Page 42 of The Italian's Marriage Bargain

And as her hands moved to her stomach, as the pain that had engulfed her through the night returned with a vengeance, Felicity knew the city had staked its final claim, that the baby she had only just begun to hold dear was surely about to be its final victim.

It was Joseph’s voice ringing in her ears as she sank to the floor, Joseph’s voice playing over and over as she registered the horror in the onlookers’ eyes, heard in the distance their chaotic shouting, the distant wail of sirens drawing closer.

‘I should ask for a refund.’

The paramedics didn’t get it. Instead they mumbled about her being delirious as they loaded her into the ambulance.

Drifting in and out of consciousness she lay there still; nothing more could hurt her now. Even the overhead signs forEmergenzaas they raced her through the stark tiled corridors of the hospital barely touched her. The oxygen mask smelt funny, and the drip maybe stung a bit, but such was her grief, such was her loss it didn’t really matter.

Nothing mattered any more.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

HE WASbeautiful.

It was the first thought that popped into Felicity’s mind as her heavy eyes opened. She battled an overwhelming urge to close them again, to let the drug-induced oblivion descend on her once again.

He lay dozing in the chair beside her bed, but even sleep didn’t seem to relax him. His weary features were ravaged with lines, the shadow dusting his chin as dark as night, as dark as the hollows smudged under his eyes. Looking down, she saw his dark hand clasped over hers, his fingers carefully avoiding the drip that seeped into her thin vein, the flash of his heavy gold watch.

The hospital tape over her wedding ring seemed fitting somehow.

Masking the union that should never have been.

He was as beautiful as he had been when she had first laid eyes on him, just a few short weeks ago, only now there was so much more between them than ships that passed in the night. A marriage in smithereens, an aching, gaping void where her heart had once been.

Yet she couldn’t regret it.

Somewhere deep inside she still attempted to justify the pain that had been inflicted. The bliss she had found in his arms, the warmth that had bathed her when those mocking, calculating eyes had occasionally lowered their guard, when those strong arms had held her as a man should hold a woman, the childlike belief that Luca really could make everything all right.

‘Felice?’ His concerned face hovered over hers. His jacket had been discarded, and as her eyes flicked down she saw the savage smear of Anna’s lipstick on his collar—an awful reminder of what had taken place if ever she’d needed one. Wincing, she tore her eyes away, and he misinterpreted her agony. ‘Here—’ Pushing a tiny cord into her hand, he wrapped her fingers over a switch. ‘Push this. It takes away the pain.’

Nothing will take away my pain.She nearly said it, drugs and emotion were a dangerous cocktail, but somewhere within she still had pride, still had a piece of her left that Luca Santanno could never destroy. Instead of looking at him she turned her face to the bland curtains, worked her tired eyes around the room, its familiarity doing nothing to soothe her.

The rooms were undoubtedly all the same here, so why should she think that this was the same one where Joseph had died? That the beige curtains and rickety bedside table were exclusive to her loss?

Losses.

The baby bobbed into her consciousness then, the tiny scrap of life she had never really met, never consciously desired. But now it was gone Felicity realised with a piercing sense of loss just how desperately it had been wanted.

Her baby.

Tears squeezed out of her eyes, salty heavy tears, each one loaded with agony for the loss of a little life so precious. As Luca pressed the button deeper into her hand she resolutely pushed it away. Somehow she wanted,neededto feel the pain, needed the physical agony. Her body demanded this memorial to all she had lost.

‘I’m sorry.’

How meaningless his words were, how utterly utterly, empty his apology when their child was dead.

‘I should have listened to you.’ Gently, so as not to hurt her further, he lowered himself onto the bed, the mattress indenting, the scent of him filling her. Yet still her face stayed turned away; still she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. ‘I couldn’t understand why you didn’t trust me, why you insisted that there was something between Anna and I.’

‘You couldn’t understand?’ They were the first words she had spoken, and when they came her voice was hoarse with emotion. ‘How can you say that when all the time you were lying to me? Was I supposed to just melt into a corner? To turn a blind eye when you slept with your mistress? Is that the language you understand?’

‘Since Anna and I parted I have never slept with her.’

‘Oh, save it, Luca.’ Her hand was working the tiny button now, pushing the switch furiously, listening to the tiny bleeps that meant a cure was being delivered. But this was a pain no drug could deal with; this was an agony modern medicine would never cure. The cure for a broken heart was as elusive as the cure for the common cold, and the disease probably just as prevalent. ‘I saw you; I caught you, don’t try and deny it now. Your staff knew, Rafaello nearly had a coronary racing to warn you your little wife was on her way up, and yet you have the gall to sit here and tell me that you’re not sleeping together.’

For the first time he didn’t rise, didn’t match her fury. Instead he pulled the switch from her, then tightened his hand around her cold, trembling fingers. ‘You need to be awake for this, Felice. You are going to listen to me and you are going to believe me. I have been naïve.’

To hear such a strong, assured man make this admission had her turning momentarily to him, her forehead puckering as he falteringly continued. ‘Till I met you I had never been jealous in my life. It is an emotion I have never encountered, and then you came along.’

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