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.
The blood was beating in her veins, hot and hectic. Cesare was speaking again, and she heard his words, heard the sensual languor in them that only heated her blood the more.
‘You must let me know, Carla, when it is safe for us to resume physical closeness. I know that in the early months it is not advised, but—’
She pushed back her chair, scraping it on the stone. ‘I...I need to lie down!’ Her voice was high-pitched, and even as she said the words she felt her colour mount.
He was on his feet too, his emotions back under control, back on their leash. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘You must rest.’
He glanced at his watch. Then back at Carla. Carla, the woman for whom, for all the complications and confusion and complexity, he felt one emotion that was very, very simple.
Desire.