Husband By Necessity

was ready to hear?

They went on the planned picnic, smiling and talking brightly as though nothing had happened: as though pretending could undo the damage.

He drove her down the mountain a short way, stopping at the spot where they had shared their first kiss.

‘This is the perfect place,’ she said. ‘Remember when we were here before?’

She heard the unease in her own voice and knew that he’d heard it too. How futile to recall a time that had gone. Even though it was just a few days ago, that moment, with its happiness, was already far in the past.

Their efforts to sound normal only made things worse. Something destructive had happened, but she still couldn’t make herself believe it was a serious threat to their love. What did money matter? But the churning unease inside her wouldn’t be calmed.

They ate the picnic, determinedly cheerful. Once Angie tried to raise the dangerous subject, but he side- stepped it neatly. At last silence fell between them. Angie looked around and found saw him lying back in the grass, one hand behind his head. Smiling, she leaned over him, and saw that he was asleep.

‘All right,’ she whispered. ‘When you wake up it will seem better.’

But when he awoke it wasn’t better. He looked at her with remote eyes, and she realised, with terror, that she didn’t know how to bridge the widening gap between them.

CHAPTER FIVE

A SLEEPLESS night left her feeling no better, and when Bernardo arrived at the Residenza early something in his face told her that things were worse. He regarded her with a cold, bitter, unfriendliness that she had thought never to see from him.

‘I wonder when you would have told me,’ he said quietly.

‘Told you what?’ she asked, although her fear was rising.

‘Yesterday I said that it was your father who was rich, not you. Why didn’t you tell me about the million he gave you?’

Dear God! she thought. Not like this. Please, not like this.

‘Because I couldn’t,’ she said desperately. ‘You were so worked up about his having money at all, I couldn’t make it worse. I would have told you, when we’d sorted this out, and you were ready to hear. How did you know?’

‘From the internet. I searched for your father last night. His name cropped up a good deal, especially on one site called Socialite Doctors. It had links to everything that’s ever been written about him. That’s how I found this.’ He spread out some pages on the table. ‘I printed it out.’

With dismay she recognised an article that had appeared a few months earlier. Her father, innocently proud of his new home set in extensive leafy grounds, had taken the journalist on a guided tour of its luxuries.

There was herself, described as ‘By day a dedicated doctor, by night, a girl who knows how to party.’ The picture showed her dancing a wild rumba in a revealing dress, her head thrown back in enjoyment. Enough of the background could be seen to show that this was a nightclub, the kind of place where the rich hung out, and only the very best champagne was served.

More pictures. Herself at the wheel of the car that was her pride and joy, and that nobody living on a doctor’s salary could have afforded. And her home in the most expensive part of London.

‘All this time,’ he said heavily, ‘you never told me.’

‘I wasn’t deceiving you. It just didn’t occur to me that it was an issue.’

‘But you deceived me yesterday about the money your father settled on you. I wonder how long you would have concealed the truth. And how much-or how little-you would have told me.’

‘You make it sound as though I had something to be ashamed of,’ she said angrily. ‘I haven’t committed a crime by being rich.’

‘No, you haven’t. But you should have been honest with me, and not let me fool myself with dreams about making you my wife and the life we might build together.’

‘When should I have told you?’ she demanded indignantly. ‘The day I arrived? Maybe when we met at the airport I should have said, “Keep your distance from me because I’m too rich for you.” How could I know it would matter? You’re not exactly poor yourself.’

‘The Martelli family is wealthy, not me. I’ve taken from them the bare minimum I felt entitled to, and don’t live like a rich man. You know why. I can’t change that. It’s too deeply a part of me. It would be like throwing away my soul.’

‘And I understand that but-’

‘You don’t begin to understand.’ Bernardo was very pale as he added, ‘I don’t entirely understand it myself. I only know that I must live this way. I was going to beg you to marry me. It would have been a hard decision for you, because Montedoro isn’t an easy place to live. But I thought you were like myself, used to a tough life, and perhaps, with love, it might be possible.’

‘It is possible,’ she said earnestly. ‘You think I don’t know about a tough life? I’m a doctor.’

‘And at the end of the day you go home to your Mayfair apartment with all its luxuries. You couldn’t live at the top of that mountain. You think you could, but you’d find otherwise when it was too late. And what then? You’d want to run away and live in Palermo. Or even England.’

‘You have a nice opinion of me,’ she said angrily. ‘A weakling who doesn’t know how to love or give.’

‘No, but I know this life, and you don’t. I know what you’d be letting yourself in for. You see Montedoro as it is now, in the summer sun, when the tourists are there. But in the winter the tourists go home and the town is swathed in freezing mist that soaks through to your bones. And the winds howl for weeks on end and sap your spirit.’

‘Well, would living in Palermo be so bad? It’s still Sicily and-’ She stopped at the sight of his face. ‘Never mind. I shouldn’t have said it.’

‘I’m glad you did. And you’re right. Why shouldn’t you live among the comforts you’re used to? But I can’t do that. There’s something in me that I can’t overcome. It drives me, it makes me do things I don’t want to do. I have to listen to it.’

‘All right, so I’ve got money. So let’s use it. Let’s spend some on your home and make it really comfortable. And if the winters are rough surely we could come down to Palermo for a few weeks-’

‘Living off your money you mean?’ he asked, white-faced.

‘Well, I’ve got it, and if it’s mine, it’s yours.’

‘Never!’ The word was like a whiplash. ‘Take money from you? You really think I’d do that?’

‘Why not? These days-’

As soon as she said ‘these days’, she realised what she was up against. Bernardo wasn’t a modern man with a modern attitude to women. He was a man with a soul in turmoil, whose absorption into a rich family had embittered him once, and who would fight like the devil to stop it happening again.

But even with the inevitable staring her in the face, she wouldn’t admit it. Not yet. She too knew how to fight, and her love was worth fighting for.

‘We’ve got to find a way around this,’ she said, trying to sound firm. ‘We’ve got something special. We can’t just give it up.’

‘If we were married it would lead to misery,’ he said wretchedly. ‘I can’t take money from you, and you can’t live without it. One day you’d go back to England to visit your family, and you wouldn’t return. And I-’ He shuddered.

‘What would you do?’ she whispered.

There was a long pause before he answered, and then she could hardly make out his words. ‘I think I might follow you.’

She misunderstood him and for a moment relief flooded her. ‘Well, then, if you-’