The Sicilian's Surprise Love-Child / Claiming My Bride Of Convenience: The Sicilian's Surprise Love-Child / Claiming My Bride of Convenience (Mills & Boon Modern)

by Carol Marinelli

‘Let them.’

  ‘Matteo…’ She shook her head. ‘I haven’t agreed, you know. I’m not planning on agreeing to just jump into bed—and life—with you.’

  We’ll see about that, I thought, but wisely did not say. Yet.

  ‘Lunch,’ I murmured and, taking her arm, I headed towards the café.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I FOUND IT exceedingly pleasant to sit in the sun at an outside table at the village’s café, nibbling souvlaki and drinking red wine, with the agiorgitiko grapes indigenous to the region lending it a lush, fruity flavour that was slipping down far too nicely.

  I was just a little bit tipsy—which was dangerous. Because the most pleasant part of the afternoon by far was sitting with Matteo, basking in his attention and interest, enjoying his dry humour, as well as enjoying the way his gaze would rest on me in warm approval.

  I was like a parched desert that had suddenly encountered cool spring rains and I couldn’t soak them up fast enough. Dangerous indeed.

  ‘Tell me about your childhood,’ Matteo invited, as if he were fascinated by me, wanting to know every dull detail when the initial rules of our marriage had been to know as little as possible. ‘You told me you grew up in Kentucky…?’

  When had I told him that? Or had he learned it during his little bout of research?

  ‘Why don’t you tell me what you learned online?’ I threw back, somehow managing to pitch my tone between teasing and slightly piqued.

  I felt reckless with wine and attention, daring in a way I almost never was. I couldn’t decide if I was flirting or fighting or something in between. I was caught between caution and desire, common sense and a heady recklessness. This was so much fun—and yet it was also more than a little frightening. Matteo was a sexy, charming, devastating man…in so many ways. I couldn’t let myself forget that.

  ‘Ah, online…’ Matteo gave a small smile of acknowledgement. ‘Hardly an episode of cyberstalking. I simply did an internet search of your name in Kentucky, and I came upon a former address for you and your grandmother.’

  ‘Easy enough, I suppose.’

  ‘Yet it told me very little—only that you lived with your grandmother rather than with your parents.’

  And yet he’d still been able to surmise so much—the loss of my family and my longing for a child, as if a baby would finally fill that yawning vacuum inside me. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t, but I didn’t know whether I liked Matteo knowing about it. Knowing about me.

  I looked away, unsure how to feel about any of this. It was raw and real and nerve-racking to be so vulnerable—especially in front of a man like Matteo, who was still mostly a stranger—but in an odd way it also felt comforting, to be so known.

  ‘So…?’ Matteo prompted, leaning back in his chair and stretching his long legs out in front of him. ‘Take your time…tell me everything. I’m not going anywhere.’

  He acknowledged the full intent of his words with a lazy smile. No, he wasn’t going anywhere. He was going to stay on Amanos until he got what he wanted—which was what? Me in his bed, as a proper wife, but for how long? And why?

  ‘There’s not much to say, really,’ I answered as I took another sip of the delicious red wine. ‘My father was never in the picture and, as I’ve told you before, my mother died in a car crash when I was eighteen months old.’

  She’d been coming home at four in the morning after the graveyard shift at a local diner. A truck driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and veered into her lane. Over in an instant—one life ended, two others changed for ever.

  ‘Yes, you told me that. What I didn’t say was that I’m sorry.’

  I shrugged. The pain was an old wound that I knew I would always have, but it didn’t hurt so much, as long as I didn’t probe it too deeply.

  ‘I don’t remember my mother, and it’s hard to miss someone you never knew.’

  ‘Is it?’ Matteo’s dark brows drew together as he frowned, a strangely haunted look coming over his face for a moment. ‘I’m not sure. I think it can be quite easy.’

  Which was an incredibly intriguing statement, but he clearly wasn’t going to offer any more, and judging by the sudden closed look drawing his chiselled features together he seemed to regret admitting that much.

  ‘So you and your grandmother lived alone?’ he resumed.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Were you close?’

  I pondered the question for a moment, recalling my evenings alone while my grandmother worked a second shift, or the Saturdays we’d spent together, cleaning someone else’s house, working in grim, silent solidarity.

  ‘Out of necessity, I suppose. My grandmother grew up poor and worked all the hours on God’s green earth to make ends meet—and then they did, only just. She didn’t have time or energy for much more than that.’

  ‘For you?’

  His question was just a bit too piquant. ‘I didn’t feel neglected,’ I said, a bit defensively. ‘I understood. Of course I did.’

  ‘Even so, you were a child.’

  I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt like a child. From a young age I’d seen too much of the realities of poverty and hard work and injustice, even as I’d tried desperately not to let them shape me. To keep my optimism and hope even when everything in life insisted I surrender them—white flags to the grinding war of real life.

  ‘I grew up quickly in some ways,’ I said after a moment.

  And yet in other ways I’d remained terribly naïve, completely inexperienced when it came to certain aspects of life. All I’d known how to do was work hard, and that hadn’t been enough to make it in Manhattan. Not by a long shot.

  ‘So, New York…’ Matteo said, as if he’d been able to follow my silent train of thought. ‘How did you end up there?’

  ‘My granny developed Alzheimer’s when I was nineteen. I took care of her until she died, when I was twenty-two.’

  I dismissed those three agonising years in a single sentence, and was glad to do so. Who wanted to hear about how dispiriting, how devastating, they’d been? Certainly not Matteo.

  ‘When she was gone I realised there wasn’t much keeping me in Briar Valley.’

  Between caring for my grandmother, taking a few classes at the local college, and holding down two part-time jobs, I hadn’t had time to make friends or form ties of any kind, and most people my age had left anyway. It had been a relief to leave the memories behind.

  I didn’t say any of that to Matteo, however. It was all becoming a bit too pathetic, a bit too ‘poor little me’. So I just smiled and reached for my wine. ‘I’d always wanted to go to New York. I had dreams of being a singer, once upon a time.’

  I tried for insouciance but a sour note entered my voice. That memory hurt too.

  ‘A singer?’ Matteo looked properly surprised. ‘Now, that I really didn’t know. So you went to New York to become a star on the stage?’

  ‘Yes—and ended up waitressing instead. A story told a thousand times, I’m sure.’

  I was definitely not going to tell him about my awful ‘audition’ with Chris Dawson, or the terrible words he’d flung at me, and how that experience had led me to my lowest point, which had led me to here. No, I’d talked about myself enough for one day…for one lifetime.

  ‘Anyway, that all went up in smoke, as you know. I sing in the shower these days—if at all.’ Hummed was more like it. I’d stopped singing the day Chris Dawson had told me I was deluded about my talent.

  You’re a talentless nobody, Daisy Campbell, and you always will be.

  ‘Perhaps you’d sing for me?’

  Matteo’s voice held an undercurrent of sensuality, as if his words had been dipped in dark chocolate.

  ‘I doubt it,’ I replied, and my voice was a little too hard to be bright, the way I’d meant it to be. ‘Apparently a good voice in Briar Valley, Kentucky, is
not a good voice in New York or even anywhere else.’

  Matteo’s eyebrows rose. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just that I was disabused of the notion that I was anything special.’

  And that was all I was going to say about that. I’d said too much already, exposing a few too many flaws than was either comfortable or wise.

  ‘Anyway, that’s all old news and rather dull,’ I said, and this time I thought I’d managed the bright tone. ‘Tell me about you.’

  ‘Not much to tell.’

  There could be no ignoring the repressive tone that Matteo adopted like an invisible, iron mantle—I suspected without even realising it. The doors were inexorably swinging shut.

  ‘There must be something.’

  I found I was intensely curious about Matteo Dias. All I knew about him was that he was CEO of Arides Enterprises and he’d married to satisfy his grandfather, to whom he was not close. And, of course, that he was considered the sexiest bachelor in Greece, if not all of Europe, and women fawned and fell at his feet.

  But did he have parents? Siblings? Friends? Hobbies or quirks or funny stories? Birthmarks or scars or hidden talents?

  If our marriage turned real would I find out?

  ‘What about your family?’ I persisted. ‘All I know is you have a grandfather you don’t like very much.’

  ‘Massive understatement, I’m afraid, but he feels the same.’ Matteo’s smile didn’t look like a smile.

  ‘What about your parents? Siblings?’

  ‘My parents are both dead, and have been since I was a baby.’

  ‘I’m sorry—’

  ‘Don’t be. Like you, I never knew them.’

  Which reminded me of that poignant comment he now seemed to regret making—how it could be easy to miss something you never knew. What did he miss? The love of a parent?

  ‘What about brothers or sisters?’ I asked.

  A hesitation, and then he admitted with reluctance, ‘I have one half-brother. Andreas.’

  ‘Are you close?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking.’

  I frowned. ‘What does that mean?’

  Another hesitation, and I waited, holding my breath, longing to know more. ‘He suffered a TBI—a traumatic brain injury—when he was young. He’s never been the same since.’

  ‘Oh, Matteo, that’s terrible.’

  ‘For him more than me. Some might say—in fact, have said—that it was quite a boon for me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He shook his head. ‘Enough of that. It’s an old and boring story.’

  Now there could be no disguising the hard finality of his tone. He must have heard it himself, because he smiled—a widening of his mouth, a gleaming of his teeth—but it looked like nothing more than a charade, and that unsettled me.

  How much of this afternoon had been an act? Why was he so reluctant to part with even minor details about his life?

  ‘Anyway,’ he resumed, in a case closed sort of voice, ‘we have more important things to discuss.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Our marriage.’

  His smile sharpened to a point, his eyes glinting like metal. My stomach tightened with both anticipation and nerves. Was I ready to talk about this? After my scornful and complete refusal of his proposition a week ago, could I really be considering it now, even in the smallest degree?

  I was. Heaven help me, I was. And I feared there was nothing small about it.

  ‘All right,’ I said, lifting my chin as I met his glinting gaze with what I hoped was a steady one of my own. ‘Let’s talk.’

  Triumph surged through me as I held Daisy’s gaze. I had her. We hadn’t even talked about the details yet, but I knew I had her. It was just a matter of time.

  ‘So, you told me I didn’t know what a real marriage with you would look like,’ she said, her voice firm, her gaze holding mine without a flicker.

  She was, I suspected, a little tipsy, and it had given her a certain Dutch courage which I didn’t mind.

  ‘So tell me. What would it look like?’

  ‘What would you want it to look like?’

  ‘You’re prevaricating.’

  I was, but I wasn’t about to admit it. ‘Not at all. I’m interested in your thoughts.’

  ‘Since when?’

  Now her confidence was turning aggressive. I didn’t think I liked that as much.

  ‘Since I decided I wanted to make our marriage real.’

  ‘Which was when?’ She shook her head slowly. ‘Because the thing is, Matteo, I’m not sure I believe that you actually do.’

  ‘You don’t believe me?’ I stared at her incredulously. ‘Why on earth would I come all this way, go to all this effort, if I wasn’t serious?’

  She shrugged, her gaze sliding away from mine. ‘I don’t know. Because you see me as a challenge? Or perhaps a novelty?’

  She turned back to me, eyes flashing.

  ‘Neither is a good reason for going the distance with someone—and I’m not talking about physically.’ A rose-pink blush tinted her cheeks. ‘Or at least not just physically.’

  I tried not to feel offended by her words and failed. Did she honestly think me so shallow that I would pursue marriage simply because it felt like a challenge? I was almost tempted to inform her that I’d had plenty of such challenges, and she was not so much of one as she seemed to think. But I didn’t. Because it wasn’t strictly true. The women I’d been with had not been challenges at all—except perhaps in the challenge not to have me become bored.

  Daisy was as different from them as the sun was from the rain-swept sea—so did that mean she was a challenge? In the space of a few seconds I’d managed to tie myself in mental knots, and I didn’t like that, either.

  ‘You don’t even have a response?’ Daisy shook her head, disappointment darkening her eyes to the colour of whisky. ‘Figures.’

  ‘Figures?’ I’d most certainly had enough of her insults. ‘And what is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘That I’m right.’

  ‘You sound disappointed.’ Which was something, at least. Vindication would have been much harder to stomach. ‘I thought we were going to talk about the particulars of our marriage, not whether my intentions were honourable or not—although I have to confess, they must be honourable, because we’re talking about marriage.’

  ‘We’re already married.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Fine.’ She folded her arms under her bosom, highlighting that asset to becoming effect. ‘What are the particulars?’

  ‘I asked you first what you would expect from a marriage such as ours.’

  ‘Ah, yes, that’s where we started. With your prevarication. You’re afraid that I’ll be completely appalled by what you expect, and how it differs from what I expect, so you want to suit your answers to my concerns. But of course you don’t know what they are.’

  There was entirely too much truth in that statement. ‘I’m merely curious.’

  ‘So am I. So perhaps I should tell you what I think you expect.’

  Her eyes and her smile both gleamed, and I wondered if she was actually enjoying this unexpected repartee. There was a prickle to her, as well as a bite. I think she liked baiting me, the she-devil, but I knew I had the ability to hurt her, and I found I didn’t like that at all. That was one power I did not wish to have.

  ‘Fine. Tell me what I expect.’

  Daisy leaned back in her chair, her lids dropping to half mast as she surveyed me with a sleepy consideration I found beguiling. I arranged my features into a neutral expression of bland interest and waited for what I suspected would be a damning verdict.

  ‘First off, you want a wife in your bed. It seems you’re a man of voracious appetite in that regard, so I imagine you want a wi
fe in your bed with some regularity.’

  Her words alone were enough to make me shift in my seat, desire arrowing through me in piercing, uncomfortable points.

  In my bed with some regularity.

  Yes, indeed—I could get on board with that.

  ‘And I think she’d need some imagination.’

  Colour pinkened her cheeks but she didn’t look away. Now it was getting interesting. I didn’t think she’d be saying any of this if she hadn’t had several glasses of wine.

  ‘Some,’ I agreed, inclining my head. ‘But I am not a man of wild tastes.’ I smiled, letting my gaze linger. ‘Not too wild, at any rate.’

  Now she did look away, shaking her head. ‘I’m afraid I have very little of either experience or imagination when it comes to…that.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re eminently teachable.’

  ‘That’s not the point I’m trying to make, Matteo.’ She turned back to me, her face fiery. ‘That’s not it at all.’

  ‘Then what is?’ I asked with equanimity.

  ‘That you don’t want anything else. You want a wife when it suits you, and you definitely don’t want one when it doesn’t.’

  ‘That is not true.’

  ‘You don’t even know me. This is the first time we’ve spent any time together. Why on earth would you decide to be married to me—really married? Have you decided you want a baby after all?’

  ‘Actually, yes. As I told you, I need an heir.’

  ‘An heir? What is this? The fourteenth century?’

  ‘No, it’s the twenty-first—in a country that honours the concept of family.’

  ‘And yet until I mentioned wanting a family myself you didn’t seem too bothered by the notion. You certainly hadn’t thought of babies.’

  ‘I changed my mind.’

  I stared at her flushed face, and her eyes glittering with anger, and wondered how our pleasant afternoon had morphed into this. She was angry, and I hadn’t expected her to be. I don’t think she had either.

  ‘Just like that,’ she said after a moment, deflating a little.

  ‘I gave it some thought, I assure you.’

  ‘Not very much.’