The Italian's Innocent Bride

by Clare Connelly

  “What do you want to talk about?” She asked through stammering teeth.

  “Can I come in?” Jane eyed her suspiciously, and finally opened the door a little wider.

  “Yes, but only for a moment. I… well, if I’m honest, I don’t know if you could say anything I want to hear.”

  Liz grimaced. “I understand. Lord, Jane, please go and get changed. I can’t stand seeing you like that. You must be freezing.”

  Jane shook her head. “It’s not cold. Just wet.”

  “Go and change. I’ll make tea.”

  Jane squared her shoulders. “No.” She held up a hand to forestall Liz’s protest. “I’m so sick of being handled with kid gloves. Can you imagine what it’s like to discover how I’ve been watched and managed and hand-held without my consent for the last three years?”

  Liz looked at her thoughtfully and finally nodded. “Fine. But at least let me switch the heating on.”

  Jane didn’t make a noise of objection, so Liz reached behind her and pressed a yellow button. The sound of central heating whirred to life.

  “What did you want to talk about?” Jane queried with an attempt at calm. She closed the door, and moved deeper into her townhouse.

  “Carlo.”

  Jane stopped walking and turned around. “He’s off limits.”

  “No, Jane, I need to speak with you.”

  Jane groaned. Her stomach lurched, as the mere mention of her ex-husband’s name sent her whole body into some kind of hormonal response. “Please, Liz. I just want to put everything with Carlo behind me.”

  “Do you?” Liz walked through the home, to the lounge. She cast an appraising look over the untidy state, and then sat down on an armchair. “I highly doubt that.”

  “With all due respect, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Liz crossed her legs and reclined naturally against the leather chair. She looked relaxed. In contrast, Jane felt like a tightly wound coil, about to spring.

  “I think of you as one of my closest friends, Jane. I appreciate you might feel differently, now, but I hope in time you will come to forgive the information I kept from you.”

  Jane narrowed her eyes, trying to keep a grip on her temper. “You were employed by my ex-husband to spy on me. Would you be able to forgive that, if our positions were reversed?”

  Liz sighed softly. “You have to understand that Carlo was very worried about you. The first death threats put him in a state of hell. He looked at you and saw only what he might lose, if he did not do everything he could to keep you safe. He is a wealthy man, used to buying whatever he needs. In your instance, it was protection.”

  “But I’m not some weak little dove, waiting to be slaughtered. I know I was young when I married him, but I’d spent my life drifting through foster homes. I’m tougher than I look. Something he would have known if he’d spent time getting to know me, not just my body.” She huffed impatiently. It wasn’t a strictly fair accusation. In the beginning, they’d spent nights lying awake, talking, swapping stories. He knew all of her, not just her body, but she was angry and hurt. “He should have told me what was happening. And what he was afraid of.”

  Liz nodded. ‘Yes. I believe he should have. I think he probably agrees, too. But he didn’t. I can’t believe you would hold that against him, when his decision came out of a desire to insulate you from harm.”

  “But he harmed me. His stupid lies, his determination to make these choices on my behalf. I spent the year we were married believing he didn’t love me. That he regretted our wedding. That he was sleeping with other women. So don’t talk to me about being in hell. I was there. I lived it. And I was alone in that barren, fiery landscape. Carlo was nowhere to be seen.”

  Liz dipped her head forward. Jane was behaving more stubbornly than she’d anticipated. “He felt protective of you. He probably took that too far, but his intentions were good.”

  “His father killed my father,” Jane whispered, finally giving in to her unsteady limbs and sitting on the edge of her sofa. She stared straight ahead. “He knew. I didn’t. He came to find me, and instead of telling me the truth about our awful connection, he seduced me.” She closed her eyes with a heavy heart. “He let me marry him, thinking that we were just two people who’d fallen in love.” Tears stung her eyes, and she didn’t bother to check them. “But he wasn’t in love.”

  Liz shook her head. “You’re wrong.”

  “No. I’ve had a week to think about it, and I understand now. Carlo is someone who believes in black and white. Good and bad. His father is bad. I am good. He met me, and mistook my innocence, youth and inexperience as markers of pure saintliness. He married me, and then he tried to keep me in a time capsule. He didn’t want a wife. At least, he didn’t want me to be his wife. He wanted me to remain his talisman of goodness, to ward off the evil he believed to be in his blood.” She stood uneasily and rubbed her hands over her arms.

  “He loves you, Jane. Trust me.”

  “Trust you?” Jane commanded shakily. “Not with my life. I’m sick of people lying to me. I’m sick of being lied to. I want you to go now, Liz.”

  Elisabetta stood, but a great weight of sadness weighed down on her. “Go and see him, please.”

  “Whatever for?” Jane demanded hotly, surprise making her eyes wide.

  “He’s a different man since you left. I am worried for him. I know you would set him to rights.”

  Jane forced herself to maintain a hard heart. How Carlo was, or wasn’t, was no longer her concern. She had loved him, and he had controlled her. That was not a relationship. “No. He’s in my past.”

  Liz compressed her lips, and crossed the room to the woman she would always consider a friend. “He isn’t, dear one. You may wish he were. I know you are angry with him. That you even want to hate him. But I also know that you love him with all your beautiful, forgiving heart. And he needs you now. He needs you.”

  Jane turned away, angling her face towards the windows that overlooked the garden. Carlo needed her? As if, she derided mentally. Carlo had never needed her. She had no doubt he’d move on and fill his bed with another procession line of willing women. “I’m going to sell the house,” Jane said suddenly, changing the conversation with a cold clarity. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

  Liz nodded. She was not surprised. “Go and see Carlo.” She pressed a kiss against Jane’s cheek and disappeared down the corridor. Jane went to bed, that night, furious at Carlo, and at Liz, and at the whole world. And she was determined not to go and see him. What in the world would possess her to throw herself right back into the circus again?

  She’d escaped once, and somehow been pulled right back into the powerful web of seduction Carlo managed to weave around her. It couldn’t happen again. Her dreams were tormented by fragments of memory. Of Carlo, loving her and making love to her. The way his body could command hers. But her dreams were even more dangerous than that. She remembered him laughing, and the way it turned his whole face into the most perfect, beautiful thing she’d ever seen. The way he put an arm around her and she felt safe and loved, cocooned from harm and danger.

  Jane woke up exhausted, but with a renewed sense of purpose. Anything was better than the soul-draining apathy she’d felt since leaving Italy. She ran a google search on local estate agents and called the first one that came up. Having made an appointment to discuss the sale of her house, she felt even better.

  For the first time since flying back into London, she looked around and realised what a tip her house was. Tidying was therapeutic. She went from room to room, straightening and organising, and mentally making lists of what she’d need to get rid of before she moved. It was only later that day, when the house was spotless and the estate agent was due, that Jane realised she had no clue where she’d go to.

  The ringing of the doorbell interrupted her realisation. She crossed the home and pulled it inwards.

  “Jane Lang?” A handsome man, she guessed in his early f
orties, stood on her entrance portico. He was just to the left of the crimson stained grout. She wondered if she’d need to get it dug out and re-done before listing the property.

  “Yes, hello. Do come in,” she opened the door wider and stepped aside.

  The agent walked inside, and passed a business card over. “I’m Anthony Black. You spoke to my assistant earlier.”

  “Yes.” She swallowed.

  “What can I do for you, Miss Lang?”

  “I want to sell my house.”

  “I presumed as much.” He winked. “Mind if I have a look around before we get down to details?”

  Jane nodded. “Suit yourself.”

  The agent remained with her for a little over an hour, and by the time he’d left, Jane had signed the contracts that detailed the sale price and conditions. She felt a sense of freedom wash over her. With no idea where she’d go or when, she knew she needed to do something.

  Precisely two days after listing her house for sale, Jane signed a contract of sale. She remembered the date clearly, and always would, for it was the same day she discovered that she was pregnant.

  She did her best to appear calm while she met with the realtor and put her scrawl on the dotted line, but as soon as he left, she gave reign to her emotions. Her whole body began to shake, as she counted back dates in her mind. But she didn’t want to get too far ahead of herself. She’d been under a lot of pressure; it could just be that her cycle was out of whack after everything she’d been through since leaving Carlo.

  She grabbed her handbag and stepped out of her home. As she walked quickly down the steps, Liz’s voice called out to her.

  “Hello, stranger,” she said quietly.

  Jane looked across at her. “You’re still here? I would have thought you’d be off spying on someone else by now.”

  Liz shook her head. “Come, Jane. You know Carlo was only trying to look after you.”

  “I don’t have time to talk now, Liz.”

  Liz frowned thoughtfully. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, fine,” Jane lied, wondering if a tiny little life form was swimming about inside of her, feathering its nest for the nine months ahead. “Excuse me.”

  “Jane,” Liz called after her, and Jane turned around, surprised to feel a jab of compunction at Liz’s obvious distress. “I miss you. Please don’t shut me out.”

  Jane’s heart turned over. She continued to stare at the Italian woman. “I have to go now.” Liz’s face fell. “But let’s have a tea this afternoon.”

  Liz instantly beamed. “Yes. I’ll bring cake.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you later.” She strode swiftly out of her gate and walked in the direction of the High street. She needed a pregnancy test, and she needed it ten minutes earlier.

  She bought four tests, just to be sure, but each one displayed two bright blue lines. Two gorgeous blue indicators that there was a little life form in her stomach.

  Her heart swelled with pleasure, and then immediately began to contract with worry. What if something went wrong again? What if… she couldn’t bear it. And she wished, then, above anything else, that Carlo was there to reassure her.

  Carlo.

  She groaned and squeezed her eyes shut. It was his baby. She would have to tell him. They would be tied together for life, through this child. And she would never be able to get over him.

  Jane dug her mobile from her pocket and dialled his number before she could change her mind.

  “Pronto?”

  Jane’s breath burned in her lungs at the sound of his voice. “Carlo,” she whispered, her gut tightening with the violent strength of her emotions.

  Carlo immediately sat up straighter. He stared around his office, his mouth dry. What time was it? He blinked, and focussed on the clock above the door. It was after lunch. Hell.

  He rubbed his bleary eyes, and gripped his phone all the tighter. As though it were actually Jane in his hands, and somehow, by holding her, he could stop her from slipping away again.

  The longer he was silent, the more her nerves stretched unbearably. “Are you there?” She said, finally.

  He moaned softly to himself. Then, reality began to burst through his surprise and sleep-addled brain. “Is everything okay, Jane? Are you okay?”

  Her laugh was tremulous, and it turned his veins to ice, with fear. “Jane?” He demanded insistently.

  “Right, yes. I’m fine. I mean, I am. But I need to talk to you.”

  He stood immediately, and moved towards his office door. He hadn’t showered in two days, but he could do that on the plane. “I’ll come to you.”

  “Oh. Now?”

  “Well, later today, yes. I’m still in Rome.”

  “Of course.” He heard her swallow. “Thank you.”

  Jane disconnected the call, and began to shake. Her day had started off like any other, and in the space of an hour, she’d sold her house, discovered she was pregnant, made amends with her best friend, and invited her ex-husband over for a tete a tete.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Jane, dressed in a simple black dress and chunky gold necklace, with her blonde hair brushed until it shone, felt impossibly nervous. She paced her downstairs lounge, her stomach twisted in so many knots it was just a tangle of wool. How long did it take to get from the airport, she thought mutinously, eyeing her watch for the hundredth time in ten minutes. He’d texted from City over an hour ago. Surely he should have been at her house by now?

  Jane poured herself another glass of water and returned to her pacing. What if he’d been in a car accident? What if he’d been racing to get to her, and something had happened? The very notion filled her with nausea. She couldn’t imagine it, and so she didn’t.

  Another nerve-crippling twenty minutes later, her doorbell rang.

  She sucked in a deep breath and began to move across the floor.

  When she opened the door, and stared back at Carlo, she almost sobbed.

  “What’s happened to you?” She demanded, staring at him in absolute horror.

  He must have lost half his body weight in the three weeks they’d been apart. His hair was long, and his face was covered in stubble. Not a designer five o’clock shadow, this was genuinely unkempt facial hair.

  She stared at him in total confusion. He was dressed in a suit – that much was normal – but it was oversized on his newly slender frame. His skin was grey beneath his caramel tan, and dark bags were scored beneath his eyes.

  His lips curled into a derisive half-smile. “What do you think?”

  She continued to stare at him, shock spiralling through her at his totally Un-Carlo appearance. “You look ill. Are you sick?”

  He let out a harsh bark of laughter. “You could say that.”

  Jane’s heart turned over. “Oh, God, Carlo, what is it? Tell me now. Tell me what’s wrong.” The thought of something being wrong with him filled her with such total, gut-wrenching despondency that she could hardly think.

  Carlo felt odd. Light headed. He tried to remember when he’d last eaten. It could have been the day before. Or the day before that? He knew Anna had been bringing him food, but he’d had little time nor interest in it. He leaned against the door jamb, feigning nonchalance to cover the sudden wave of exhaustion.

  He was pretty sure he looked like shit, going from Jane’s reaction. If anything, the opposite could be said of her. She looked… stunning. His groin tightened in reaction to the nearness of her, as he scanned her glowing face, her beautiful eyes, her long, fair hair, and her beautiful body. God, he’d missed her.

  “Can I come in?”

  She nodded. “Of course.” As he moved inside her home, she wondered if she should put an arm around his waist. He looked in need of support. “Are you drunk?” She blurted out, thinking it could explain the way he seemed a little unsteady on his feet.

  He laughed again, that same sound of gravelly disbelief. A hoarse noise of dissent. “No, Jane, I’m not drunk.” He’d been through that phase. The first
week after she’d left him – again – he’d spent solidly examining the bottom of a bottle of Whisky. Work had become his new obsession, and he’d hardly left his office in the last two weeks.

  He moved into the lounge room and remained standing. “Your place looks different.”

  She nodded, and crossed her arms defensively over her chest. “I sold it today.”

  He stood very still. “You’re moving?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where to?”

  Now it was her turn to laugh uncomfortably. “I don’t know yet. Maybe the countryside. I needed a change.”

  He frowned. “In England?”

  “I guess so.” She shrugged. “I haven’t really thought about it. It all happened very quickly.”

  “I see.”

  Jane had called Carlo because she wanted to talk to him. Because she knew she needed to tell him about the baby. Because she knew she needed his support. But looking at him now, she wondered if the reverse wasn’t true.

  “What’s happened to you?” She asked again, finally giving into her instincts and putting an arm around his waist. He frowned a little, but didn’t resist as she led him to the sofa and guided him to sit down.

  Pride kept him from responding with the truth. Instead, he stuck to a version of it. “I’ve been in the middle of a difficult negotiation. It’s required me to work around the clock.”

  Jane scowled. “You’ve always pushed yourself, but never like this. Your work has never taken a physical toll on you before.”

  Anger wasn’t the emotion he wanted to feel, but it was the easiest to express. “How would you know, Jane? You’ve hardly been around the last few years, have you?”

  She lowered her gaze, unwilling to let his sarcastic question derail her purpose. “Fine, you tell me, Carlo. Is this normal for you? Do you routinely fade away to nothing, because you’re working so hard?”

  He glared at her, his whole body aching with pain at being close to her but not able to touch her. “What do you want, Jane?”

  “What do I want?” She parroted, her confusion obvious.

  “You called me. You said you wanted to talk.”