‘No, thank you.’
‘Then I’ll come to you.’
‘I haven’t invited you to supper. Good day to you,
She hopped nimbly onto Jason’s back and trotted away. Bernardo cursed but he didn’t make the mistake of following her.
Two patients to go, she thought as she neared the end of evening surgery. Her back was aching and she was tired after the heavy day. Not long now, then she could put her feet up.
But when she looked out into the waiting room she found another presence. Bernardo glanced up and met her eyes, his own challenging, telling her she couldn’t avoid him.
At last she waved off the last patient and locked her door, knowing that she couldn’t avoid this confrontation any longer. She would have liked to put it off because she didn’t know what she was going to say to him. When he’d appeared out of nowhere that afternoon her heart had leapt unreasonably. But she’d controlled her momentary joy, telling herself it meant nothing. She was simply relieved that he’d come to rescue her. Apart from that, she was hollow inside. That was what she tried to believe.
And now here he was, looking so exactly as she’d pictured him that it was as though her anguished dreams had come to life. For two months she’d battled against despair, one moment hardening her heart against him, the next moment telling herself not to become hard because she couldn’t afford to.
There were the nights when she’d cried herself to sleep, and the nights when she’d slept like a stone from the moment her head touched the pillow, because she’d worked herself into the ground. But no matter how long or how deeply she slept she always awoke feeling as though she’d been dredged up from the bottom of a deep pit. She grew so used to waking up feeling bad that at first she missed the signs that matters had changed irrevocably.
It was almost comical, she thought without amusement. She, a doctor, to be caught so easily. Seduced and abandoned like some idiotic Victorian maiden without knowledge or common sense.
And now he was here, and she didn’t know what she wanted to say to him.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked quietly.
‘Yes, everything’s fine with me. Can I offer you some coffee?’ She went into the kitchen without waiting for his answer. ‘And something to eat?’ She was looking in her freezer.
‘No, thank you.’
‘It’s no trouble.’ She was still rummaging, not looking at him.
‘Will you leave that for a moment and talk to me?’ he demanded.
‘Talking to you is dangerous, Bernardo. We talked two months ago, remember?’
He drew a sharp breath. ‘I went because I couldn’t bear to stay.’
‘You don’t understand-perhaps I was wrong to go, but it seemed the best for both of us.’
‘And so you sent Bondini to buy me out.’
‘Lorenzo told me how he behaved. I never meant him to bully you. I’ve seen him since and made him sorry. He won’t be back.’
He waited for her to answer but she was busy with supper.
‘Lorenzo told me something else too,’ he said at last.
‘Lorenzo seems to have been busy.’
‘He’s my-my brother. He cares about us.’
‘Yes,’ she said in a softened voice. ‘He came to see how I was, and then he got word to you. He’s a kind man.’ She glanced up suddenly, taking him by surprise. ‘Not like you.’
‘You know what I am,’ he said harshly. ‘I’m a devil. I can’t help myself. You should have avoided me when you had the chance. But you can’t avoid me now.’
‘Now? What’s so different about now, Bernardo?’
‘You mean-you’re not-?’
‘Pregnant? Yes, I am. I’m carrying your child. But nothing’s changed.’ She faced him. ‘Do you understand that? Nothing.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘NOTHING’S changed,’ she repeated when he didn’t answer.
‘You can’t say that,’ he said flatly. ‘Everything has changed.’
She tried to turn away but he took hold of her shoulders and kept her facing him. Even with such slight contact, the remembered feel of her body unnerved him, and he kept his hands there, sensing her warmth through her shirt. If she’d shown the slightest sign of softening he would have drawn her into his arms and kissed her ardently. And then, even he, who was uneasy with words, would have tried to tell her of the bittersweet happiness that had possessed him ever since he’d suspected that she was to bear his child. He was an old-fashioned man and, above all, a Sicilian. To create a child with the beloved woman was a joy that wiped out all else, making old fears and torments at least manageable. He couldn’t have expressed these things, but he would have done his awkward best if he’d seen anything in her face to encourage him. But there was nothing, and his heart sank.
‘Everything has changed,’ he repeated, like a man trying to convince himself.
The buzzer on the microwave sounded, and she drew away from him. ‘Well, one thing has altered,’ she conceded. ‘The people here don’t know what to make of me any more. They got used to my foreign tongue and my new-fangled ways and they closed their eyes to my reprehensible trousers. But now,’ she added lightly, ‘I think a few of them feel I may have gone just a little too far.’
It was when she talked like this that he felt all at sea. Colourful dramatics he could have coped with, but ironic English understatement left him floundering. Only one thing got through to him with the force of a punch in the stomach. She, not he, was master of this situation.
‘Are they treating you badly?’ he asked, recalling the curious looks she’d received that afternoon.
‘Not really. I’m not showing yet and they’re not certain. But they look at me and wonder.’
‘But how did the rumour start at all, so soon?’
‘Mother Francesca knows, and Sister Elvira came in suddenly last week, while we were talking. I remembered afterwards that Sister Elvira is a cousin of Nico Sartone.’
‘That explains everything.’
‘Yes, he must be thrilled to have a weapon against me at last. I could strangle that man. He doesn’t care whom he hurts as long as he can get back at me. People who need my help are slowly becoming nervous of asking for it in case their neighbours disapprove. Not all of them, though. He thought he could turn the whole town against me, and he was wrong.’
‘Yes, it’ll be a pleasure to wipe the smile off his face,’ Bernardo growled.
‘How are you going to do that?’
He frowned. ‘
‘How?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘Not to me,’ Angie said stubbornly.
He stared at her. ‘The sooner our marriage takes place the better.’
There. It had happened. He wanted to marry her. But there was no surge of gladness such as should have blessed this moment. Instead, the other self-the awkward one who had to make everything difficult, and whom Bernardo could evoke in her with fatal ease-became not merely indignant but stubborn. Just who did he think he was?
‘Us? Get married?’ she echoed, as though experimenting with a new language. ‘Why would we do that?’
He was floundering again. Angie’s eyes were full of a cool, faintly hostile, appraisal that baffled him. ‘Because we are having a baby,’ he said.
‘
