Page 53 of Forgotten Mistress, Secret Love-Child
The trouble was it felt like more.
She squeezed her eyes shut, pinching the bridge of her nose, reminding herself she’d given up on self-delusion.
She’d made her decision: to settle for a loveless marriage. To settle for what was best for Leo.
It didn’t matter that deep inside she knew ‘settling’ meant accepting second best, accepting the sort of inferior status she’d fought against all her life. ‘Settling’ felt dangerously like slicing her innermost self apart, day by day. Till one day, perhaps, there’d be nothing of the real Carys left, just the façade of a woman who was nothing more than Leo Mattani’s mother and Alessandro Mattani’s wife.
She couldn’t allow herself to think like that!
Clearly she’d made the right choice. Seeing Leo and Alessandro together made that obvious.
It didn’t matter that she still secretly yearned for—
‘Carys?’ Alessandro’s deep voice slid over her like the caress of warm hands on bare flesh.
She looked up to discover him standing before her, legs planted wide in an assured stance that spoke of masculine power. In his arms Leo smiled down at her.
‘Mumum.’
Carys thrust her newspaper and reading glasses aside and held her hands out for Leo. After a quick glance, she avoided Alessandro’s penetrating stare. Sometimes, as now, his regard was so intense it felt as if he delved right inside her.
‘Here, sweetie.’ She cuddled Leo close when Alessandro passed him to her, undoing her towelling robe and wrapping it around him, rubbing him dry. ‘Did you have a good time?’
Leo grinned sleepily, his eyelids already drooping. ‘Papa.’ He turned and waved an arm at Alessandro.
‘Yes, you swam with papa, didn’t you?’
For the life of her Carys still couldn’t meet her husband’s hooded green gaze. There’d been a hint of something far too unsettling in it. She felt it flick over her, tangible as a touch.
Carys repressed a shiver of unwanted awareness and concentrated on drying Leo.
‘It’s time Leo had his nap,’ she said eventually, sliding forward on her seat, ready to stand. Hopefully once she was in Leo’s room the trembling eagerness for Alessandro’s touch would abate. If she stayed any longer Alessandro would surely pick up on her edginess and guess the cause. When it came to understanding the demands of her body, he had more expertise than she!
‘I just called Anna on the house phone. She’ll be here in a minute to collect him and put him down for a rest.’
Carys frowned as Alessandro scooped Leo from her arms.
‘I can settle him.’
Broad shoulders shrugged. ‘We pay Anna to help with Leo. Let her do this while you finish reading. See? Leo’s happy.’
He was right. Leo was calling out to Anna as she entered the room. There was no logical reason for Carys to insist on settling Leo herself. To do so would only arouse Alessandro’s curiosity. Besides, as soon as Leo left, so would Alessandro. No doubt he’d taken enough time away from his work.
‘OK,’ Carys said at last, smiling to Anna and waving to Leo. Her heart swelled when Leo blew her a smacking kiss as he was carried from the room.
Her son was so happy here. She had done the right thing.
Carys eased back in her seat and picked up her newspaper. It was only as she rested her head on the lounge that she realised Alessandro hadn’t moved. He stood a few metres away, watching her.
Heat crawled up her throat and across her breasts. She realised her robe was wide open where she’d snuggled Leo and quickly closed it, knotting the belt tightly. There was something too unsettling about Alessandro’s regard.
Instead of leaving, he took the lounge beside hers. Yet he didn’t lean back to face the pool, and beyond it the manicured garden and lake. He sat sideways, facing her.
Too close! Far too close!
Those shivery little tremors inside Carys intensified, as did the hollow sensation in the region of her pelvis. He only had to look at her and desire consumed her. The realisation made a mockery of her hard-won self-control.
She searched for something to break the silence that felt too weighty for comfort.
‘I haven’t seen much of Livia since the wedding.’ Carys could have kicked herself as soon as the words were out, for the last thing she wanted was to talk about her mother-in-law, or suggest she wanted to see more of her.
The relationship between Carys and Livia was polite and stiffly cordial, no more. Carys saw no point in confronting her about her lie that Alessandro had intended to marry Carlotta, but nor could she forget the way the older woman had deliberately misled her.
Alessandro’s brows rose. ‘Livia has been…busy lately.’
