Page 33 of Forgotten Mistress, Secret Love-Child
Yet she couldn’t douse her dismay at the matter-of-fact way Alessandro spoke of marriage for the sake of their child. Perhaps the aristocracy were accustomed to convenient marriages, brokered for family or business reasons.
How could she marry a man she didn’t love? A man who’d betrayed her trust?
Her lips twisted ruefully. Look where her fantasies of love had got her!
‘Unless…’ His fingers tightened then dropped away. His head jerked up and he regarded her down the length of his aristocratic nose, his look coldly accusing. ‘Unless you’ve become attached to someone here?’
Carys hesitated, tempted to grab at the excuse. But she couldn’t lie. Once already she’d tried to deflect Alessandro’s interest by pretending to have a boyfriend, but she hadn’t been able to maintain the pretence.
She shook her head, shifting back a pace and turning her head away. He was too close for comfort.
Did he know how distracting he was, standing in her personal space, radiating energy like a human generator? The hairs on her arms prickled just being so near him.
‘Good, then there’s no reason to refuse.’
‘But what if…?’ Carys bit her tongue, furious that she’d begun to blurt out her wayward thoughts. Furious she was even listening to his bizarre reasoning. She must be mad.
‘What if…?’ His whisper made her shiver and stiffen as the warmth of his breath caressed her cheek.
For three heartbeats, for four, Carys remained silent. Then unwillingly she continued. ‘What if one day you meet someone you…care for? Someone you want to marry?’
Even now, cured of the love she’d felt for Alessandro, the thought of him with someone else squeezed her insides into a tortured knot of distress.
‘That won’t happen.’ Certainty throbbed in his words and she turned, curiosity stirring at his instantaneous response.
‘You can’t know that.’
Alessandro’s beautiful, sensuous mouth kicked up at the corner in a mirthless smile that made a mockery of the heat she’d imagined in his eyes moments before.
‘I know it absolutely.’ His gaze held hers till her chest tightened and she remembered to breathe. And still his expression of weary cynicism didn’t change. ‘Romantic love is a fallacy invented for the gullible. Only a fool would consider himself in love, much less marry for it.’
Carys felt her eyes widen, staring up at the man she’d once believed she’d known. He’d been considerate, witty, urbane and, above all, passionate. The sort of lover a woman dreamed about. A lover who tempted a woman to believe in the most outrageously wonderful happily ever afters.
She’d always understood he kept something of himself back. She’d sensed his deep-seated reserve despite the intimacies they shared. A sense of aloneness she’d never quite breached. An aloneness that intensified after his father died and Alessandro withdrew, devoting himself to business. Yet it shocked her to discover the hardened kernel of scepticism behind his charming exterior.
It made him seem so empty.
Had he always been like that? Or was this the result of the trauma he’d been through?
Distress and unwilling compassion burgeoned for this man who seemed to have so much, yet apparently felt so little.
Absurdly she wanted to reach out to him.
And what? Comfort him? Show him compassion? Love?
No! She reeled back, stunned at the depth of feelings he engendered even now.
Her hand, half raised as if to reach out to him, dropped noiselessly to her side.
‘Marriage is a duty,’ he continued, oblivious to her reaction. ‘There was never any question of me marrying for love.’ His scornful tone almost made her wince, recalling how blithely she’d believed he was falling in love with her as she’d fallen for him.
Acidly she wondered how he’d class his interest in other women. Even if he were married, there would be other women. Alessandro was a man who enjoyed sex. He wouldn’t stay celibate just because he’d married a woman he didn’t love. He’d have no qualms about pursuing someone who took his fancy. After all, she’d been his bit on the side, hadn’t she?
‘I believe in marriage for life.’ His words cut through her stark thoughts. ‘Once married there would be no divorce.’
‘A life sentence, in fact.’
‘You would not find it so hard, believe me, Carys.’ A hint of mellow honey edged his words and Carys shut her eyes, fighting the insidious weakness in her bones. He was talking about money, luxury, position, that was all. Not anything important, like the emotions he so despised.
‘You’re not worried I might fall for someone else and want a divorce?’ The words tumbled out in self-defence.
