‘I have to go,’ she half muttered.
‘I still want you.’
‘You’re practically married!’ She flung him a look filled with accusation.
What did his fiancée-to-be look like? she wondered. It was an arranged marriage, if he was to be believed, and who could believe a guy who’d lied once? She drew some comfort from the thought that the woman in question might just be nothing much to look at and then hated herself for allowing her thoughts to travel down that uncharitable route.
Since Luca could hardly deny that reality, he maintained a tactful silence. The taste of her mouth was still on his, though, sending his thoughts into wild disarray. He didn’t want to notice anything about her but he was noticing everything, from the slight tremor rippling through her long body to the strands of white-blonde hair escaping to brush against her cheek. He wanted to touch so badly that he had to bunch his hands into fists to stop himself from reaching forward.
‘Are you in love with her?’ Cordelia whispered, hating the way she wanted an answer to that question, even if the answer might be as painful as having a knife twisted in her gut.
Luca remained silent. Where was the point in going down this road? It was as it was.
‘That question is inappropriate,’ he finally said, when she continued to look at him with huge, accusing, wounded eyes.
Cordelia shrugged. The giddy feeling was sweeping over her again. Of course he loved the woman. He just didn’t want to come right out and admit it because to do so would have been conclusive proof of the cad he really was and there wasn’t a man in the world who would voluntarily have chosen to hang that description round his neck if he could avoid doing so.
The picture building in her head was not an attractive one.
He’d gone sailing in his expensive toy on one last adventure as a free man before he tied the knot. She’d happened to walk slap bang into his path and he’d thought... Why not?
She’d utterly and completely misread him. She knew that she could no longer weakly try and give him the benefit of the doubt. The fact that he refused to deny that the woman he was betrothed to marry was more than just a convenient wife said it all.
She had to get out of his great big palace of a house because it was pressing down on her, making her feel nauseous.
She thought of the baby inside her and the utter mess she had walked into and suddenly, without warning, she could feel herself falling and it was the most peculiar sensation.
It was as though she had left her body and was looking down at herself. Looking at the way her legs began to weaken and her eyes began to droop and her shoulders slumped and then her whole body went limp and slowly, oh, so slowly, she crumpled to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
He caught her before she hit the ground. Even as she briefly lost consciousness, she was aware of his arms around her waist and of him carrying her urgently over to a sofa.
Her eyes fluttered open and she shrank back because he was so close to her that the smell of him filled her nostrils and made her feel faint all over again.
‘You’re in shock,’ he said. She began sitting up and he gently kept her still, his eyes anxiously scanning her face. ‘You’re not going to be getting up just yet. I don’t want you fainting again.’
‘I never faint.’
‘I’m going to argue with that statement, considering I’ve just caught you before you hit the ground. Wait here. I’ll be back in five.’ He vaulted to his feet but stayed where he was for a few seconds, as though making sure she obeyed him.
Much as Cordelia wanted to run as fast as she could to the door and then make a bolt for it, she felt as weak as a kitten.
She was in shock. He was right. She sighed and lay back, closing her eyes and blocking out the sight of his tall, commanding figure.
She only opened her eyes when she heard the soft pad of his returning footsteps. In his hand he carried a glass of amber liquid and he positioned himself on the very edge of the sofa and gently placed his hand under the nape of her neck.
‘You need to drink this.’
‘What is it?’ she whispered.
‘Brandy. It’ll do the trick.’
Cordelia whipped her head to one side.
‘Drink it, cara. It’ll make you feel better and then I’ll make sure you have a bed here for the night. I know this is probably not the outcome you envisaged when you began your trip over here, but...like I said...’
‘I’m not drinking any of that stuff.’
‘For God’s sake. I’m trying to help you. You’re deathly white!’
‘I can’t drink it!’ The words were out before she could claw them back and he stared at her, puzzled.
‘Why not?’
‘Because...it wouldn’t be a good idea...’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’m pregnant.’
She hadn’t meant to say that. She’d decided, just as soon as she’d heard about his soon-to-be engagement to the woman who came from the same background as him and was his perfect match, that silence was the only option, but here, on his sofa, with legs like jelly, staring at a glass of brandy, the admission could not be stopped.
Maybe in her heart, she thought, she’d come to tell him about the pregnancy and she would have ended up doing so, whatever the circumstances.
A silence, thick with unspoken questions, settled between them as he stared at her with narrowed, incredulous eyes.
He wasn’t taking any of it in and she could hardly blame him. In all those scenarios he had concocted explaining why she had travelled to Italy, none of them had touched on what should have been a likely contender.
‘I’m sorry. I don’t think I heard what you just said.’
‘I’m sorry, Luca. I
