The Italian's Innocent Bride

by Clare Connelly

  “I didn’t…” She bit down on her lower lip. “I didn’t find out until it was too late.”

  Carlo straightened, putting a little more distance between them. But he didn’t move away, and his eyes didn’t leave her face. The raw emotion she saw on his features made her stomach roll. “What do you mean?” He asked finally, his voice strained.

  A tear slid down Jane’s cheek, and then another chased it. They splashed unchecked to the carpeted floor. “I fainted in the supermarket.” She toyed with the necklace she wore. The necklace that would always remind her of their child. “I knocked my shoulder on the edge of a fridge, and I guess they were worried enough to call an ambulance; maybe just being super cautious. There was a lot of blood.”

  He was still. So many questions bounced through him but he wouldn’t ask them. He had learned, long ago, that the best way to get information was to let people talk themselves out.

  Her throat lifted as she swallowed hard and fast. “I was having a miscarriage. In the shop. The pain made me lose consciousness.” She gripped the wall for support, and stared blankly ahead. “I just thought I had a stomach flu, at first. My neighbour Liz had been sick. It made sense.”

  At the mention of her neighbour, he felt a jab of compunction.

  “But it was the baby.” She shook her head. “I was almost four months pregnant.” Her eyes were hollow. “It must have been my birthday…” Her voice trailed off, as her fingers gripped the necklace more tightly. His eyes dropped to it, and he remembered that night. Remembered how perfect he had thought things were for them. How much he’d loved her.

  “By the time I reached the hospital, I was vomiting and in a lot of pain.” Unconsciously, her hands dropped to her abdomen, and then fell to her sides. “I was taken straight into surgery. I didn’t know what had happened until I came to afterwards.”

  Carlo was besieged by a torrent of feelings he had no way of processing. He cautiously tamped down on the seething tangle of emotions within.

  Jane wasn’t finished, though. “That’s why the hospital called you. I wrote your information down, as I was going into surgery.”

  “They never called me. Not then.”

  “I asked them not to. It was only for emergencies.”

  “I see. You chose not to include me in this loss?” For all his effort, the feelings would not be contained. “You chose not to do me the courtesy of advising me that I’d lost a child?”

  “A son,” she murmured. “He would have been a boy.”

  Carlo reeled, his whole world tipping off its axis. “You kept it from me. Even now, you intended to keep this grief from me.”

  “What would the point have been in telling you? Believe it or not, I thought I was doing you a favour. That I was saving you from that unimaginable pain I was going through.” Her voice cracked with guilt. “I felt like a failure, okay?” She sobbed, and pushed away from the wall.

  “A failure?”

  “Because I lost our baby. God, I hadn’t even known I was pregnant. I was so disconnected from the baby that I had no idea it was inside me.” All she had been able to think about was missing Carlo. Grieving their marriage. “What kind of awful mother would I have made?”

  He wouldn’t have been human if he didn’t feel sadness for her. But it was eclipsed by anger, and also rage, fury and pain. “You had no damned right to make that choice.”

  Her eyes glistened with tears. “I’m so sorry, Carlo.” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s just… I can’t ever go through that again. I can’t believe we slept together without protection. I swore I would never risk that.”

  Carlo compressed his lips. “It’s done. If there are any consequences, we will face them together. You will not keep me out of something like that again.”

  “If I hadn’t lost the baby, I would have told you. You make it sound like I intentionally kept my pregnancy from you.”

  His expression showed how close her summation had come to his feelings. “I’m not an expert in child birth,” he said finally. “But I find it hard to believe you could be so far into a pregnancy and not know.”

  How many times had Jane thought that of herself? How had she missed the signs? In hindsight, they’d all been there. Sore breasts, aching back, a constant nausea. But she’d been grieving the loss of her marriage. Every day had felt like a marathon to be got through. Mornings that started early, and seemed to drag by in an infinitesimal and never-ending cloud of despair. She’d wallowed and she’d mourned and she’d paid no attention to anything her body was feeling. What was physical discomfort when her heart was breaking? What were dates on a calendar, that might have marked a missed cycle, when every day felt like just another enormous hurdle to be crossed?

  “I know,” she whispered, her voice cracking in the space of the bedroom. “I can hardly believe it myself. Looking back, it makes no sense. But at the time, I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

  His face paled beneath his golden tan. “Because of me.”

  “Because of our divorce,” she nodded. “I thought all the symptoms were just a sign of how unhappy I was.”

  He groaned, and dragged angry fingers through his hair. “If you were unhappy when you left me, why did you do it? Why not stay?”

  “Because I was even less happy here. Marriage to you was like a slow form of torture. Leaving you was the hardest thing I have ever done, but at least it gave me a chance to rebuild my life. And I have done.” Damn it, she’d almost been over him, when he’d reappeared, taking control all over again.

  “Have you?” He challenged. His posture was deceptively relaxed, as he reclined his frame against the opposite wall. He fixed her with a direct, black stare. “Tell me about this new life of yours.”

  She angled her face away from his inquisitive eyes, to hide the hurt she knew she wore on her dainty features. “It’s not your business.”

  “That is ridiculous.”

  “Fine.” She turned back to face him, her blue eyes stormy. “You tell me about your life now and I’ll repay you in kind.”

  “My life?”

  “Yes.”

  “My life is as it ever was,” he said with arrogant simplicity.

  She could well believe it. Marriage hadn’t made a dent in his social life, so why should divorce?

  “So is mine, then,” she responded sharply.

  He knew so much of her movements, and he refused to pretend that was not the case. The only information he didn’t have pertained to her private life. While no serious boyfriends or lovers were in evidence, that did not mean she wasn’t seeing anyone. That she hadn’t had a string of lovers. It only meant that she didn’t bring them to her house.

  He knew he had one certain way of compelling her to answer his questions. To respond truthfully to the jealous and possessive knowledge he craved. “And tell me, Jane, have there been other men?” He put a hand around her neck, curling it across the fine hairs there, as he pulled her close to him. “Have there been men who make your body quiver, like it does now, in my arms?”

  “I’m shaking because I hate you,” she responded weakly, wishing and willing herself to feel that. Anything but the deep knot of desire that was making her insides churn.

  “I know you do, cara. But your body doesn’t quite feel the same way.” He kissed her with the passion of a man needing to mark his territory. It was a kiss of hunger, yes, but also one of anger.

  Jane wept, for the way her body was still controlled so effortlessly by his. She wrapped her arms around his neck, but the taste of tears hung deep in her throat. He stepped backwards, disentangling her hands from his body. He stared at her with an emotion she had no comprehension of.

  “You should have told me about the baby.” His voice was flat. Any hint of the questions he’d been asking, and the passion he’d stirred, was gone completely.

  Jane’s breathing was coming in loud gasps. She closed her mouth and put her hands on her hips.

  But there was nothing she coul
d say. She should have told him. She saw now that she’d deprived him of his right to mourn and grieve the child they’d made and lost. She nodded slowly, then walked away from him, her back straight and her head held high. Only she was ashamed. For losing the baby, and for loving someone who didn’t love her back.

  Carlo watched her go, his expression inscrutable.

  As soon as she’d left the room, he pulled his phone out of his pocket.

  “Elisabetta? I need you in Rome. Subito.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Delicious as always, Anna,” Jane complimented, her smile genuine as she savoured the flavours of Anna’s Bolognese sauce. “I don’t know how you do it.”

  Anna cackled and pinched Jane’s chin. “You too kind, still.”

  “Not at all,” Jane demurred with sincerity. “You missed your calling as a chef.”

  “Signor Santini keeps me busy enough,” she said with a wink. “Always wanting the sandwiches like you make.” Anna winked. “You are not the only thing he’s missed since you went away.”

  Anna’s cheeks flushed, and she felt a vulnerable affection for her ex-husband. A reminiscence for their early days, when she’d assembled her favourite chip butties for them to eat from a tray in bed. In the early days, they hadn’t had much time for anything outside of the bedroom, least of all meals at a table.

  “Chip butties are a terrible habit,” she pointed out with a coldness that made Anna pause.

  “But a good reminder of you, no?”

  Jane didn’t think he’d missed her at all. His ego might have taken a blow, when she’d walked away. But that was it. After all, if he’d enjoyed spending time with her so much, why had he made such a habit of going out without her? Of spending time with other women?

  “Maybe,” she conceded eventually, because she could see how desperately Anna was hoping for a reconciliation between her boss and the woman he’d married.

  “You have helped me all afternoon, Miss Jane. You should go now. Do the getting ready.”

  Jane looked down at her outfit. The same clothes she’d been wearing when she’d left the hospital. The clothes Carlo had torn from her body, before making love to her. She ran a hand down them now, amazed at what they’d seen in a day.

  “Yes. Only, Anna?” She paused just inside the kitchen, and reminded herself that she was strong and independent now. “I don’t plan to eat with Carlo. Please don’t bother setting a place for me. I’ll slip into the kitchen when I’m hungry.”

  Anna’s frown told her all she needed to know, but she ignored the pang of guilt. The thought of sitting across from Carlo for an entire evening made her insides roll.

  “Okay,” Anna shrugged, but the frown lingered long after Jane had left the kitchen. She formed the Ciabatta and pounded the olives together with garlic and rosemary, then rolled the fettucine until it was so paper thin she could see through it.

  When all was assembled and ready to cook, she picked up the kitchen phone and pressed the button for Carlo’s office. It was not her place to interfere in their marriage. But Jane was a shadow of the woman Anna had come to love. She was skin, and bone. So pale and English looking. None of that vibrant youth and vitality she’d exhibited years earlier.

  “Si?” Carlo was impatient. Anna had worked for him long enough to know that he would never take that emotion out on her.

  “I’m sorry for interrupting,” she said in their native Italian. “Miss Jane says she will not join you for dinner.”

  Silence met her statement. A silence that seemed to crackle and crisp.

  “I see. Did she give a reason for this?” He enquired with deceptive silkiness.

  “No. She simply said she’d come to the kitchen when she’s hungry.”

  “I see.” Carlo pushed back in his chair, wondering if it was possible to be any angrier with his ex-wife. “Ignore what Jane has said, Anna. She will, of course, be joining me. She is my guest, and I expect it of her.”

  “Si, sir.” Anna disconnected the call, and returned to preparing the feast. It was right that Jane was home. She was no guest at Villa Vista. She was its mistress. She belonged to the home as well as the furnishings. If Anna had her way, Jane would be staying.

  * * *

  Carlo paused outside Jane’s door, his face dark as he waited for his temper to cool. “What is it?” Jane pulled her bedroom door inwards, a book clasped in her fingers.

  He made a noise of frustration and walked past her. “Anna says you do not want to eat with me.”

  Jane gaped at him, her eyes wide as he prowled across the room. Slowly, she marked the corner of her page and laid the book down on the dressing table. “She does, does she?” Traitor, Jane thought inwardly. Though she knew Anna would have had the best of intentions, her interference was incredibly unwanted.

  “I know you will not want to offend her. She has gone to a lot of effort to create your favourite meals for our dinner.”

  Jane nodded slowly. “And I appreciate it. I will come to the kitchen when I’m hungry and help myself.”

  Carlo’s scowl deepened. “Are you so afraid of me that you cannot sit across a table?”

  Jane ground her teeth. “I am not afraid of you in the slightest.” Only the way her body responded to his, but that was something completely different altogether.

  “Good. Then you will eat with me.”

  Jane felt like she was being handled by a master manipulator. “No, I won’t.”

  “Then you are afraid of me.”

  “Not at all. Why does this matter so much to you?” She turned it back on him, her arms crossed over her slender chest.

  “Because it is dinner. You need to eat. I need to eat. So why not eat together?”

  “I can count on one hand the number of times we had dinner together when we were married, that’s why,” she responded, her temper spiking. “Do you want to know why Anna and I get on so well? Because I helped myself to food from the kitchen almost every night that we were married. While you were off God knows where and with whom, I spent time with your housekeeper.”

  Carlo would not justify his absence to his wife. “I always came to you after.”

  “After what?” She asked hotly, remembering the fear she’d experienced during their marriage. That he was out making love to other women, while she pined for him from the luxurious comfort of his Villa.

  “When I got home,” he corrected. “You did not complain while we were in bed.”

  She lifted a hand in the universal sign of ‘stop’. “We’ve proved that point already. You can let it go.” She gnawed at her lower lip. “In bed, I have no self-control. I’m weak where you’re concerned and I guess I always will be. That doesn’t mean I want to feel that way. That doesn’t mean I like you now. That I want anything to do with you.”

  He nodded grimly. “And yet here we are.”

  “I don’t even know why I’m here,” she groaned.

  “Because you’re in danger, cara. And if you know anything about me, you know that I will keep you safe. If it means taking a bullet for you, I will do it.”

  Jane’s heart turned over at his statement. Her whole body felt oddly contorted. “Why?” She asked, finally, her expression blank of comprehension.

  “Because you were my wife.”

  “I was your wife,” she agreed angrily. “I’m not now. I’m no longer your problem.”

  His smile was loaded with emotion. “Believe it or not, I never considered you a problem.”

  Jane closed her eyes. “Please don’t.” His anger she could meet, for her own anger surely matched it. But his kindness would be her undoing. Desperate to end their conversation, she blinked up at him. “I’ll have dinner with you.” Please, just go now, she urged silently.

  He did, but it made no difference. She still felt absolutely miserable.

  At least when she joined him for dinner later that evening, she had managed to boss her emotions back into line. After a soak in the enormous bath, she’d pulled on one of the outfits
Carlo had packed for her. Quite by coincidence, he’d managed to include her favourite black dress. She lifted it up, over her hips and into place on her shoulders, securing the zip to her neck only by contorting her body into an octopus-like shape.

  She pulled her blonde hair into a silky bun, and pinched her cheeks to return some colour to them. She only had one pair of shoes, and they were sky high. She left them in her room. With just her and Carlo for dinner, what did it matter if she went barefoot?

  When she stepped onto the terrace, she shook her head with a mix of exasperation and bemusement. Anna had set the table for two, but she’d done far more than that. A hundred candles flickered in the dusky peach sky. A vase of old fashioned roses had been collected from the garden, and the soft strains of classical guitar filtered through the speakers and out towards their table. Jane contemplated blowing out the candles but that seemed churlish. So she shrugged and walked slowly towards the table. Beyond it, was the view of Rome. The view she’d loved. She sighed inwardly and went past the table, to the wrought iron railing. She clipped her hands over the edge, and admired the twinkling lights. The beautiful vista was as sensational as she had remembered.

  She heard Carlo’s steps and sighed again. “I always loved it here,” she said honestly. “Right here. With Rome spread beneath me like an ancient tapestry of lives long ago lived.”

  His lips lifted in the admiration he’d always felt of her ability to perfectly express what she was thinking. Even when he’d first met her, as a slightly gauche teenager from the East of London, her cockney accent had given voice to sophisticated and interesting concepts. He came to stand beside her, careful not to crowd her space.

  He needed to meet with Elisabetta to see how his own investigations into the attack were proceeding. He needed to know that Jane would be safe. That she was not being hunted. He flicked a glance at his gold wristwatch. Her plane would be landing soon. Information would be his. Information that Jane was reluctant to provide.