“Don’t you think I deserved answers, back when we got married? Don’t you think I deserved to know that I was just a pawn in a dynastic marriage agreement between you and my father? Don’t you think I deserved to know from the outset that you had no intention of treating me as anything other than a flatmate for the duration of our marriage?”
He pressed his palms to the kitchen counter. “Our marriage had many faults,” he conceded. “But your virginity five years later is what I would like to discuss.”
“Tough. I’m not interested in having that conversation with you.”
He stared at her, obviously not used to having his wishes ignored.
“Is he gay?”
Her lips dropped open. “No! He’s not gay.”
“Then –,”
“Couldn’t the same question be asked of you?” She prompted.
His jaw stiffened. “It took every ounce of my willpower not to sleep with you, believe me.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said with a simple lift of her shoulders.
“Then you weren’t paying attention.”
She shook her head. “This is ridiculous. I told you, I didn’t come here to talk.”
“No, you came here to sleep with me. Mission accomplished.”
“Exactly.” She thrust her hands on her hips. It was a mistake. It drew his gaze to the swell of her cleavage and out of nowhere a wave of desire washed over her anew.
She dropped her hands to her sides.
“Why me?”
Her throat felt thick with the sudden onset of unshed tears.
Because you broke my heart. Because you made me feel undesirable, and like no man would ever want me. Because I wanted to sleep with you and walk away.
She straightened her spine, trying to assume an expression of icy disinterest. “Because I was in London,” she said simply. “And so were you.”
His expression showed surprise.
“Good night, Massimo.” Then, with a small shake of her head. “Make that ‘good bye’. I don’t ever want to see you again.”
Chapter Three
As a doctor, Alessia knew the symptoms of pregnancy, but as a woman, it was easy to ignore them, so somehow it took weeks of feeling nauseous and dizzy, of lower back pain and tingling nipples before Alessia finally sat bolt upright in bed one night and reached for her phone, double checking the app she used to track her cycle.
“Oh my God.” She squeezed her eyes shut and flopped back against the pillows, her mouth filling with something like acid, her stomach squeezing. “No.” She shook her head from side to side as if by doing so she could push the thought away, but even as she did so, the reality of having conceived Massimo’s baby filled her with a bubbling sense of warmth. Massimo’s baby.
No, not Massimo’s baby. Her baby. She pressed the palm of one hand to her stomach, a smile lifting the corners of her lips. She’d always known she wanted children. It was one of the reasons she’d agreed to marry Sam. They’d been friends and she’d liked him, and he’d been so different to Massimo and men like him, but also, he’d been absolutely certain that he wanted a family, and she’d believed he’d be a good father.
A knot formed in her throat; she swallowed past it, blinking her eyes and refusing to think about the fact that the two men she’d thought she might spend the rest of her life with had walked away from her – and so easily! Since the brief conversation with Sam in which he informed her he’d changed her mind about their wedding, she hadn’t seen nor heard from him.
She rolled onto her side, staring out of her window. The reassuring noises of Ondechiara filled her ears, making her lips curve into a smile and her heart swell. But doubts quickly followed.
She was pregnant with Massimo’s baby and here in Ondechiara, where his family owned a huge amount of land and one of the most prestigious homes in the small Italian bay town, there was no way she could keep it secret from him.
Secret?
Her heart began to stampede through her chest. Was she seriously considering that?