The Sicilian's Passion

by Sharon Kendrick

  Her sarcasm showed on her face. ‘What? Fly away from you?’

  ‘To Sicily,’ he said in a voice which brooked no argument. ‘I intend taking her there to recuperate.’

  Lucy stared at him. ‘Are you completely out of your mind?’

  He was tempted to tell her that it was none of her business, but—of course—it was. Kate was her sister and she was simply being protective.

  ‘I appreciate your concern,’ he said softly. ‘But I do not intend to discuss it with you, Lucy.’

  ‘I have never met a more stubborn man!’ she exclaimed, shaking her head in frustration. ‘Well, I’d better go. Please tell Kate I’m here whenever she needs me.’

  ‘I’ll tell her.’

  After Lucy had gone, Giovanni went into the bedroom and stood looking down at her, and his face darkened as he saw her white features and shadowed eyes. He had done this to her!

  Her eyes fluttered open as if she had sensed he was there. For a split-second she forgot why she was in bed at noon, with Giovanni observing her with such a tense, tight face, and then she remembered. ‘Oh,’ she cried, and she felt the hot well of tears behind her eyes.

  He wanted to reach out to her, but she looked like a hunted animal, and so he sat on the edge of the bed instead.

  ‘Kate,’ he said softly, ‘we have to talk about it.’

  ‘Not now,’ she said, and shut her eyes again, keeping them tightly closed, in a vain attempt to stop the tears streaming out.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  KATE woke early the following morning, with the warmth of sunshine piercing her senses, and the dull ache inside where her baby had been. She bit back the sob which had clawed at the back of her throat, and turned to stare at the wall.

  ‘Kate?’

  The smell of coffee wafted into the room and drifted towards her nostrils, and Kate turned over to see Giovanni standing in the doorway, a tray of coffee in his hands.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, but his voice was as sombre as his face.

  ‘Hello.’ She sat up in bed, forcing a smile.

  ‘Here.’ He put the coffee down on the dressing table and plumped up the pillows behind her back, and she settled against them comfortably.

  ‘Thank you.’

  He wondered what she was thanking him for, when he…he… A muscle moved at his mouth as he poured two cups of coffee and took one over to the bed and gave it to her. He let her drink some and saw a corresponding colour creep into her cheeks before he spoke.

  ‘Kate, there is something I have to say to you.’

  Through her mind shot a catalogue of statements she might expect now. Kate, it’s over. Kate, it’s been wonderful. Kate, Kate, Kate…

  ‘Kate.’ He saw her give a ghostly glimmer of a smile and wondered why. ‘The miscarriage—’

  ‘Please, don’t!’ she winced on a whisper.

  ‘I caused it,’ he said flatly. ‘It was my fault.’

  She stared at him with bewildered eyes and put the cup down before she dropped the scalding remains of her coffee. ‘What?’

  ‘When I made love to you.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Do you think….?’ For the first time in his life he was having difficulty forming a sentence. ‘Do you think the fact that the…the…sex we had was quite—?’

  Her pain made her want to hurt him, too. ‘Quite what, Giovanni?’

  ‘Quite forceful? Do you think that was what caused the miscarriage? I need to know!’

  She stared candidly into his blue eyes, knowing that he was seeking absolution and knowing that she would have given it, had it been within her power. But it was not, and her own guilt overwhelmed her. ‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly, and he buried his face in his hands.

  ‘Matri di Diu!’ he muttered hoarsely. ‘What have I done?’

  Part of her wanted to reach out and comfort him, but how could she when she was so badly in need of comfort herself? She closed her eyes wearily and lay back against the pillows.

  They stayed there in silence for a little time, and then Giovanni stood up.

  ‘I’ll make you breakfast—’

  ‘I don’t want any—’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said grimly, ‘you do. Or rather your body does. You will grow no paler than you already are, Kate, and you will eat it if I have to mash it with a fork and feed you like a baby. Is that understood?’

  And, whilst the normal Kate might have rebelled against such high-handedness, this frightened and hurting Kate was glad to have him there, making her decisions and helping make her well again.

  She ate breakfast, then soaked in the bath that he had run for her, and forced herself to dress—or, rather, she compromised at dressing. A long, silky caftan which Lucy had bought her for her twenty-first birthday, and the familiar light, loose garment was a little like wrapping herself in a security blanket.

  When she walked into the sitting room Giovanni was sitting there and he stood up.

  ‘Come and sit down. What can I get you?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nothing. You don’t have to keep fussing over me, Giovanni.’

  ‘I want to.’

  She remembered his words to Lucy. He would stay until she recovered—so presumably he wanted her recovered in the shortest time possible.

  He noted her silence, her normally mobile face grown inert, as if the life had been sucked out of it. And it had, he thought with a sudden fierce pain. It had. ‘I want to take you back to Sicily with me,’ he said suddenly.

  How she had once longed to hear him say that! In her wildest fantasies she had imagined her clinging onto his arm, Giovanni’s girl, the woman he had finally professed love to. ‘You can’t do that,’ she said tiredly.

  ‘Why not? You need to rest. You need the sun to warm your skin.’

  She stared at him as though he was crazy. ‘What about your family?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘What will they think of you bringing an English girl to their home—?’

  ‘I have my own villa,’ he interrupted gently, and, when he saw the expression on her face, added, ‘with my own live-in housekeeper, so your reputation will not be tarnished.’

  ‘Do they know about the baby?’

  He shook his head. ‘How can they, when I only found out myself the day before yesterday?’

  ‘And what about Anna? Won’t she want to come and find me and tell me exactly what she thinks of me?’

  His shoulders tensed, the news which had seemed so important now totally insignificant in the light of what had happened. ‘Anna is still in Roma.’

  But would his family hate her? See her as the reason why his relationship with Anna had come to an end?

  ‘Kate,’ he said, in the gentlest voice she had ever heard him use, ‘my family do not interfere. They know that I am a man, and expect me to make my own judgements about my life. They will respect you as my guest.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said weakly.

  ‘Well, I do. I am taking you to Sicily. I will look after you.’

  Until she recovered. And then?

  But she had no energy left to fight him. Nor any inclination, if the truth was known—and in a way it was rather a relief to let him take over everything. She did not see herself as passive, merely weary—and he seemed to have strength enough for the two of them.

  And Kate knew that her willingness to go with him was about more than Giovanni’s tenacity. She needed someone to look after her—but Lucy’s partner was back—and as he was so often away, how could she ask Lucy?

  She certainly couldn’t go to her parents without explaining the circumstances, and she wasn’t prepared to put them through that kind of hurt and disappointment. And, although the doctors had said she could start working as soon as she felt like it, the fact was that she felt completely empty inside. As though she had been blasted clean of all feelings bar one—that, no matter how useless she knew it to be, her feelings for Giovanni still burned as strong as ever.
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  ‘Well?’ The blue eyes blazed into her.

  ‘OK,’ she nodded, and drifted back into a fitful sleep.

  He stood and watched her for a time, until her breathing grew more even and her strained expression had relaxed with the onset of deep sleep. And only then did he lean over her to plant the lightest of kisses on her forehead. Then he moved silently from the room, his face dark with loss and pain.

  Giovanni hired a plane the following day. He would not countenance the thought of the noise and bustle of airports, with Kate having to change planes and wait for connections. She was still pale, he noted with a pang—and quieter than he had ever known her.

  She forced a smile. ‘I’d better pack—’

  ‘No, I’ll pack some clothes for you,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not an invalid,’ she protested.

  Her wan little face made mockery of her words, and his heart clenched. ‘I know that,’ he agreed quietly. ‘But I intend to look after you, Kate.’

  It was ironic that the things she had always wanted to hear him say were now hers for the taking. Until she remembered that he didn’t mean them—not long-term, anyway. He was falling into a role which he seemed to suit very well—that of macho protector. But it was only a temporary role, and one which he would relinquish once he was satisfied that she had recovered from her ordeal.

  They flew out from the grey of a wintry English day and arrived to the warm, sensual air of a Sicilian spring. Kate hadn’t known what to expect, and as the plane came in to land she could see hills awash with green—greener than she could ever have imagined.

  He saw the surprise in her eyes. ‘It is springtime,’ he explained softly as the plane kissed the runway. ‘And the very best, most beautiful time of all. You should see it in the summer when it gets diabolically hot, and the land becomes parched and brown and the harsh, unremitting wind they call the sirocco blows all around. Then Sicilians hide themselves indoors and away from the sun as much as they can.’

  He had a car waiting, which he drove himself after carefully settling her into the back seat, a light cashmere rug tucked around her knees.

  ‘But—’

  ‘I know. You’re not an invalid. Just enjoy it, won’t you, Kate?’ he added in what came pretty close to a plea—and how could she ever resist that?

  The car began to mount the hills outside Palermo, where wild flowers of every imaginable hue studded the green hills. It was as pretty as anything she had ever seen, and Kate felt a great tug of something like longing. The land of his birth, she thought, and bit her trembling lip.

  Towards the very top of the hill the car passed through wrought-iron electronic gates which slid silently open and closed behind them, just as silently and a beautiful long, low villa awaited them.

  They were greeted at the villa by an elderly woman, dressed in a plain black dress, her face openly curious as she opened the door to them.

  ‘This is Michelina, Kate.’ He switched rapidly to Sicilian, and the woman inclined her head at Kate as Giovanni introduced them.

  ‘Michelina has worked for my family in some capacity for many years,’ he explained as he showed her along a shady passageway and into a luxurious marble-floored bedroom. Its windows were shuttered against the light of the day, and a large bed covered with an exquisitely embroidered cover loomed large in her vision. She turned to look at him with a silent question in her eyes, knowing that here lay another potentially painful moment of truth.

  ‘This is where you will sleep,’ he said abruptly, wondering if she was trying to test his resolve with that dewy-eyed look at him.

  He felt the quickening of his heart. Was she trying to break him? To see whether he would repeat his outrageous behaviour of that terrible night when he had made such passionate love to her? Trying to break a man driven solely by his baser instincts, who could not nurture the woman who carried his child within her?

  ‘And you?’ she questioned, because she needed to know.

  His mouth hardened. ‘I will be along the corridor.’

  So that was that. Looking after her would not include holding her in the night, and she must force herself to recognise—and to accept—that that side of their lives had come to a natural end. Perhaps it was for the best—at least this way she would be able to wean herself off him slowly.

  Kate dressed for dinner that evening, wondering if she could bear it, and questioning her own sanity. For how could she possibly make a complete recovery if inside her heart was breaking?

  But Michelina’s presence meant that outwardly, at least, she was forced to behave as the perfect guest, and it quickly became tolerable for her to actually feel that way. She praised the wonderful food—though it was rather ironic that the housekeeper had chosen to present her with pasta con le sarde for her first evening.

  ‘It is our national dish,’ she told Kate with a smile, in her faltering English.

  And Giovanni had glimmered a look across the table at her. ‘Kate has heard of it,’ he smiled.

  ‘It’s delicious,’ she said, and it was. She had eaten barely anything of her own attempt at making the dish. She resolutely pushed that particular thought away, since looking back would not help her.

  ‘You have many gastronomic feasts in store for you, Kate,’ murmured Giovanni as he poured her a glass of wine. ‘Sicilian food comes hotter, spicier and sweeter than the rest of Italy.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘For which we must thank our Arab conquerors.’

  She was yawning over the coffee Michelina had left them, when Giovanni stood up with an air of determination.

  ‘You need to go to sleep now,’ he instructed softly. ‘Come with me.’

  Outside her door, she wanted him to touch her—not in a sexual way, but in a comforting kind of way, to enfold her in his strong embrace and take some of the aching away, but he kept his distance.

  Their physical closeness seemed like a distant dream as he quietly shut the bedroom door behind him, and she heard him moving off down the corridor.

  But the sun was shining the next day and he drove her through the mountains to a resort along the Tyrrhenian coast called Cefalú, which he promised her was spectacular, and from the moment she saw the fishing village, squeezed between a long, curving sweep of sand and a massive peak known as the Rocca, Kate fell in love with it.

  Giovanni slowed the car down, and pointed to the Rocca. ‘What does that resemble?’

  It was like one of those games you played with ink-spots, trying to make sense out of a random shape. Except that this shape seemed very clear to Kate.

  ‘It looks like a head?’ she guessed.

  He laughed in delight. ‘Clever girl! That’s exactly what the ancient Greeks who came here thought, too. And kephalos is the Greek word for “head”—hence Cefalú.’

  Kate sat back in her seat, pleased at her perception and even more pleased by his smiling praise. At times like this, it was easy to forget her reason for being here—and easy to imagine that they were just like any other couple, enjoying the sights and relaxing in each other’s company.

  But they weren’t, she reminded herself. They weren’t.

  She turned her head quickly to look out of the window. Too often in the past had she wished for the impossible and now it was time to change the game-plan.

  Side by side, they walked down to the Norman cathedral and Giovanni gave her his linen jacket to wear.

  ‘Women must cover their arms in this holy place,’ he told her gravely as they stepped inside its cool, dim interior.

  She felt as though she was being swept up into Sicily’s stormy past as they walked around the majestic building in silence, and she studied her guidebook avidly. She insisted on lighting a candle, but her lips began to tremble as she did so, and her face was very pale when they re-entered the warm spring sunshine.

  His eyes were assessing as he looked at her, but now was not the time nor the place for analysis. ‘Lunch, I think,’ he said firmly.

  They found a restaurant whose sheltere
d terrace overlooked the fishermen’s beach, and Giovanni ordered swordfish for them both. And, when the waiter had left them with their water and basket of bread, he turned his gaze intently on her.

  ‘Kate, we have to talk about it,’ he said gently.

  She wilfully misunderstood him, because surely it was too painful to contemplate the truth. ‘The cathedral?’

  ‘The baby.’

  She shook her head, and her red hair flailed wildly around her shoulders. ‘Who says we do? It was nothing, was it? An accident which happened, which mercifully—’

  ‘No!’ His negation was low, but savage—and his face burned with the intensity of conflicting emotions. ‘Don’t say that!’ he grated. ‘Don’t you ever say that!’

  ‘But it’s the truth, isn’t it? And for you it must have been…’ she bit the words out painfully ‘…a relief.’

  He shook his head and his words were quiet, almost bleak. ‘How could something so negative ever be described in a positive way?’

  She swallowed. ‘Because we didn’t plan it!’

  ‘Out of all babies born, how many do you think are planned, Kate?’

  Did she imagine the sadness in his voice, or did she simply want to hear it there, to wish that he had wanted that baby just as much as she had? ‘That’s different, and you know it!’ she responded fiercely. ‘You didn’t want a baby, Giovanni—so don’t for heaven’s sake now start saying that you did!’

  He pondered her accusation in silence for a moment, knowing that she spoke the truth. ‘And for you, Kate? Was it a relief for you, too?’

  His gaze was so intense—as blue as the sea beneath them, and she could not insult him, or herself, by pretending that it had been nothing.

  ‘Women feel differently about these things,’ she told him haltingly. ‘They may not have planned a baby, nor wanted a baby—but, once that baby is there, something primitive takes over—something outside all their control. Something that defies all logic!’

  ‘Tell me,’ he prompted softly.

  ‘It’s a protective thing, I guess. Nature’s way of ensuring the survival of the species. A woman feels proud, and…sort of…special, when she knows she’s carrying a child.’ Especially the child of the man she loved.