Free The Sicilian's Wife by Kate Walker

for any such thing. What Cesare had proposed was a marriage of convenience, nothing more, nothing less; and she couldn’t ask for anything else. But how many women would have just accepted a proposal of marriage and had that followed by a strictly businesslike discussion of all they needed to arrange? Surely she could have expected something ? Some touch of affection. A kiss—even a smile?
    â€˜What is it?’ Cesare’s tone was sharp, his frown growing deeper. ‘You look as if someone had just pronounced your death sentence in a court of law.’
    Perhaps someone had, Megan couldn’t help thinking. Perhaps by agreeing to Cesare’s coldly rational and unemotional proposal, she was the one who had signed the death warrant of her own hopes and dreams of a happily ever after and a lifetime of love.
    â€˜I was just wondering what you’d get out of this arrangement.’
    â€˜I told you—I’ll get just what I want.’
    â€˜And that is?’
    â€˜A wife—a child.’
    â€˜A child that’s not yours.’
    His shrug was one of total indifference.
    â€˜Who’d know? Who’d care? It’d get my parents off my back—and we could have others. I always wanted a large family.’
    â€˜And that would be enough—No?’ she managed on a rather strangled gasp as once more he shook his head.
    â€˜Oh, no, mia cara , there is no way that could ever be enough. If that was all that I had ever wanted, I could have asked a dozen women—more—to marry me over the years, but I did not.’
    The dark eyes locked with hers, holding her gaze with the force of a mesmerist so that it was impossible to look away; to look anywhere but into their depths.
    When had he come so close? she asked herself, her heart giving a nervous little flutter against the side of her ribcage. She hadn’t noticed him move and yet it seemed that suddenly his body was mere inches away. She could almost feel the imprint of its strength, the hardness of bone and muscle, the heat of skin searing into her at breasts and hips and thighs, all that was most feminine in her leaping in a wild, instinctive response that was as old and as primitive as time.
    â€˜Why…’
    Her throat was painfully dry and she had to swallow convulsively to ease it. But even then, when she tried to speak again, her voice still croaked embarrassingly, coming and going in the most peculiar way.
    â€˜Why didn’t you ask them?’ she managed, knowing that it was what he wanted her to say.
    Cesare’s smile was slow, almost benign, but there was something in his eyes that stopped it from being the tender response it appeared. There was a hint of danger in that look; the threat of something she neither knew nor understood. But as he drew her to her feet, she couldn’t pull away. Couldn’t move or do anything to distract him or turn aside what she knew was coming.
    â€˜They didn’t offer me what I wanted,’ he said with a deliberate softness.
    Automatically Megan lowered her voice to match his.
    â€˜And that was…?’ she whispered and watched his smile grow into a wicked, demonic grin.
    â€˜This…’
    She had barely time to catch her breath before his mouth came down on hers, but it was with an unexpected gentleness that seemed to draw out her soul, take it away from her and hold it captive. And in that moment she knew that she was lost. Knew that no matter how hard she tried to convince herself, no matter what stories she made up to explain it, there was no way in the world that she was over Cesare Santorino.
    She hadn’t been over him at New Year, when he had scorned her love, refusing her urgently offered kisses, shrugging off her clinging hands, and telling her to find a boy her own age to play with. And she hadn’t been over him when she had fallen into Gary’s arms, lost and alone and desperate on the rebound from that rejection.