Pregnancy Of Passion Page 13

  ‘you are no doubt pregnant with my child. Suppose you were shot at again. The stress would be too much for you.”

  ‘You’re really worried about the stress thing and my being pregnant aren’t you?”

  ‘lt is a concern. Si.”

  ‘Salvatore have I somehow implied I was unhappy about you going to the effort to find my boss someone to replace me?”

  ‘No but you are too independent and no doubt see it as overstepping bounds on my part.”

  ‘ I haven’t said so. have I?” you did it because you knew you were going to marry me, no matter what. didn’t you?”

  ‘lt never occurred to you that I might stand firm in my refusal?” His sheer confidence amazed her even as she found it somewhat comforting.

  ‘And you probably find that arrogant on my part.”

  ‘WeII yes, but I don’t mind.”

  ‘you are not upset about the assistant.”

  He said it as a statement but she answered anyway.

  ‘No. You wanted me to be comfortable leaving di Adamo and I appreciate that.”

  ‘you do?” He looked and sounded shocked.

  She laughed. ‘l’m not that independent.”

  ‘Excuse me but you are.”

  Laughing again, she shook her head. ‘Maybe I am changing.”

  She wanted the ties of family and that meant allowing a certain amount of interdependence. Not that she had a hope of remaining independent of Salvatore anyway. She needed him on a fundamental level that made her more vulnerable than she had ever been even with her parents. It scared her a little, but she was learning to accept the feelings he evoked in her.

  ‘And this change allows you to rely on me?” He leaned down and kissed her hard and slow and deep. She was a puddle of sensation when he stood up. ‘I like this change.”

  She was too muddled by his kiss to answer.

  Annemarie came home early from her trip to help with wedding preparations. The three women were in a war conference around the dining-room table when Salvatore and Francesco came in two nights later.

  Salvatore leaned down and kissed her full on the mouth making Therese smile and Annemarie blush.

  ‘AII is arranged for the security of the auction.”

  I do not understand why you must attend. Everything has been seen to already.” Francesco frowned at Elisa.

  She gritted her teeth. She’d wanted this closer relationship but she was learning it had both benefits and drawbacks. ‘I am in charge of the auction. I cannot let di Adamo down.”

  ‘He has a new assistant.”

  ‘Who knows nothing about putting on an event of this magnitude.” She’d gotten something from her years of being Shawna Tyler’s daughter. 661 will be fine. Salvatore will be there watching over me.”

  Francesco turned on his future son-in-law. ‘Why can you not speak sense into this daughter of mine?”

  ‘I have tried ” Salvatore ruefully confessed stand failed.”

  ‘Do you really think I’m going to spend my entire married life letting Salvatore dictate to me?” she asked the room in general, but with a pointed look at her father.

  ‘This I cannot imagine,” Therese remarked with a smile.

  ‘you are so strong, so self-sufficient.” Annemarie’s expression said she wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing .

  Elisa closed her notebook and slipped her pen in its pocket. ‘I don’t believe a woman’s intellect or common sense is inferior to a man’s that is aII.”

  Francesco walked around the table and patted Annemarie’s shoulder. ‘You are my Sicilian kitten and your sister is my little American tigress. Each of you has a beauty inherent to your nature though they are very different. A father could not ask for better daughters than mine.”

  Annemarie blushed again and Elisa felt heat climbing up her own cheeks. ‘l’m not exactly a tigress.”

  Salvatore’s eyes heated with reminders of how they spent their nights. ‘Are you not carat”’ She couldn’t begin to answer the message in his expression in front of her father and she glared at him for making her think inappropriate thoughts that had her blushing as fiercely as her shy sister.

  Her father did not miss the byplay and slapped his thigh, chuckling.

  ‘Elisa is a good match for you, eh Salvatore? Her sass it warms the blood no?” He winked at the younger man and then turned his attention to Therese.

  ‘Can you imagine a year ago this man believed he would be happy married to our kitten? He would have overwhelmed her a week into the courtship, but my Elisa. . she will give Salvatore a run for his money, no?”

  Francesco laughed uproariously at his own joke while Therese smiled and Annemarie blushed but Elisa was confused.

  ‘He wanted to marry Annemarie?” She looked at her younger sister who shrugged looking very uncomfortable being the center of the conversation.

  ‘lt was something I considered. That is aII.” Salvatore’s expression revealed nothing of his thoughts.

  ‘Si. He spoke of it to me during your visit here last summer.”

  It was positively arcane, what her father was implying, that he and Salvatore had discussed marriage between him and Annemarie without her knowledge.

  ‘While I was here?” she parroted, grasping immediately on to the fact that meant Salvatore had been considering marriage to the perfect virginal sister while using flirtation to seduce the one he believed to be a tart.

  ‘I sensed a rapport between you two that made me wonder at his choice of my daughters but I said nothing. A man cannot interfere with young love.”

  ‘Love had nothing to do with it,” she said, pain blossoming in her heart like a poisonous flower.

  ‘of course, the feelings, they come with time, but still, I was right. The attraction between you two bore fruit.”

  More fruit than her father would ever know about.

  A baby that had been lost and a relationship that would never be the same.

  She turned to Salvatore feeling a yawning pit growing inside her.

  ‘You spoke to my father about marriage to Annemarie last summer?” She needed confirmation to hear from his own lips that he had been thinking of marriage to her sister while contemplating her own seduction.

  ‘Si, but it was nothing.”

  She wondered how he defined nothing. To her this revelation was something powerful something painful.

  She didn’t believe he could be so cavalier about it, as if it did not matter. Didn’t he realize how ugly such a circumstance made everything? It denigrated her to the level of limbo for a short affair but then when had she convinced herself what they had shared before had been anything else for him? Had she not gotten pregnant with his child, he would have broken up with her and married her sister.

  She had to lock her jaw to hold back the cry of pain that thought evoked.

  Salvatore was no longer smiling. ‘As your father has said nothing came of it.”

  ‘Si. I knew it would not and I was right.”

  Annemarie continued to look incredibly embarrassed while her father was so tied up in his typical male pride in being right that he had not caught on to the fact his disclosures were less than pleasing to either daughter’s ears. And if Elisa controlled herself, he never would. This wasn’t something she wanted made the subject of a family discussion.

  ‘obviously.” Therese sighed, but smiled. ‘you do not need to crow about it, Francisco. We can all see for ourselves how right you were.”

  Elisa forced herself to laugh along with the others and managed not to flinch away when Salvatore touched her to help her from her chair and lead her out to the patio for before-dinner drinks.

  And somehow she kept up the pretense of happy bride-to-be for the rest of the evening, her heart as good as dead in her chest.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE minute they got home Elisa peeled away from Salvatore and headed for the stairs. ‘l’m sleeping on my own tonight.”

  ‘che cosa?” She paused in her head
long flight up the stairs and turned her head so she could glare at him.

  ‘you heard me. I don’t want to sleep with you.”

  ‘What is the matter with you?” That perfectly gorgeous face was set in lines of genuine puzzlement and that made her even angrier. How could he not know what was wrong? Was he that insensitive?

  ‘l’m not sleeping with a man who thought I was good enough to screw but not good enough to marryl”

  He gasped. ‘Do not speak like that of yourself”

  ‘you’re allowed to think it, but I’m not allowed to say it? Get real, Salvatore.”

  He looked completely taken aback by her words. ‘i do not think this thing.”

  ‘yes you do and don’t you bother denying it.” The tears were burning her throat and eyes, but she would have her say and get to the privacy of the guest room before she let them fall.

  ‘you spoke to my father about marrying Annemarie while you were busy flirting with me and seducing me, and why did you do that?”

  ‘Because-” She didn’t let him finish.

  ‘you thought I was a slut you could sleep with and leave, but you had no intention of having any sort of future with me.”

  ‘perhaps I tried to convince myself of that, but-”

  ‘But nothing! I can’t believe you think 1‘11 go to bed with you after finding this out. You’re only marrying me out of misplaced guilt. If I hadn’t had the bad luck to get pregnant the first time, you would be married to Annemarie by now.”

  A sort of dawning horror was reflected in his eyes. He was probably appalled she knew the truth.

  ‘you cannot believe this.”

  ‘Don’t insult my intelligence by trying to tell me otherwise. I may have acted like one with you, Salvatore, but I’m not a fool.”

  Did he think she couldn’t put two and two together? With that she spun on her heel and rushed up the stairs.

  He shouted her name, cursed in Italian and then yelled at her to be careful. She ignored all of it and slammed into the guest room, locking the door and then falling against it as she let the burning tears track down her cheeks.

  Seconds later he pounded on the door making it reverberate against her.

  ‘Elisa let me in.”

  ‘no ” ?

  Be reasonable. Open up.”

  ‘I w-wo n ‘ t ” The pounding stopped.

  ‘Are you crying, amore?”

  ‘Wh-what d-do you c-care?” she choked out between deep, gasping sobs.

  It hurt so much .

  She felt used.

  She felt betrayed.

  And she felt scared.

  Because she was sure she was pregnant with the baby of a man who could think so little of her that he could plan to seduce her while courting her sister for marriage.

  ‘I care. Please cara open the door.”

  The unaccustomed pleading had no effect on her. She was in too much emotional pain.

  ‘Go awayl” ‘

  1 cannot do that.”

  ‘Then I w-will.” She pushed herself away from the door and trudged across the floor to the en suite.

  Her body shook with crying, her stomach hurt and she couldn’t breathe through her nose much less see a clear path through her tears. Disoriented she bumped into the doorjamb on her way into the bathroom. Stumbling back, she cried harder.

  She finally made it into the bathroom and shut that door as well. She also locked it. The extra layer of wood between them muffled Salvatore’s voice, but it did not obliterate it. She turned on the shower, climbed in the stall fully clothed and sat on the floor, letting the hot water cover her while she cried out her grief.

  She hadn’t cried after the baby died. She’d had no one to share her grief and somehow that had made it impossible for her to express it but now the tears came. She let the pain of its loss wash over her right along with the agony of this fresh betrayal by Salvatore.

  He was a cold-headed snake. How could she have forgotten that fact? He didn’t want her. He wanted Annemarie. The shy kitten. Perfect wife material for a traditional SiciIian male .

  The physical ache inside her grew until she turned onto her side on the floor of the shower stall curled up like an infant. She tried to hold it in, this pain that splintered through her, shredding her heart, her very soul but it would not be contained.

  Once released she could not contain her grief. It was all mixed up inside her tonight’s revelations and her miscarriage. Feelings she had been denying for a year washed over her drowning her in their sorrow. Tears poured out of her while her muscles cramped in physical response to her mental agony.

  ‘Banto cielol” Strong hands curved around her shoulders pulling her toward a big male body.

  ‘Elisa, do not do this to yourself.”

  ‘I hate you, Salvatore. You hurt me.” She said more muddled things, few of which even she understood. Most of which had nothing to do with her father’s revelations.

  He didn’t respond with words, but picked her up, taking her from the shower, and turned off the water. She tried to fight him, but her grief drained her and she ended up lying against him like a soggy, acquiescent child.

  He stripped her and dried her off, all the while remonstrating with her for getting into such a state.

  She ignored him, crying silently, but still crying.

  He groaned when he touched her face and brushed away tears only to watch as her cheeks became drenched again. ‘cara please cfo/cezza you will make yourself sick.”

  She shook her head trying to shut out his presence.

  He wrapped a fluffy bath sheet around her and then set her on the closed toilet seat. ‘

  What can I say to make it better?”

  ‘Nothing. I want to go to bed. To sleep. Alone.” She glared at him with wet eyes. ‘Without you,” she said for emphasis in case he didn’t get it.

  He sighed and pulled off his wet clothes. He toweled his hair and she realized he’d gotten pretty soaked taking her from the shower.

  ‘I cannot leave you like this.”

  ‘Because my feelings don’t matter to you.”

  ‘This is not true.” He tightened his jaw like a man trying to hold in his temper.

  ‘lt is true. I want to be alone and you won’t let me. Wh-what d-do you c-call that?” She’d started crying harder again.

  He jerked around and marched out of the bathroom through a door she now saw was hanging in a broken door-frame. So that was how he’d gotten in. Brute force. At least he had left. She could wallow in her pain in peace now.

  It was too much of an effort to get up and go into the bedroom so she sat on the toilet seat and let the tears fall.

  That was how he found her when he returned a few minutes later. He swept her into his arms and carried her through to the bedroom. He laid her on the bed as if she were some kind of fragile porcelain doll. Then he tucked the covers around her but he made no move to join her.

  And that was what she wanted. It was.

  She needed to be away from him to think.

  He sat beside her and she shied away from him. She couldn’t help it, but he scowled.

  ‘I won’t hurt you, damn it.”

  ‘you already have.” She said it in such a defeated tone, she shocked herself.

  His complexion went from olive darkness to paste white in a breath. ‘lt was not my intention.”

  ‘That doesn’t make it better.” She wasn’t even sure if she was talking about now or a year ago, but it didn’t really matter. The pain was now. The grief was now.

  She went to turn away from him but he lifted her into a sitting position and pressed a wine glass to her Iips .

  She refused to drink. ‘What is it?”

  ‘Just wine. You need something to settle you.”

  ‘Alcohol is bad for the baby.”

  ‘your tears and upset are worse for the baby than a few sips of wine.”

  She knew he was right and guilt assailed her.

  Her self-indulgence could very well
be putting their baby at risk. She sipped the wine and reined in her emotions.

  She’d stopped crying. Salvatore had handed her a tissue to mop up and now they b0th sat in silence. Her under the covers him on top, the distance between them as good as a mile.

  ‘I want to sleep alone.”

  He nodded. ‘lf that is your wish.” And he left.

  And she wondered if it really had been. Her emotions were careening all over the place and she hated this seesaw they seemed to be on.

  She turned on her side away from the mental image of Salvatore sitting beside her on the bed and tried to sleep. In sleep, the pain would go away.

  Salvatore went downstairs to the library. He pulled out a bottle of aged Scotch from the cabinet below one of the mahogany bookcases and poured himself a glass. He sipped but tasted nothing. He wanted more than anything to go back up to that bedroom and convince Elisa that she was wrong about his feelings for her wrong about his motives.

  He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He’d left in the first place because she looked so fragile, so ready to go over the edge of her emotional control once again. Like Elisa he had now accepted she was pregnant even without the confirmation of a test. He could not force a confrontation that would put the baby at risk. Not again. He would not allow his stupidity to end in the death of his child again.

  He slumped into the armchair closest to where Elisa had set up her temporary office feeling as if the very heart had been ripped from his chest.

  The pain he had known upon discovering Sofia’s betrayal was like a pinprick compared to the slashing knife wound to his soul inflicted by Elisa’s rejection.

  It had only been as he sat there forced to witness an emotional pain so profound it pounded his heart like a sledgehammer that he had realized the true extent of his feelings for her. He loved her.

  Why did that come as such a shock? No other emotion could explain how completely necessary she was to him. He had existed not lived, the past year while she had avoided him.

  And, like an idiot he had denied the emotion, preferring to believe he was righting a wrong done.

  Admitting he had been prompted by love would have given her too much power over him. So he had protected his vulnerability, only to destroy his chance at happiness with the one woman that mattered.