Читать книгу Latin Lovers: Hot-Blooded Sicilians: Valentino's Love-Child / The Sicilian Doctor's Proposal / Sicilian Millionaire, Bought Bride - Люси Монро, Люси Монро, Catherine Spencer - Страница 12

FAITH spent the next few days in a borderline state where the numbness of loss fought the tendrils of hope each day her pregnancy continued. She missed Tino. She wanted him—both emotionally and physically. She craved his touch, but not in a sexual way, and he didn’t want her to give him anything else. She wanted to be held, cuddled and comforted as her body went through the changes pregnancy brought. She wanted someone to talk to in the evenings when she found herself too tired to create but too restless to sleep.

She had not realized how much his presence in her life staved off the loneliness, until he was gone. She found herself in a pathetic state of anticipation every time she spoke to Agata, hoping the Sicilian woman would drop news about her oldest son.

Faith’s morning sickness had gotten worse the past few days, but she was more adamant than ever she would not give up her job teaching. She’d lost Tino. She didn’t think she could stand to lose her only contact with his son, as well. When had the little boy become so important to her? She didn’t know, but she could not deny that the love she felt for the child growing inside her was in equal intensity for the emotion she felt toward her former lover’s son.

One evening, almost a week after Tino had left her apartment, she got a phone call from Agata.

“Ciao, bella. How are you?”

“Fine.”

“You were not home today.”

“No, I went shopping in Marsala.” She’d needed to get out. To be around other people. There were moments when she felt she was going mad from loneliness.

“I stopped by hoping to have lunch.”

“Oh,” Faith said with genuine regret. “I’m so sorry I missed you.”

“Yes, well, I would only have begged you to show me your work.”

Faith laughed. “Soon.” She knew just how she was going to announce her pregnancy to her dear friend, but not until the risky first trimester was past.

How she was going to tell Agata that the baby was Tino’s was less clear however.

“I would like that.” There was an emotional note in Agata’s tone that surprised Faith, but maybe it shouldn’t have.

She’d never known another human being as connected to her art as the older woman. Not even Taylish had understood the emotion behind the pieces the way Agata did.

“So, how about lunch tomorrow?” Agata asked.

“That would be lovely.”

They rang off and Faith turned to face her empty apartment, wondering if her newfound evening nausea would allow her to eat an evening meal.

Valentino’s mother took the seat beside where he watched his son frolic in the pool with his papa.

The worried expression on her face concerned Valentino. He knew she had planned to call Faith. “Mama, what is the matter?”

His mother twisted her hands in an uncharacteristic display of nerves but did not answer.

“Mama.”

She looked up as if just realizing he was sitting there. “Oh, did you say something, son?”

“I asked if there was anything the matter.”

“Nothing bad. Well, there may well be ramifications, but I’m in a quandary and do not know what to do.”

“About what?” he asked with some impatience. Was this about Faith?

His mother sighed heavily. “I did something I should not have.”

“What?”

“I do not think I should say.”

Valentino waited patiently. He knew his mother. She would not have said anything if she did not want to confess to someone. Apparently, he was that someone. And if it was related to Faith in any way, he was glad.

Not that he should be pining over the woman who dumped him like yesterday’s garbage. She’d thrown down her ultimatum and he had refused terms. She’d been unwilling to negotiate—that should be the end of it.

Still, he waited with uncomfortable anticipation for his mother to speak.

She sighed again. Fidgeted some more and then sighed a third time. “I have a key to Faith’s apartment.”

“Ah.” But he didn’t feel nearly as insouciant as he sounded. His mother had a key to his lover’s apartment, but he did not. Nor did Faith have a key to his apartment in Marsala. Why not? Why was it that his mother had spent more time in Faith’s studio than he had?

They were friends. They did not limit their time together to sex. So, why had he never seen any of her works in progress? Why had he not known she was the highly successful sculptor TK?

“I stopped by today. Unannounced.”

“I see.” Though he didn’t.

“I let myself in, you know, thinking she might be back soon.” Mama shuddered. “I did a terrible thing.”

“You are not the criminal type. I doubt what you did was terrible.”

“But it was, my son. I wanted so badly to see Faith’s newest work.”

“You peeked.”

“Yes, and that is bad enough—but in looking at her work, I revealed a secret she is clearly not ready to share.”

“A secret?” What kind of secret? Had Faith been making clay tiles of the fifty states because she missed her homeland? What?

“Si. A secret. I have betrayed my friend.”

“Mama, whatever it is, I am sure it will be fine. Faith loves you. She will forgive you.” If only Faith was as tolerant of her lover.

“But a woman has the right to determine the timing of when she will share such news with others. I have, what is that saying your brother uses—oh, yes—I have stolen her thunder. I cannot pretend not to know when she tells me, for that would be a lie. I cannot lie to my friend.” She grimaced. “I did tell her I still wanted to see her work and I do. I stopped looking after the first one because I knew. I knew what it meant.”

Valentino ground his teeth and tried not to glare at his mother with impatience. “What what meant?”

“The statue. It is so clear to see. You could not miss it,” she said, as if trying to convince Valentino.

“I am sure you are right. What was the statue of?” he asked without being able to help himself.

“It is just that I am so worried. If it means what I think, and I’m sure it does—and there is no father in sight. Things are going to get difficult for my friend.”

“What does a priest have to do with Faith?”

“A priest? Who said anything about a priest? Faith is Lutheran. They have pastors, I believe.”

“Mama, I don’t understand. You said ‘father.’”

“Yes, the father of her child.”

“Child? Faith has no children. Her unborn baby died in the accident with her husband.”

“The baby inside her now, Valentino.”

Valentino’s chest grew tight. Although he knew he was breathing, it felt like all the oxygen had disappeared from the air. “Are you saying you believe Faith is pregnant?”

“Of course that is what I have been saying. Weren’t you listening? I should never have snooped. Now when she tells me, I will have to admit I already guessed. She will be let down.”

His mother continued to talk, but Valentino did not hear what she said. He had surged to his feet and was trying to rush across the brickwork of the patio. But his movements were uncoordinated and jerky as his mother’s words reverberated inside his head like clanging cymbals in a discordant rhythm.

Faith was pregnant?

His Faith? The woman who said she did not want to see him anymore. The one who had ended their relationship, such as it was.

He shook his head, but the blanket of shock refused to be dislodged.

He was going to be a father again? Now? When he had thought never to remarry, when he had believed Giosue would be his only child. It was unreal but not. Part of him accepted the news with an atavistic instinct of rightness. He had no doubt the baby was his. Dismiss him though she had tried to do, Faith was his. She had been since the moment they met. Hell, a primal part of him claimed she always had been—even before they knew each other.

Even the most rational part of his mind accepted that she was his now. She had been with no one else since their first time together, and probably for a long time before that.

He yanked open the door of his Jaguar and climbed inside, slamming it again as he started the car with a loud roar of the engine, and then tearing out of the drive.

How was she pregnant?

They used birth control. Religiously. Rather, he did. Still, there had only been a handful of times that their protection had not been one hundred percent. After each slip, he would be beset by guilt, and work extrahard in future to make sure they were covered.

With a sense of inevitability, he realized one of those times had not been too long ago.

He’d taken Faith to dinner at a favorite trattoria. Instead of sitting outside, so they could watch people on the street—as Faith was wont to do—Valentino had asked for some privacy. They had been given a table in the back corner, the restaurant lighting barely reaching into the shadows that surrounded it. The light from the single candle in the center of the table set a romantic mood.

At least, he’d thought so.

Faith frowned as he helped her take her seat. “I know our relationship isn’t common knowledge, but do we have to hide in the dark?”

He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “I thought we could entertain ourselves over dinner, rather than finding our amusement in watching other people.”

The embarrassing truth was that Faith liked people-watching—sometimes too much. She paid more attention to the ones surrounding them than to him, and he did not like that. Tonight he was determined to have her entire focus. If it took seducing her publicly, so be it.

And that is exactly what he did, starting with a kiss just below the shell of her ear, using both teeth and tongue as well as his lips.

She was shivering and had made a small whimpering sound by the time he finished and took his own seat across the small table from her.

“Considering what you apparently have planned for our entertainment, I now understand why you asked for a table hidden away from curious eyes.” Faith smoothed her top, accentuating the way the silky fabric clung to her breasts and exposing hardened nipples, despite two thin layers of fabric over them.

“You think you can survive one evening without people-watching?” he asked, his voice husky with the desire sparking his senses.

“I have a feeling you can make it worth my while.”

“You must be psychic,” he teased. “For I plan to.”

“Call it an educated guess. I’ve been at the receiving end of your tender mercies too often to discount their effect.”

“Good.” He had every intention of lavishing those mercies on her tonight.

They teased each other over dinner, working their desire to a fever pitch. He was tempted to find an even darker corner and bring them both to completion right then and there. He refrained, determined to make the night a memorable one for his beautiful lover.

Her peacock-blue eyes were glazed with passion, her lips swollen as if they’d been kissed, and her breathing was shallow and quick. Her nipples were so hard they created shoals in the fabric over them and she’d squirmed in her seat more than once.

“Having trouble, carina americana mia?” He meant his voice to be joking, but it came out deep and sensual instead.

A competitive glint shone in her gaze along with the passion. “I think no more than you.”

She’d definitely done her utmost to turn him inside out, and she had succeeded.

He reached across the table and brushed her cheek in a rare public display of affection. “I think it is time to make our way to my apartment.”

“Yes.”

Back in his apartment, they wasted no time in disposing of their clothing, but once they landed naked on the bed, he forced a slowing of the pace. It wasn’t easy, he wanted nothing more than to bury himself in her wet, silken depths, but there was more to making love than reaching an orgasm.

There was the element of driving your partner out of her mind.

Her hands were everywhere in a blatant bid to sidetrack him from his silently stated intention, and he had to gather both her wrists in one hand and hold them above her head.

She gasped, her body bowing in clear need. “Kinky, Tino.”

“Necessary, tesoro.”

“Why?”

“I want you out of your mind with pleasure.” “I’m already there.”

“No.” He kissed her, sweeping her mouth with his tongue. He pulled back. “You can still talk.”

And then he set about taking care of that. He kissed his way down her throat, sucking up a bruise in the dip right below her clavicle bone. His mark.

She shuddered and cried out, like she always did when his hormones got the best of him and he gave her a hickey like he was still an adolescent learning his way around a woman. Maybe that’s why he regressed so often.

He moved to her breasts, taking one in his free hand and laving the other with his tongue. Eventually, after a lot of mewling and half-formed words from the dead-to-rights sexy woman below him, he zeroed in on her nipples. He didn’t play. He focused. He plucked. And he pleasured.

She screamed.

She arched.

She came, her body going rigid and then shaking.

He released her hands and rolled on top of her, using the head of his penis to tease the swollen nub of her clitoris. She cried out incoherently and he kept it up. Her legs locked around his and she pressed upward, forcing him inside. He rocked and kissed her until he was on the verge of climaxing himself.

It was only then that he remembered the condom he wasn’t wearing.

With more self-control than he thought he had, he pulled out and reached for the bedside drawer where he kept his supplies before surging back inside her.

When he came, she was screaming his name and convulsing around him in a second more-intense orgasm.

Remembering made him harder than a rock and twice as immovable.

That night had happened somewhere between two and three months ago. If he looked at his PDA, he could get an exact date. It was something he’d kept track of as zealously as he had their birth control itself. Only, the timing had never come to anything before. Maybe that was why he hadn’t been worried along these lines in this instance?

The possibility that Faith might be carrying his child had not even occurred to him. Why would it? A woman didn’t break up with the man whose child she carried.

He spit forth a vicious curse as he yanked the door open on his Jaguar. It was entirely too possible, though.

And rather than tell him, Faith had booted Valentino from her life.

Why? What was she thinking? Did she believe he would allow her to take his child back to America and raise it, ignorant of its Sicilian family?

Did she think he would not find out? That he would disappear from her life as easily as she dismissed him from hers?

She did not know him very well, if that was the case. It seemed they both had a great deal to learn about each other.

Something didn’t make any sense, though. If she had wanted to marry him as she had hinted, why had she kept this a secret? Surely she knew he would never deny his child the right to his name and heritage. What was the matter with her?

Then he remembered how irrational Maura had gotten on a few occasions while she was pregnant with Giosue.

Faith was no doubt suffering the same emotional fragility. He would have to get himself under control. He could not allow the fury coursing through him a vent. Not in her current condition. He would have to remain calm.

And he would have to remember she was not thinking clearly.

It was his responsibility to make things right and that was something he was good at. Fixing things for others. Had he not taken a slowly sinking vineyard, at risk of closing its doors before the next generation was old enough to take over, and made it a diversified, multinational company?

He had saved the Grisafi heritage and when his younger brother and their father were at loggerheads, Valentino had salvaged the relationship by sending his brother across the ocean to run their offices in New York. The two strong-headed men spoke on the phone weekly and rarely argued any longer.

The only thing he had failed to fix was his wife’s illness. He had not been able to save Maura, and he had paid the price for his inability, but he wasn’t going to lose another woman who depended on him.

Loud knocking startled Faith from a fitful doze. She sat up, looking around her small apartment in disoriented semiwakefulness.

The pounding sounded again and she realized it was coming from her door. She stumbled to her feet and made her way toward it, swinging the door open just as Tino raised his hand to knock again.

He dropped his arm immediately, a look of relief disparate to the situation crossing his handsome features. “Thank the madre vergine. I tried knocking quietly, but you did not hear me.” He reached out as if to touch her, but didn’t—letting his hand drop to his side once again. “Were you working? Is that safe now? Do the clay or glazes have dangerous fumes? This is something we need to look into. I do not wish to demand you give up your passion, but it may be necessary for these final months.”

“Tino?” Was she still too groggy to make sense of his words, or had her former lover lost his mind?

“Si?”

“You’re babbling.” She’d never heard him say so many words without taking a breath. And none of them made any sense. “You sound like your mother when she gets a bee in her bonnet.”

“Mama does not keep insects in her wardrobe and she would not thank you for implying otherwise.”

“It’s an expression, for Heaven’s sake. What is the matter with you tonight?”

“You need to ask me this?” he demanded in a highly censorious voice. His eyes closed and he groaned, just a little, but it was definitely a groan. “Excuse me, Faith.”

“Uh, okay?” she asked, rather than said.

He took three deep breaths, letting each one out slower than the one before. Then he opened his eyes and looked at her with this Zen-like expression that was almost as weird as his babbling. “May I come in?”

“You’re asking me?” Not demanding she invite him in. Not just forging ahead, assuming he was welcome? “What’s going on, Tino?”

He didn’t answer, simply giving the room behind her a significant look.

“Oh, all right. Come in.” She stepped back.

It wasn’t the most gracious invitation she had ever extended, but she was still disoriented from falling asleep after speaking to Agata on the phone. And Tino was acting strange.

Really. Really.

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“I could use a whiskey,” he said in an odd tone. “But I will get it. You sit down.”

“You’ve only been here once before, Tino. You don’t know where I keep anything.”

His hands fisted at his sides, but then the Zen thing was back and he said in a very patient tone, “So tell me.”

She knew he wanted her back, but enough to sublimate his usually passionate nature? She would never have guessed.

“Why don’t I just get us our drinks instead?”

“You aren’t having whiskey, are you?”

She rolled her eyes. “I never drink hard spirits. You know that.”

But he’d never acted as if he thought she shouldn’t before. Though, considering how tipsy she got on a single glass of wine, perhaps his concern made a certain kind of sense. And honestly, she’d never implied she wanted to drink hard liquor before. But still. “What’s the matter with you tonight?”

“We have things to discuss.”

“We’ve done all the talking that needs doing.” For right now, anyway. She was frankly too tired and too nauseous to rehash their breakup. She was feeling week and wishing he would just hold her.

She had to get a handle on these cravings. Or she was going to do something stupid, like ask him to fulfill them.

He didn’t bother answering. He simply guided her back to the small love seat she’d been dozing on and pressed her to sit down. Bemused by his insistence on getting their beverages, she did. He then picked up her feet and turned her so that they rested on the love seat as well.

Apparently not content with that level of coddling, he tucked the throw she’d been sleeping under around her legs.

He nodded, as if in approval. “I will get our drinks now.”

He was seriously working on getting back in her good graces. But no amount of tender care could make up for his refusal to see her as nothing more than a casual lover. Why couldn’t he see that?

“If you insist on serving, I’d like a cup of tea.” Something that hopefully would settle her tummy. “There is some ginger tea in the cupboard above the kettle. That’s where you’ll find the whiskey, as well.”

An unopened bottle she had purchased in the hope that one day he would break his pattern and show enough interest in her life outside their sexual trysts to come see her.

He went to the kitchen area, nothing more than an alcove off the main living area, really. She watched him fill the kettle and flip the switch to heat the water. The domesticity of the scene tugged at her helter-skelter emotions. It was so much like something she wanted to experience all the time—for the right reasons—that stupid tears burned her eyes before she resolutely blinked them away.

He pulled down the box of tea and the bottle of whiskey from the cupboard. “I’ve never had ginger tea before.”

She had. When she’d been pregnant before. And she was one of the lucky women it helped. “It’s not something I drink often.”

He gave her an enigmatic look but said nothing as he poured his own drink and waited for her water to boil.

She didn’t ask him why he was there or what he wanted to talk about, because the answer was obvious. He wanted her back in his bed, but she’d do her best to avoid that particular conversation. “How is Gio?”

“You saw him only three days ago.”

She shrugged. “I wish I taught more days a week,” she admitted, before her brain caught up with her mouth.

“I understand.”

“You do?”

“You hold my son in deep affection.” “He’s easy to love.” “I agree.” “Urn … “

“He wishes he could see you more often, as well.”

“I know.” Only, his father did not want them to grow closer. He’d made that clear.

“I think we can rectify that problem soon enough.”

How? Was he going to up the ante of getting her back in bed by offering time with his family on a regular basis? Her rather creative and active imagination offered up a second option. One a lot less palatable.

Maybe he had decided to remarry after all. To find the paragon of Sicilian virtue he thought Gio deserved as a stepmother. Someone who would eradicate the child’s fantasies about being his favorite teacher’s son.

Faith went from weepy to annoyed in the space of a heartbeat. “I wouldn’t rush into anything if I were you.”

“And yet some things require quick action.”

“Marriage isn’t one of them.”

Surprise showed clearly on Tino’s face. “You believe I plan to marry?”

“Isn’t that the way you plan to fix your son’s desire to see me more?” Provide the little boy with a mother so he wouldn’t miss the teacher he had decided he wanted in that capacity.

“It is, in fact.”

Despite everything—knowing how he felt, knowing that he did not want her in his life like that—at Tino’s words, unpleasant shock coursed through Faith. Somewhere deep inside, she had believed he would not go that far.

Her stomach tightened in a now familiar warning and she shot to her feet, kicking the lap blanket away. When she reached the commode, she retched. Though, since she had not been hungry earlier, she did nothing but dry heave. It hurt and it scared her. Though she knew that the cramps were in her stomach and not her womb, a tiny part of her brain kept saying it was one and the same.

Tino had come into the small room with her and she could hear water running, but she couldn’t look up long enough to see what he was doing. Then a cold, damp cloth draped the nape of her neck while another one was pressed gently to her forehead. Tino rubbed her back in a soothing circular motion, crooning to her in Italian.

The heaving stopped and she found herself leaning sideways into his strength. He said nothing, just let her draw heat and comfort from his touch. She didn’t know how long they remained like that—him crouching around her like a protective angel—her kneeling on the floor, but eventually she moved to stand.

He helped her, gently wiping her face with one damp cloth before tossing them both in her small sink. “Better?”

She nodded. “I don’t like being sick.”

“I do not imagine you do.” He handed her a glass of water.

She rinsed her mouth before drinking some down. Placing the glass down by the sink, she turned to leave and weaved a bit.

Suddenly she found herself lifted in the strong arms she had been craving earlier. There was no thought to protest. She needed this. Even if it was a moment of fantasy in her rapidly failing reality.

He carried her to her minuscule bedroom, barely big enough for the double-size bed—another purchase made with hope for something that had never developed between them—and single bedside table that occupied it.

He sat her on the bed, reaching around her to arrange her pillows into a support for her back. Then he helped her to settle against them. It was all too much, too like what she secretly craved that she felt those stupid tears burning her eyes again.

Ignoring the overwrought emotions she knew were a result of pregnancy hormones, she teased, “How did you know where my bedroom was?”

“Instinct?”

She forced a laugh that came out sounding hollow rather than amused, but it was better than crying like a weakling. “Are you saying you have a homing device for beds?”

“Maybe beds belonging to you.” He brushed her hair back from one side of her temple and smiled, the look almost tender.

But she knew better. “This is the only one I have.”

“For the last year, almost, you have been sharing the bed in my apartment in Marsala and you have shared my bed in my family home.”

“Are you trying to say those beds belong to me in some way now?” she asked, unable to completely quell her sarcasm at such a thought.

“Yes.”

She gasped but could think of nothing to say in reply until she spluttered, “That’s—It’s ridiculous.”

He shrugged. “We will agree to disagree.”

After everything he had said? She didn’t think so. “We will?” she asked in a tone she used so rarely he’d probably never heard it.

He gave her that Zen look again and nodded, as if he had no idea he was in imminent danger of being beaned upside the head with a pillow. “It is the only rational thing to do. You clearly do not need to upset yourself.”

“I …” She wanted to tell him he was wrong, but she couldn’t. She didn’t relish the thought of more dry heaves at all. She wanted to say she didn’t know what was wrong, or that she had a touch of the flu or something … anything but the truth. Only, she could not, would not lie.

He patted her arm. “Rest here. I will get your tea.”

“Fine, but your beds don’t belong to me in any way, Tino. You made that clear.”

Not a single spark of irritation fluctuated his features.

What in the world was going on?