Page 37 of The Italian's Marriage Bargain

‘But you can letmedown?’ She could hear the jealous edge to her voice, see the weary resignation in his eyes as he shook his head, but still she couldn’t stop herself. Tonight meant everything; tonight there was so much she wanted—no, needed to say. But Anna clicked her fingers and Luca ran. ‘We’ve just made love, Luca. There are things I need to talk about.’

‘Me, me me!’ He shook his head, his eyes blazing. ‘You know, I almost feel sorry for you! You’re like a jealous two-year-old. Again and again I tell you it is over. It has been for years between Anna and me…’

‘She tried to make love to you the other week,’ Felicity retorted, but still Luca wouldn’t relent.

‘She made a mistake! She knows it is all over between us. I am married to you and Anna respects that! Has she not tried to be friends with you? Has she not rung you several times and tried to go for coffee? You moan you are lonely, that there is no one to talk to, yet when someone extends the hand of friendship you pull away.’

‘She used to be your lover!’ She was shouting now, utterly perplexed that he couldn’t see her point of view. ‘How can I be friends with someone you slept with? Mind you, maybe I’d better get used to it—after all, if you lined up all your ex-lovers half the female population would be ruled out.’ Bitching was something Felicity wasn’t used to, something she’d never done, but then again she’d never been in love before, never ridden the rollercoaster of emotions that came when you gave away your heart to a lousy playboy. The words that tumbled from her lips, and the scoffing laugh that followed were so alien Felicity almost didn’t recognise her own voice.

His finger razored her cheek, his head shaking with almost weary resignation. ‘You know, I thought you were so gentle, so sweet—that underneath that harsh exterior there was a warm loving woman inside. I guess even I get things wrong sometimes.’

She watched him go, and her heart didn’t feel as if it was beating any more. She watched his car snake down the mountainside with dry eyes that couldn’t even expend a tear.

Had she really got things so wrong?

Looking around, she saw the telltale remnants of their passionate encounter, the candle wicks spitting in the puddles of wax. She blew them out with pale lips, picking up her discarded shoes and underpants and making her way up the stairs to the vast lonely bed. She tried and failed not to imagine Anna in Luca’s arms, that beautiful, calculating raven head resting on his chest, tried to believe the comfort Luca imparted to her would be as innocent as he swore.

The cotton sheets were cool on her body, and her hand moved down to the hollow of her stomach, resting naturally on the tiny life within.

Luca’s child.

She lay there for an age, staring at the ceiling. The heavy snow of the mountains muffled sound, creating an eerie silence, paving the way for her own self-doubts to voice themselves loudly. The moon drifting past gobbled up minutes, turning them into hours as she waited for the master to return, waited for Anna to have her fill.

And finally, when dawn was breaking, when a million taunting questions had made a mockery of each and every platitude she’d attempted to deliver, it was with hurt, jealous eyes that she turned to Luca as he crept into the bedroom, the cool night air following him in, sending a shiver across the bed as he pulled off his coat.

‘How is he?’

‘No change.’ Luca shrugged. ‘I only got to see him for a moment; the doctor said he should rest.’

‘But…’

She sat up, confused eyes locking on his. Never had he looked more beautiful. The early-morning five o’clock shadow darkened his chin, accentuating the razor-sharp lines of his cheekbones, his black hair was laced with snowflakes, and she ached, physically ached to put her hand up, to let her fingers massage, capture that face in the palm of her hand, to pull that cold tired body into the warm bed, to kiss away the stern taut flexion of his lips. But, as beautiful as he might look, never had he seemed more unobtainable.

Trying and failing to keep her voice even, to eloquently put forward her point without lacing each word with the bitter sound of jealousy, she spoke again. ‘You’ve been gone six hours.’

‘Anna was upset.’ His eyes locked on hers, defiant, angry eyes, without a hint of contrition.

‘And naturally you had to comfort her,’ Felicity sneered.

Tonight should have been so special. Tonight should have been about babies and plans and moving forward. Instead Anna had yet again impinged on them. Anna’s shadow had again darkened the door of their relationship. Frankly, Felicity was sick of it.

‘Actually—’ his eyes were like ice, his words laced with scorn, ‘—as it turned out, Anna ended up comforting me. Ricardo has been like a father to me since my own died. Seeing him lying there, so old and so feeble all of a sudden, hit me in a way I didn’t expect and Anna understood. I never really expected my wife to.’

CHAPTER TEN

‘YOU’VEboth been wonderful.’

Anna’s deep, throbbing voice still set Felicity’s teeth on edge, but, bracing herself, she poured Anna’s thirdlimoncellointo a glass and offered it to the pale woman sitting on the sofa, her raven hair cascading down her shoulders, her unbuttoned coat slipping enough to show a mocking curve of voluptuous creamy bosom.

To say she had seen more of Anna than Luca in the last few days since Ricardo’s heart attack would be the understatement of the millennium. Anna would appear in the kitchen, draped in cashmere or fur, as Felicity struggled to focus, then disappeared with Luca in a waft of nauseating perfume, only to return at some ungodly hour and regale Felicity with snippets of Ricardo’s progress while Luca disappeared into the study to make a few international calls, surfacing to drive his ex-mistress the short journey home.

Their marriage, if you could call it that, had eclipsed the rowing stage, bypassed the acrimonious one, and seemed to have slipped into the rather more terminal state of weary resignedness.

‘Where’s Rosa?’ Anna asked, taking a hefty sip of her drink.

‘Felice gave her the night off. Again,’ Luca added, with a hint of an edge to his voice that Anna instantly picked up on.

‘She wants her husband to herself, darling,’ she drawled. ‘And frankly I don’t blame her.’ Felicity was just about to come up with a withering reply, but her response faded on her lips as Anna continued. ‘She really is a most difficult woman. I don’t know why you still employ her, Luca.’

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