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.