by Julia James
Vito’s chin lifted. He paid no attention to Carla. ‘Your marriage plans are going to have to be altered,’ he said to Cesare. ‘Carla is pregnant.’
* * *
Cesare’s car speeded along the autostrada heading into the Lazio countryside. At his side, Carla sat silent. Memory was biting like a wolf in her mind. How she had sat beside Cesare like this that first weekend together as he’d sped her towards his beautiful little rococo love nest.
I thought I could handle an affair with Cesare. A civilised, sensual affair, for the mutual enjoyment of both of us.
How utterly, totally wrong she had been. How incomparably stupid. Folly after folly! All compounded by the single greatest folly she had committed.
To have fallen in love with him. Cesare di Mondave, Conte di Mantegna. A man who would never marry her.
Except—and that wolf bit again, in her throat now—now that was exactly what he was prepared to do.
The irony of it was agonising. Unbearable. As unbearable as the words she had heard her step-cousin uttering last night. And Cesare’s explosive outburst... Vito’s coldly terse assurance.
Both of them had ignored her until a moan had come from her lips, and then suddenly they’d both been there, bending over her.
She’d pushed them both away, struggling upright. Cesare’s arm had come around her instantly, but she’d pulled herself free. Her head had been pounding, her heart racing.
‘Leave me alone! Both of you!’
A look had been thrown between Cesare and Vito. Cesare had said something to Vito she had not been able to hear, hearing only the grimness in his voice. Then Vito had nodded.
‘Be sure you do,’ he’d said, in that same terse voice.
Then Cesare had looked at Carla. His face had been unreadable. He’d seemed a thousand miles away. A million.
‘All the necessary arrangements will be made,’ he said to her. ‘I will fetch you tomorrow. Until then—’
He’d exchanged one more look with Vito, and then he had gone. It had been Vito who’d seen her back to her apartment, talking to her—at her—all the way. She’d said nothing, her mouth tight, compressed. Right up until Vito had seen her into her apartment.
Then she’d turned to him. ‘I am not marrying Cesare,’ she’d said.
Vito had said nothing. And then—‘He has given me his word that he will. For now, that is enough.’
He’d left her, and this morning Cesare had arrived. She’d seen his eyes moving around the apartment and had known that he was remembering the fatal night he’d forced his way in, daring her to make him leave.
And now he’s reaping the consequences.
She’d wanted to laugh, hysterically, but had silenced herself. Almost wordlessly he’d ushered her down to his waiting car and she’d gone with him, her suitcase packed.
She’d wanted to go back to Spain, to her mother, and yet here she was, in Cesare’s car, going back to the place that had once been a place of bliss for her. Now, it was evident, it was going to be the scene where Cesare di Mondave steeled himself to offer to marry his former mistress who’d so disastrously got herself pregnant.
‘Is it cool enough for you? I can turn up the air conditioning.’
Cesare’s voice interrupted her bleak thoughts. His tone was polite. Distant.
‘Perfectly cool, thank you,’ she answered, her tone matching his.
He drove on in silence.
At the villa, Lorenzo was there to greet them, as he always had been. Carla was glad of his presence—it insulated her from Cesare.
Yet as lunch was served, and Lorenzo departed, suddenly she was alone with Cesare again. She watched him reach for his wine glass. Then set it down, untouched. He looked across at her from the head of the table to herself at the foot. His face was still expressionless.
It hurt her to see him. Hurt her eyes to take in the features of his face, which had once been so familiar to her—so familiar that she could have run her fingertips over its contours in the dark and known it to be him out of all the men in all the world.
And now it was the face of a stranger. She could not bear it...
But bear it she must. Must bear, too, the words he now spoke to her.
‘Would you have told me that you were pregnant had your step-cousin not intervened?’ he asked. His words were staccato.
Carla looked at him. ‘No,’ she said.
Something flashed in his eyes, but all he said was, ‘Why not?’
She gave a shrug—the tiniest gesture. ‘To what purpose? You were engaged to another woman.’ She paused. ‘You still are.’
The dark flash came again. ‘You must leave it to me to communicate with my...my former fiancée,’ he said heavily. His mouth was set. ‘You will understand, I am sure, that this will not be easy for her. This situation is nothing of her making and I must do all that I can to make it as comfortable for her as I can.’
She watched him pick up his wine glass again, and this time he drank deeply from it. His unreadable gaze came back to her.
‘Once I have spoken to Francesca—and out of courtesy also to her parents—our betrothal will be formally announced. Until that time I would be grateful...’ he took a breath ‘...if you would be...reticent about our engagement.’
Carla did not answer.
He went on. As if he were forcing himself. ‘And for the same reason I would ask you to stay here, in the villa, until I am free to become formally betrothed to you.’
Her answer was a silent inclination of her head.
For a long moment Cesare let his gaze rest on her. Emotions were mounting in his chest, but he kept them tightly leashed. It was essential for him to do so. He watched her pick up her knife and fork and start to eat. She did not look pregnant. But then, she was scarcely into her second trimester.
He felt his insides twist and knot.
She carries my child! A child she would never have told me about! I would have married Francesca—had children by her, a son to be my heir—while all along Carla would have been raising another child of mine, born outside marriage.
For a second—just a second—images flashed in his head. His ancestor, Count Alessandro, flanked by the two women in his life. His wife—the mother of his heir—and his mistress, her body rich with his bastard child.
That will not be me! Never.
Inside, he felt his leashed emotions lash him, as if trying to break free, but he only tightened the leash on them. It was not safe to do otherwise. He must ignore them, focus only on the practicalities of what must happen now. His world had just been turned upside down and his task was to deal with it.
Blank out everything else.
Blank out the memories that assailed him of how often he and Carla had retreated here to the villa to have private time together, relaxing away from their work, their busy lives. Private...intimate... Enjoying each other’s company, in bed and out. Enjoying their affair.
An affair he had ended because it could no longer continue—because of the commitment he had to make to his family responsibility, to the woman who had expected to marry him all her adult life.
The commitment that now, because of his own insane behaviour the night he’d gone to Carla’s apartment, driven by demons he had not known possessed him, he had to set aside. A commitment overridden by a new, all-consuming commitment. To the child Carla was carrying.
Only to the child?
The question was searing in his head, but he must not let it. Not now—not yet.
Once more he yanked at the leash on his emotions, tightening his grip on them, and let his eyes rest on Carla, so pale, so silent.
Across the table she felt Cesare’s tense gaze on her. How often had she eaten here with Cesare in the months they’d spent together? Taking their ease—talking, smiling
, laughing—their eyes openly entwining with each other, the air of intimacy between them as potent as their glances.
Yet now it was as if they were each encased in ice.
What can we say to each other? What is there to say? How can we ever speak to each other as we once did? Comfortable, companionable...
‘Are you well in the pregnancy?’ Cesare’s words, still staccato, interrupted her bleak, unanswerable questions.
‘Perfectly,’ she answered, her tone of voice echoing his. ‘Some nausea, but no more than that. It will ease as I go into the next trimester.’
He nodded. ‘I’m glad to hear it.’ He paused again. ‘I’ll book an appointment with whatever obstetrician in Rome you choose. And perhaps it would be sensible to book you into a delivery clinic before long.’
‘Thank you,’ she answered. She tried to think of something else to say, and failed.
‘Have you had an ultrasound yet?’
Another stilted question. Only highlighting the strain between them.
She shook her head, answering no just as stiltedly.
‘Perhaps we should book one. Are there any other tests that need to be done?’
‘I’ll speak to the doctor, but it should all be very straightforward.’
He nodded. ‘Good.’
Good? The word echoed in Carla’s head, mocking her. ‘Good’ was a million miles from what it was. She felt nausea rising up in her throat and had to fight it down. She had just told Cesare she was coming out of morning sickness, but this nausea didn’t come from her body, from her pregnancy.
It came from a source much deeper inside her.
Stolidly, she ate her way through the rest of the meal.
Painstakingly, Cesare kept a limping conversation going, talking about her pregnancy, asking questions she could scarcely answer.
When the meal was over they repaired for coffee to the terrace, underneath a shady parasol, catching the lightly cooling breeze. Out in the beautiful walled garden the sun sparkled off the water in the pool.
‘How much exercise can you take?’ Cesare asked.
‘As much as I like, really. Swimming is the best—especially as I get closer to my due date,’ she answered.
Her eyes went to the pool. So did Cesare’s.
Is he remembering too? Remembering how we swam stark naked beneath the stars?
Emotion gripped her, like a knife sliding between her ribs.
Without thinking, Carla reached for the silver coffee jug, pouring black coffee for Cesare as she had done a hundred times before, handing him the delicate porcelain cup and saucer with its silver crested coffee spoon. He sketched a constrained smile of thanks and took it, sitting back in his chair, crossing one long leg over the other.
Absently, he stirred his coffee. Then, abruptly, he looked across at her as she poured hot milk into her own coffee.
‘We can make this work, you know, Carla. We just have to...to set our minds to it.’ There was resolution in his voice, determination in his expression.
She lifted her cup to her lips, took a sip, then lowered it. She looked across at him. Her eyes were bleak. Negating his resolve.
‘How can we?’ she said. ‘You’d be marrying your mistress. How can that ever work?’ Her voice was tight—so tight it must surely snap, like wire under unbearable tension.
‘You were never my “mistress”!’ The words came from him like bullets. Automatic, instinctive. ‘Do not paint yourself as such! We had an affair, Carla—a relationship. It was simply that—’ He broke off.
She shut her eyes. Took a ragged breath. She would finish for him. Tell the truth that had always been there, right from the start—the truth that was not her fault, nor his, but that had always set the terms of their relationship.
‘It was simply that marriage to me was never on the cards for you—and it still doesn’t have to be, Cesare! I’m perfectly prepared to stay stashed away in Spain with my mother. I’ll never show my face in Rome again! If you want to pay towards the child’s upkeep, you’re welcome—but I don’t need your money. I’ll sign any document you like never to make a claim on your estate, or your heirs.’
She fell silent. Breathless. Inside her there seemed to be a knot—a tight, hard knot that was getting tighter and harder every second. She kept her eyes on Cesare. Fixed. Resolute.
I have to say this—I have to do this. He must hear from me that I do not want this marriage.
She felt a crying out in her heart.
Not a marriage like this! Oh, not a marriage like this!
Across her heart a jagged knife seemed to be dragging its serrated blade. Had she ever had such insanely impossible hopes that he might be falling in love with her? That last evening of their affair, when he’d been so different, she’d thought—dear God, she’d really, truly thought—it might be because he was recognising what she had come to mean to him!
The jagged knife drew her heart’s blood from her. But now all she was to him was a burden. An obligation. A duty he must fulfil.
For a moment—an instant—she thought she saw emotion flash darkly across his face. Then it was shuttered.
‘That is out of the question,’ he said.
He drank his coffee, jerkily lifting the cup to his lips, precisely setting it back down, as if every muscle were under tight control.
He looked across at her. ‘Once,’ he said, ‘it might have been acceptable to have a...a second family, an informal arrangement.’
Into his head flashed that Caradino portrait of Count Alessandro’s mistress, the mother of his illegitimate children, her swollen belly. He thrust the image from his head.
‘But that is out of the question these days!’ His voice was a snap—a lock to shut out any other possibility.
It did not silence Carla. Her violet eyes flared with emotion. ‘It’s just the opposite!’ she retorted. ‘There is no longer any social opprobrium in having children outside marriage. We don’t have to go through a marriage ceremony just for appearance’s sake! Not like—’
She broke off. A crushing sense of fatalism paralysed her. Words, unsaid, scars inside her head, played themselves silently.
Not like my parents had to...
Cesare’s shuttered expression did not change. ‘No child of mine will be born outside marriage,’ he said.
There were lines around his mouth, deep-scored. Carla stared at him, a stone in her chest. Then Cesare went on speaking, crossing his legs as if restless yet forced to sit still. Forced to endure what he was enduring.
‘When we are in a position to formally announce our engagement,’ he said, his voice coming from somewhere very distant, ‘you will come to the castello and take up residence there. We shall be married in the chapel and—’
‘No!’ Once again Carla’s defiant voice cut across him. Her chin went up and her eyes were burning violet. ‘There will be only a civil ceremony. Nothing more. That way...’ She took a ragged breath. ‘That way we can divorce, without impediment to your future marriage.’
His brows snapped together. ‘What are you saying?’ he demanded.
‘What has to be said! Oh, Cesare, if this is something we really have to do, then in God’s name let us do it so that it does the least damage possible!’
She ran her fingertips over her brow. She was hot suddenly, despite the shade, hot and breathless. How could she sit here with Cesare in this dreadful mockery, this travesty?
Her voice dropped. ‘Cesare, we can’t do anything else. A civil marriage to legitimise the birth, and then a civilised divorce.’
He was looking at her. ‘If you bear a son, he must be raised to his heritage,’ he said.
She looked at him. ‘Let me pray for a girl, then—that would solve everything, wouldn’t it, Cesare? A girl who can grow up with me and leave you fr
ee to marry the woman you want to marry and have your heir with. Wouldn’t that be the best? Wouldn’t it?’
He was looking at her, a strange expression on his face. She could not read it—but not because it was shuttered. Because there was something in it she had never seen before.
‘Is the thought of marriage to me so repulsive to you, Carla?’
She dropped her eyes. She had to. What could she say?
It would be unbearable! Unbearable to be married to you...loving you so much and yet being such a burden to you! Someone you don’t want—who is forcing herself on you simply because she’s carrying your child!
She swallowed. That jagged knife was in her throat now. She forced her eyes back to his, reaching for her coffee, making herself drink it.
‘No more than it is repulsive for you to marry me,’ she said, her voice low.
His gaze was on her—that strange, unreadable gaze that she could not recognise.
‘I don’t see why it should be repulsive at all,’ he said slowly, his eyes never leaving her. He took a breath. ‘After all, our time together showed we are, in fact, highly compatible. Neither of us were ever bored in each other’s company.’
As he spoke memory flickered in his head. Not of Carla, but of the dinner party with Francesca, in the USA, with all her physics colleagues talking about things he had not the faintest comprehension of. With Carla it had been quite different—
At the choking point of their leash, he could feel his emotions straining to be free. Unleashed. One, at least, he could set free, granting him release.
His long lashes dipped over his eyes, clearing them, leaving them with an expression that Carla recognised only too well, that drew from her a tremor that was deep inside her.
‘And sexually, of course, we are highly compatible.’
His gaze rested on her, only momentarily, but for long enough to send colour flaring out into her heated cheeks. She tore her gaze away, clattered her cup back on its saucer, stared out over the sparkling azure water of the pool, suddenly longing for its cooling depths.