The Proud Wife (14 page)

She couldn't let him go like this—not when she didn't really know what had happened here, just where she had gone so badly wrong, as it was obvious that she had. ‘Pietro, please…'

She thought he wasn't going to respond or even indicate that he had heard.

But then he paused, tuning his head just a tiny bit towards her, allowing her to continue.

‘I wasn't fair to you. I have to take some of the blame—and in that case I'm sorry, so sorry.'

‘Too late,' he said, the words stark and brutal. ‘You are
not the one who needs to say sorry. I should have said those words a long time ago. I am sorry. But, believe me, I know it's too little. And it's far, far too late.'

‘No.' Marina tried one last desperate time. ‘Pietro…'

But he didn't hear her. The door was already closing behind him. She heard the roar of the car's engine as she hurried to pull it open, but even as she stepped out into the sunshine the powerful vehicle was pulling away from the house, driving away from the cottage at a speed that had it disappearing from view in the space of the briefest of heartbeats.

F
OUR
weeks was a long, long time, Marina reflected, staring at the calendar where she had just turned over a page to change it from one month to the next.

No, correction: four weeks was really not all that long, but the past four weeks seemed to have lasted for ever. She felt as if she had lived through an age since she had been in Sicily, since she had seen Pietro. Since she had made love with him. And since he had turned on her and thrown her out of his life, sending her home without a second thought or hesitation.

The truth was that it was barely a month. This time last month she had been on the flight out to Sicily and the ill-fated meeting with the man she had believed would soon be her ex-husband. Her determination had been strong, her courage high, and she had had the all-important papers in her bag, ready to make her defiant gesture.

And ‘nothing' was precisely what she had come back home with. Or, rather, she admitted to herself with a sigh, less than nothing.

There hadn't been any sign of the divorce papers that Pietro had declared he was having drawn up. No delivery of the official communication and legal documents she had expected would follow her almost as swiftly as if they had been on the private jet with her. She had been so convinced
that he would want to finalise the end of their relationship as soon as he possibly could. After all, he wanted to be free of her.

Wandering over to the window, she stared out at the bright afternoon that was so unlike that wet, stormy day she had spent on Sicily. She had wanted to be free. She had wanted to start her life over again with everything behind her. Yet now here she was apparently with exactly that—no connection with Pietro, no divorce settlement to concern herself with and the future stretching ahead of her with a whole new way of life contained in it.

But that day in Sicily had happened. And those few hours had changed everything totally. Nothing would ever be the same again. And she would never, ever be truly free of Pietro D'Inzeo. She was bound to him by an unbreakable link.

Because those few hours together had created another life. She was pregnant once again.

‘Oh, Pietro…'

His name escaped from her lips on a whisper, low and despondent, and her fingers brushed away the single tear that had escaped her, trickling slowly down one cheek. Tears wouldn't help. She needed to be strong, to plan ahead, decide what she was going to do so that she could face the future with determination. If only she could find some of that courage that had fired her up when she had set out for Sicily, then things would be so much easier. But so much had happened since then.

She had only spent that one day—and one night—in his company, but instead of being free and ready to start again she had found herself right back where she had started. All the time she had spent getting over him in the first year after she had left him had been wiped away. She had fallen straight back in love with him. Or, rather, she had
never fallen
out
of love with him. She had only convinced herself she had managed that when the truth was quite the opposite. She was still desperately, foolishly, crazily in love with her husband, and she feared she always would be.

The sound of a car pulling up in the street outside caught her attention, distracting her for a moment from her unhappy thoughts and she watched as the sleek silver-grey vehicle came to a halt at the kerbside opposite her house.

Not the usual sort of car that anyone in the neighbourhood might own, she reflected, looking at the elegant lines, the obvious power of the new arrival. No one she knew could afford…

The thoughts died in her brain at the sudden realisation that there was only one person she knew who could afford a car like this.

‘Pietro!'

It was a cry of panic, impossible to hold back, and her hand tightened on the curtains she had pushed aside for a better view. But now she realised that by doing so she had exposed herself where she stood, staring into the street, so that the man driving the car could not help but see her.

She should let that curtain go, she told herself. Let it go and step right back out of sight again, before…

But it was already too late. With the car now stationary directly opposite her house, she could hear that the engine had been turned off. The driver's door was being pushed open and a painfully familiar tall, dark-haired figure stepped out on to the road.

Pietro…

There was no mistaking his height and lean, powerful build, or the way the sunlight gleamed on the shining black hair that was being tossed about by the lively breeze blowing down the street. Even in denim jeans, and a soft brown leather jacket worn with a white tee-shirt underneath, he
still managed to look sleek, expensive and almost shockingly sophisticated. The golden tan of his skin added to that image making him seem slightly alien amongst the pale-skinned locals who were walking past, casting envious glances at the car he had arrived in.

But Pietro barely spared them a glance. From the moment he emerged into the street, his eyes went straight to where Marina stood by the window, pale-blue stare locking with confused and troubled green. He didn't even glance away as he pressed the button on his key ring to lock the car doors automatically and by the time the lights flashed to indicate it had worked he was already halfway across the narrow street, long, determined strides covering the distance swiftly and easily.

There was no point in trying to dodge away now. No point at all in pretending she was not at home. She had been seen and he was determined to speak to her about whatever had brought him here. If she'd had any doubts about that, then they were very quickly dismissed by the single sharp rap of his knuckles against the glass of her front door. Just once and that was it. He clearly believed she would hurry to answer his summons simply because it was him.

That being so, he would also no doubt interpret the fact that she
wasn't
hurrying as being deliberately provocative, that she was keeping him waiting to make a point.

Marina wished she could be capable of that. She had been so convinced that when he had walked out of the cottage without a backward glance that it would be the last time she would ever see him that it had shaken her to the core to have him appear on her doorstep like this.

She only knew that there couldn't possibly have been a worse day for this to happen. The secret of her pregnancy, one that she had only just become aware of herself, must make things so much more complicated.

So her footsteps across the small hallway were slow, reluctant, giving her far too much time to see the way the fingers of the hand that Pietro still rested against the glass tapped in restless impatience. She fumbled with the key, had an uncomfortable little fight with the elderly lock that was always stiff, but today seemed to have entered into a conspiracy to make things really difficult for her, and then managed to yank the awkward and resisting door open at last.

‘Pietro.'

She managed to keep her face calm and expressionless in spite of the fact that her heart seemed to be alternately tap dancing and turning cartwheels inside her chest. After hearing his name so many times in her thoughts throughout the day as she mentally practised the news she had to tell him, it seemed strange and rather disturbing to actually have it spoken out loud at last.

‘Marina.'

He matched her rigid control perfectly, the faint inclination of his head the only real form of greeting he gave her. His expression was closed off, eyes hooded.

That control was enough to set the nerves twisting along every inch of her body. Yet it was so good to see him. When she had believed she would never see him again in her lifetime, to actually have the chance to look into his face once more, to see the blue of his eyes, to hear her name on his lips, was an unexpected delight—even if it was bittersweet because she knew deep down that he hadn't come with any good news for her. That control told its own story and it was not one with a happy ending.

As if to confirm that fact, he now lifted one hand to reveal the leather document case he held.

‘I have something that you need to see.'

Of course. The divorce papers. He would want the whole
thing finished, over and done with. And he wasn't likely to risk summoning her to Sicily again. Not after what had happened the last time.

‘I'm surprised you felt the need to bring them yourself.'

‘This I needed to see you about in person.'

The ominous emphasis on ‘this' made her shiver in spite of the sunshine that warmed the air. Suddenly the green-linen draped cardigan she wore over a paler tee-shirt and denim jeans didn't seem warm enough. But she knew it wasn't the weather she was reacting to but the icy atmosphere that surrounded him, reaching out to chill the edges of her nerves as she stood there.

‘I see. Well, in that case, you'd better come inside.'

She knew she sounded reluctant, and from Pietro's frown that was what he believed too. But she was preoccupied with thinking how she'd left things in her home. Had she tidied up, put things away? It was too late to worry now. She was heading into the sitting room—no—the kitchen was safer for now. She could offer him a drink and that would distract him.

At least she hoped it would until she worked out just how she was going to play this. Already reality was hitting home, making her mind blank with shock. She had barely registered the truth herself, and now here was Pietro, arriving unexpectedly and unprepared for, and just seeing him was sending her thoughts into a spin. She was going to have to watch what she said until she got back her control over herself.

They'd been here once before, she told herself. And the fallout from that time had led to so many mistakes, so many problems. Then she had wanted so desperately to share with Pietro the news that she was pregnant. Now
her mind see-sawed savagely between the need to tell him and a fear of the possible consequences if she did.

She couldn't bear to hear him claim that he wanted her again because she was pregnant. Yet how could she not tell him that she was expecting his child?

‘Would you like a drink?' she asked, wincing inwardly at the stiff formality of her question. She was not at all surprised when Pietro shook his head, his attention focused instead on prowling round the small, bright kitchen, cold, blue eyes assessing everything, absorbing everything.

‘This is where you live now?'

‘It suits me fine,' Marina responded, bristling in defence of her home and the implied criticism in his tone.

‘It is not very big. And when I think of what you could have had if you had accepted what I offered…'

‘There's plenty of room here. We don't all want to live in a monstrous great
palazzo
!'

‘It wasn't exactly my choice either,' Pietro returned dryly. ‘It rather came with the job.'

It was the first time he had ever admitted to any sort of dissatisfaction with the Castello D'Inzeo and it made her look at him sharply, seeing his face suddenly more clearly, as if he had just walked into a spotlight. He looked worn and drained, faint shadows under his eyes so that she wondered what had put them there.

‘You don't think the
palazzo
is a stunning building?'

‘It's stunning, that is true. But it is hardly homely, like this house.'

His glance around took in the well-used kitchen equipment, the brightly coloured mugs, the bunch of cheap but glorious chrysanthemums on the window sill.

‘I can afford this place and it's close to where I work,' she told him, softening her tone a little. ‘There's plenty of room. After all, there's only one of me.'

The sharp twist of her stomach nerves in response to her own foolish words had her swallowing them hastily and almost choking.

That look around the room had tugged on something in her heart. A memory of that day in Casalina, when she had looked into his face and seen shadows, a darkness that matched the emptiness in her own soul when she thought of the baby she had lost. In her mind she could hear again his voice saying,
the day you lost the baby was one of the worst days of my life
, and remembered the stab of her conscience at the way she had realised that she hadn't thought enough about his sense of loss, his emptiness. That thought had haunted her, fretted at her mind all through the month they had been separated, and she had never been able to calm her uncomfortably nagging conscience over it. The conscience that told her she had to take her share of the blame for the fissures that had appeared in their marriage.

Now she had the chance to soothe some of that hurt, take away the terrible vacuum in her soul—both their souls. But she didn't dare tell him. Not yet.

‘No Stuart.'

‘I told you, he's not the new man in my life.'

It was only when she heard her own response that she knew it had been the wrong one. He had been making a statement, not asking a question. It was almost as if he wanted to confirm something, not check on it.

‘No Stuart,' she said more carefully.

Pietro had dropped the document case on the pine wood table and she couldn't take her eyes off it.

‘Have you altered the terms of the divorce?' she blurted out, unable to hold the words back any longer.

The look he turned on her was narrow-eyed and fierce, seeming to flay off a much-needed protective layer of skin, leaving her feeling raw and vulnerable underneath.

‘I told you I would give you everything you wanted—even if it was nothing. Though, surprisingly, I find that almost the hardest promise of all to keep. Are you sure?'

‘Please, no!' Marina couldn't let him go on. ‘Please don't…'

‘Don't what? Don't give you anything? It seems to me that I never gave you enough when we were married and that I should do more now. I could have been more of a husband to you,' he declared roughly, his voice seeming strange, as if it was fraying at the edges. ‘I should have been. If I hadn't been so absorbed in problems at the bank—the
palazzo
…'