently deeply sympathetic. She'd trusted him, fallen into his arms, and he had expertly taken advantage of the situation to get her into his bed.

‘I see you rethought your stance on abortion too. Clearly you got rid of it, in spite of all your protestations. Otherwise you'd be showing a lot more by now. Clever girl! I don't suppose your Sicilian would have wanted you if he'd known you were carrying another man's bastard. Where is your lord and master by the way?'

‘He—he'll be back any minute.'

She prayed it would be true.

‘Gary, exactly what are you doing here?'

‘You don't think I just dropped by to say Hi?'

‘Quite frankly, no. I don't believe it.'

She didn't believe what she heard next, either. Listening in growing horror to the story Gary poured out, she was forced to wonder what, apart from the resemblance to Cesare, she had ever seen in him. She had known that Gary Rowell was shallow, selfish and totally thoughtless. Now she discovered that he was greedy, mercenary and thoroughly unscrupulous as well.

Judging her on his own immoral terms, he had assumed that she would never have confessed her pregnancy to Cesare. Obviously believing she really had been carrying his child, he had also decided that she must have got rid of it—and that she would be terrified of her new husband finding out. And he was offering to keep quiet about their relationship—for a price.

‘Your guy can afford it,' he said, a wave of his hand indicating the luxurious villa, the water of the pool glinting in the morning sunlight. ‘And surely you can persuade him to give you what you need—just be extra nice to him in bed and I'm sure he'll come through. And then he won't need to know about our love affair…'

Megan had had enough. She didn't want to hear any more. And she certainly didn't have time or inclination to deliver the truth in anything other than its starkest form.

‘He knows,' she said baldly. ‘Cesare knows everything. You don't think I could have married him and not been completely honest? He knows all there is to know about you and me! And don't even try to call it a love affair because it was nothing of the sort! There was no
love
between us—never was. I might have been stupid enough to believe that once but not any more! Now I know what love is really like…'

She broke off hastily, interrupted by a savage expletive from the man before her.

‘Are you saying…' he snarled, ‘that I've come all this way for nothing?'

The expression on his face frightened her and she took a hasty step backwards.

‘That's exactly what I'm saying. I want you to go.'

‘Why you—!'

She saw what was coming but was unable to stop it. Gary launched himself at her, hand upraised. But he never reached her. There was a blur of movement. A tall, dark figure dressed completely in black emerged from the house at speed and Gary was whirled away from her, his attack swiftly converted into a desperate defence. After the briefest of struggles, he was suddenly thrown backwards, arms whirling ineffectively, until he landed with a heavy splash right in the shallow end of the pool.

Cesare waited a nicely calculated minute until his defeated opponent surfaced again, spluttering inelegantly and spitting water, and then at last he spoke.

‘You heard the lady—she wants you to go. Get out of my sight. And in future, if you're wise, you'll leave my wife alone—or you'll have me to answer to.'

Turning on his heel, he held out his hand to Megan and led her firmly into the house, shutting the patio doors se
curely behind them, and drawing the curtains over them for good measure. Only then did he turn to Megan.

‘Are you okay? Did he touch you!? If he did, I'll…'

‘I'm okay,' Megan assured him.

‘All the same, you'd better sit down.'

He led her to a chair, lowered her into it.

‘Can I get you something? A glass of water? Tea?'

‘Cesare, I'm
fine.
'

She wished he would just stop fussing. From the moment he had first appeared, springing to her rescue like some action adventure hero, she hadn't been able to get a good look at his face. And she needed to be able to see his face to read his emotions in it. She needed to be able to judge his mood. To try to understand why he was here, and what, apart from the instinctive reaction to protect her from Gary, he felt about her.

‘Please, sit down—or at least stay still for a moment.'

He complied with the second request at least. But even when he was still, she couldn't begin to tell what frame of mind he was in. His face was expressionless and unrevealing, his eyes blank and opaque.

‘Thank you for your help out there. I was worried…'

‘I wouldn't have let him hurt you. If he'd touched you, I'd have torn him limb from limb. But men like that are cowards. They might try and threaten someone weaker than themselves, but they'd never take on a real opponent.'

‘You soon sorted him out anyway.'

In spite of, perhaps because of, her uncertainty about Cesare himself and the tension of the moment she found that an attack of nervous giggles was bubbling up inside her, forcing its way out.

‘And the look on his face as he hit the water—it was priceless!'

‘He should count himself lucky that he got away with a
soaking,' Cesare growled, his expression not lightening in the slightest in response to her laughter. ‘If I hadn't been here…'

‘But you were.'

Abruptly the giggles vanished, leaving her painfully sober and once more unsure of herself.

‘Cesare,
why
are you here?'

For a moment that black glare faltered, then his control slammed back into place.

‘Isn't it obvious? You said you were pregnant.'

Any last trace of laughter fled from her mind at his tone. Of course, he was here for the baby. But did that mean he was here for her too? After all, she came along with her child—but were they also together in Cesare's heart?

‘But you said you weren't putting your head in that noose again…'

Cesare sighed, pushing a hand through the darkness of his hair.

‘I said a lot of stupid things last night, of which that was one. If you're pregnant with my child, of course I'll be there for you.'

And what were the other ‘stupid things'? Megan didn't know if she dared ask. Instead, she stuck to practical things.

‘Where've you been? I waited up all night and you never came.'

‘No. I went to Gio's house. I needed to calm down, get my head straight. I talked to Gio a lot and he said some things that got me thinking.'

Now she had to ask.

‘Thinking about what?'

‘You and me for one.'

Megan's mouth had gone very dry and nothing she could do would relieve it.

‘I think I'd like that glass of water now,' she managed to croak.

But she couldn't wait for him to come back with it and she followed him into the kitchen, a thousand butterflies fluttering in her stomach.

‘Is there a you and me to think about, Cesare?' she asked hesitantly.

He didn't answer at first but finished pouring the water then handed the glass to her, ice clinking on the side, and she drank from it gratefully, the cool water easing her parched throat.

‘I need to tell you something,' he said, his expression worryingly sombre.

She would never know how she swallowed that last mouthful of water, somehow getting it past the tight knot that had closed her throat. Carefully she put the glass down on the nearest counter.