Читать книгу Modern Romance December Books 1-4 - Эбби Грин, Линн Грэхем - Страница 18

CHAPTER NINE

‘SO, YOUR FAMILY has always been rich and privileged,’ Isla gathered without surprise, for Alissandru’s awe-inspiring self-assurance was an integral part of his character. ‘My background is very different. I come from a long line of poor people. My grandparents on both sides were crofters and they barely scratched a living. My father qualified as an engineer and he might have done better if an aneurysm hadn’t killed him in his early thirties.’

‘Why did your mother’s parents raise you? Where was your mother?’ Alissandru interrupted, reaching for the wine bottle to top up her glass.

‘Trying to work two jobs down in London and take care of Tania at the same time. There was no way she could’ve coped with a baby, as well. She had poor health—she had kidney disease. There was never really any hope of the three of us reuniting as a family and living together,’ she pointed out wryly, covering her wine glass with her hand. ‘No more for me. In this heat too much would send me to sleep.’

‘I believe I could keep you awake,’ Alissandru teased, dark golden eyes settling on her with slumberous sensuality, sending warm colour flying up into her cheeks.

The remnants of a luxury picnic lunch spread in front of them, they were sitting in a meadow that gave them a bird’s-eye view of the Rossetti estate. A lush green collage of flowering orchards and vines interspersed with the silvery foliage of the olive groves stretched across the fertile rolling landscape below them. That morning Alissandru had given her a tour of the entire estate and, although Isla did not feel she had been especially active, she was now feeling ridiculously sleepy. Drenched in sunshine and warmth, she stretched her shoulders, frowning as her bra cut into her ribcage while, confined within the tight bra cups, her tender breasts ached. Had she put on weight? She supposed that was perfectly possible when they had eaten out so often. Even when they ate in at the palazzo, meals ran to several courses and the food was rich.

But gaining a little weight wouldn’t give her sore boobs, she reasoned ruefully. She had thought that was more likely to be linked to hormones and the failure of her menstrual cycle to return to normal and stay normal after her miscarriage. But how could she possibly consult a doctor here in Sicily about something so intimate when she didn’t speak the language? In the same way she had baulked at asking Alissandru to organise birth control for her. All such matters could surely safely wait until she returned to London...although by then she would no longer have any need for birth control, she conceded with innate practicality.

Ought she be doing a pregnancy test? For goodness’ sake, how could she be pregnant again? Apart from that one tiny moment her first night in Sicily with Alissandru, there had been no mishaps, no oversights. And yet sore breasts and absent periods were also the most common sign of pregnancy in a woman, she reminded herself worriedly, and there and then she decided that she would be perfectly capable of identifying a pregnancy-test kit in a Sicilian pharmacy. She would do a test simply to rule out that frightening possibility.

Alissandru rested back on one elbow watching her, wondering what she was thinking about that made her look so serious. He could barely credit that she had already been in Sicily for six weeks and that he had stayed with her that long, as hooked on the pleasure she gave him now as he had been at the outset. Six weeks had to be some kind of new record for him. But then Isla was intelligent and easy company and he had enjoyed seeing Sicily through her more innocent and less critical gaze. But when would the boredom, the itch to move on to fresh fields, kick in? He had also done the bare minimum of work since her arrival, an acknowledgement that disconcerted him.

Of course, that was what living in the moment entailed, he reminded himself bracingly and, since he hadn’t taken a proper break in years from his workaholic schedule, it made sense to make the most of his time with Isla because she would not be in Sicily much longer. She had already applied to join an educational course in London, which started in the autumn. He assumed that she was planning to stay the summer, but he hadn’t actually asked because he didn’t want to give her the wrong impression, and looking that far ahead would definitely give her the wrong impression.

Isla lay down, her drowsy gaze welded to Alissandru’s flawless bronzed profile, experiencing that revealing little kick in her pelvis that made her squirm, her body lighting up as if in search of him. That she couldn’t imagine life without him now terrified her. Fleeting moments of happiness had always been the norm for Isla, but the kind of effervescent happiness that Alissandru gave her was an entirely new departure for her. She had not slept alone a single night since they got together and if business or travel intervened, Alissandru was not above joining her in bed in the middle of the night or even at dawn. Either she slept in his giant carved mahogany four-poster bed or he shared her far less ostentatious double at his late brother’s house.

Recovering from being part of a couple and adapting to being alone again would be difficult for her. She had never imagined that togetherness developing when their affair began. She had assumed there would be days they wouldn’t see each other, arguments when they rubbed each other up the wrong way and needed a break. But she had assumed wrong because she was with Alissandru round the clock and he didn’t seem bored...yet. In addition, they had very few rows.

Dissension usually broke out when Alissandru tried to give her some ludicrously expensive gift and took offence at her refusal. He didn’t seem to grasp that she didn’t need presents to feel appreciated. She was much more impressed when he took the time to drive her up into some remote mountain village and walk her along narrow cobblestone streets to a tiny restaurant he had been told offered superlative but simple food, made of the finest, freshest ingredients. Or when he had taken her to see the Greek temple ruins in the beautiful valley at Agrigento even though he was not remotely interested in antiquity.

Yes, Alissandru was just chock-full of surprises, she conceded warmly. If he hadn’t told her she would never have guessed that he had originally planned to be a doctor, but that he had abandoned his studies after his father’s death because his parent had made some rather risky investments and the family finances had required a steady hand. That he had put his family’s needs first had shown her how much caring he was capable of, and that he missed his twin every day was also a fact that touched her heart because, quite honestly, Alissandru had had very little in common with Paulu, yet he had still managed to love and value his brother.

‘Just drop me at the house. I need to go to the pharmacy for...er...sun block,’ she told Alissandru as she climbed back into his sports car.

‘It’s a five-minute drive into San Matteo. I’ll take you,’ Alissandru insisted.

And Isla thought about arguing and then worried that that would only draw attention to any purchase she made. Buying a pregnancy test was ridiculous, she told herself irritably. There was no way she could’ve fallen pregnant again. Even so, it was wise to rule out the possibility, however unlikely it was, she reasoned.

San Matteo was a pretty little town with a charming piazza surrounded by several cafés that overlooked the old church and the central fountain. Alissandru parked and said he would meet her at the bar next door to the pharmacy and she sped off. Recognising a pregnancy test on the shelf was not as much of a challenge as she had feared and she dug the package deep into her capacious bag and rejoined Alissandru with a smile on her face to enjoy a cold drink.

Driving past the palazzo, Alissandru glanced at the sleek car parked there and suddenly braked. ‘Fantino and his mother must be here for lunch. Why don’t you join us?’

Isla froze. ‘Your cousin...er... Fantino?’

‘Sì, you probably met them at my brother’s wedding. I’m not particularly fond of Fantino but our mothers are sisters and close,’ he explained wryly.

A chill ran over Isla’s skin at the mere idea of even being in the same room as the man who had taken advantage of her youth and inexperience in a manner that had taken her months to recover from. ‘No, thanks. I don’t like Fantino.’

‘You remember him?’ Alissandru’s voice emerged with an instinctive chill as he recalled what he had witnessed on the day of his brother’s wedding. Reminding himself that Isla had been a mere teenager at the time, he just as quickly strove to forget the memory again.

‘Yes, I remember him,’ Isla responded woodenly. ‘Just drop me back to the house...or I could walk from here if you like.’

His black brows drew together as he studied her pale, set face. ‘What’s wrong?’ he prompted.

Isla breathed in slow and deep and then saw no reason to withhold the truth.

‘Fantino assaulted me at the wedding.’

‘Say that again,’ Alissandru murmured more quietly.

‘You heard me the first time,’ Isla retorted curtly. ‘I don’t want to see Fantino or have anything to do with him.’

‘That’s a very serious allegation,’ Alissandru pointed out harshly.

‘Yes, and considering that he got away scot-free with what he did at the time, I don’t feel any need to justify the way I feel now. Please take me home.’

Alissandru drove her back to the house in silence, his lean, darkly handsome features clenched with tension. ‘We have to talk about this.’

Isla climbed out, her face still stiff. ‘It’s a little late in the day to talk about it.’

‘And whose fault is that?’ Alissandru shot at her, snapping the key for the front door from her nerveless fingers. ‘If something happened between you at the wedding, we—my mother and I—as your hosts should’ve been made aware of it!’

Anger gusted through Isla in a heady wave as she stalked into the house, her vibrant curls bouncing on her shoulders, her dark blue eyes outraged. ‘I made Tania aware of it and she said I wasn’t to tell anyone else. Believe me, it happened! And it wasn’t “between us”, either. When a man assaults a woman, it isn’t always a shared misunderstanding!’

‘Tell me exactly what happened!’ Alissandru urged her as she paced uneasily round the lounge.

‘Tania sent me upstairs to her bedroom to fetch her bag and your cousin followed me. He tried to kiss me and he put his hand inside the neckline of my dress and tried to touch my breast!’ Isla recounted with a helpless shudder of recollection. ‘He said something disgusting and when I pushed him off me, he fell over the bed, which gave me the chance to get away. Of course, he was drunk and he thought it was all very funny and he started laughing. But I was scared and I was very upset. I was only sixteen, Alissandru... I’d never been touched before and I didn’t know how to handle it.’

His eyes flared as golden as flames in his lean, strong face. The mere idea of Fantino touching sixteen-year-old Isla appalled Alissandru, most particularly because he had seen Isla leave that bedroom closely followed by his cousin and he had put entirely the wrong interpretation on what he had seen. The guilt of that shocking misconception hit him hard. He had caught a glimpse of a suspicious scenario and, instead of immediately being concerned about the welfare of a very young girl, he had assumed she had either been flirting or having sex and had done and said nothing. That awareness went right to the very heart of the prejudice she had accused him of harbouring, and in that instant he knew he could no longer deny that his low opinion of Tania had automatically encompassed her kid sister as well and had coloured his reading of the situation.

‘I am so sorry that happened to you, but Fantino will be even sorrier!’ Alissandru swore in a raw undertone, throwing back his broad shoulders. ‘But I am also sorry that I did not intervene when I might have done that day.’

‘How could you have intervened?’ Isla questioned without comprehension.

‘I saw you coming out of that bedroom. I didn’t see your face, just your back view, and then I saw Fantino coming out some seconds after you. I’m ashamed to admit that I simply assumed you had been having some sort of sexual or flirtatious encounter with him. I didn’t question it.’

It was Isla’s turn to stiffen and stare at him in shock. ‘You thought that at sixteen I would go into a bedroom with a man and have sex in someone else’s house? How could you think that of me at that age?’

‘I have little justification but I did think that,’ Alissandru admitted reluctantly. ‘From the minute I saw you wearing the low-necked dress your sister put you in, I decided that you were just like her.’

Isla groaned, suddenly seeing the whole history of her relationship with Alissandru rewritten in the blink of an eye. He was finally acknowledging that that prejudice had existed, though, and that was a relief, she told herself soothingly.

‘I am sickened that you suffered such an experience in my home. You should’ve been safe there. You were very young. In the absence of a parental figure, it was my duty to look out for your well-being...and obviously I failed,’ he bit out grimly. ‘On the other hand, Tania was very wrong to persuade you to keep quiet about the assault.’

‘Alissandru... I didn’t know any of you and I couldn’t have brought myself to share that story with anyone I didn’t know well. I felt humiliated and embarrassed. Tania suggested I might’ve encouraged him in some way while I was downstairs,’ Isla told him. ‘But I hadn’t even spoken to him when he followed me up to that bedroom.’

‘Do you want me to call the police? A sexual assault is a sexual assault, regardless of how much time has passed.’

Isla stiffened. ‘No, I don’t wish to make an official complaint. I’ve put it behind me now but I wouldn’t want to meet him again or be forced to pretend that what happened didn’t happen.’

Alissandru nodded gravely, his dark golden eyes glittering pale like shards of broken glass below his black lashes. He was thinking of the family jokes told about Fantino’s persistent approaches to any attractive woman available. Maybe that wasn’t quite so funny now that Alissandru was seeing the other side of the coin and having to question his cousin’s behaviour. It had never crossed his mind to look on Fantino as a sex pest but that now seemed more accurate. That he should’ve dared to frighten and distress a young guest in Alissandru’s home was inexcusable. He was also thinking guiltily that he too had noticed Isla’s attraction that day and had dealt with it less than honestly by telling himself that she was a shameless little baggage. But he would never have acknowledged that attraction to so youthful a girl, never have given way to it.

‘What the hell was Tania thinking of when she silenced you?’ he ground out on his purposeful path back to the front door.

Wincing, Isla looked pensive and wry. ‘That it would’ve wrecked her wedding...and it would’ve done. Imagine the atmosphere it would’ve created if I’d publicly accused Fantino! I was a complete stranger in a foreign country and Tania was almost as unknown to your family as I was at that stage,’ she pointed out ruefully. ‘Would anyone even have believed me?’

‘Certainly, I hope we would have.’ Alissandru breathed in deep. ‘But it will be dealt with now as it should’ve been then.’

‘Why... What are you going to do?’ Isla asked worriedly.

‘Deal with Fantino,’ Alissandru bit out wrathfully. ‘What else?’

‘So, you believe me,’ Isla gathered.

‘Of course, I do.’

A moment later, he had gone and once the sound of his car had receded Isla paced the wooden floor, amazed at how shaken up she felt after getting that episode six years earlier off her chest. Finally. Her shoulders slumped and she felt relieved that that horrible secret was now out in the open. Naturally, she hadn’t shared the story with her grandparents, who would’ve been horrified. But she had also kept quiet because she had feared that if they knew they would not let her travel alone again and back then she had still harboured the hope that the wedding invitation would lead to other invites from her sister. Of course, that hadn’t happened and the sad repercussions of her encounter with Fantino had lasted a lot longer. For years she had been nervous of men, fearful of an assault coming her way without warning, fearful that something she might wear, say or do might attract such treatment. But she had moved past that eventually, survived, she reminded herself calmingly as she tripped over her bag, which she had abandoned in the hall.

Recalling the pregnancy test in her bag, she pulled it out. In the almost bare study, she lifted the dictionary of Italian words she had bought so that she could translate the directions. Fortunately, the pictorial diagrams were more easily understood and she decided to do the test immediately, rather than stress about it or be forced to attempt to do it when Alissandru was around.

He had been very much shocked by her story about Fantino, she acknowledged, but he would be a great deal more shocked, she reckoned, if she was to conceive again. It wasn’t possible, she told herself as her heartbeat kicked up tempo. Her stupid hormones were still out of sync after the miscarriage and she would have to see a doctor when she got home again. Having convinced herself that the test was a simple formality to rule out an unlikely development, she went upstairs.

Fifteen minutes later, she was reeling in shock at what was undeniably a positive pregnancy test. Having returned her hire car some weeks before, she climbed into the little runaround that had once belonged to Tania and drove back to the pharmacy to buy a second test. Just to be on the safe side, she told herself. An hour later, she contemplated the second positive result and felt so dizzy and sick with nerves that she could barely breathe. After a few minutes she stood up and went to lie down on top of the bed and think.

Pregnant...again! How was she supposed to deal with the joy rising inside her and the quite opposite effect her news would have on Alissandru? How could it have happened when they had tried to be careful? Yet she knew that no contraception was foolproof. Her head swimming with confused feelings, she tried to imagine telling Alissandru again and immediately thought that maybe she didn’t need to tell him this time, that maybe she should wait a few months to at least be sure she stayed pregnant.

She was, however, too sleepy to agonise for long and, while her conscience warred against keeping any secret from Alissandru, she couldn’t help recalling the angst she had roused with her last announcement. Was she incredibly fertile? Was he? Would she manage to carry her baby to term this time around? Anxiety struck then and struck hard and she had to blank out her worries quite firmly before she could drift off to sleep, while telling herself that she would make decisions and worry about the consequences later.

The shrill noise of the doorbell woke her and, blinking sleepily, she scrambled up, stuffing her feet blindly back into the shoes she had kicked off while at the same time calling out to silence Puggle’s frantic barks. She padded hurriedly downstairs and swung open the door on Alissandru, and that fast her cheeks burned and she ran an uneasy hand through her mussed curls.

‘I have someone here who has something to say to you. It won’t take long,’ Alissandru murmured bracingly.

Isla spotted the car pulled up behind Alissandru’s and stiffened in dismay as she spotted Fantino’s weedy figure heading towards them. ‘What does he want?’ she hissed.

She didn’t have to wait long to find out. Fantino had come to offer heartfelt apologies and regret for the distress he had caused at her sister’s wedding and to insist that he would never do such a thing again. He made no excuses, offered no defence, merely concluding his awkward little speech with the assurance that he would be making a big effort to improve his behaviour. Isla studied the bruising and swelling on his thin face and swallowed hard, recognising that he had taken a beating and guessing by the granite-hard set of Alissandru’s jaw that he had been the one to administer it. Jungle justice, she thought ruefully, but if it stopped Fantino in his tracks the next time he saw an attractive woman and made him think twice, she had no quarrel with the punishment.

She accepted the apology and watched Fantino jump back into his sports car with a curled lip.

‘He will stay away from the estate while you’re here,’ Alissandru assured her.

‘Did you have to beat him up?’ Isla asked uncomfortably.

‘I had to get the truth out of him...and I did,’ Alissandru countered levelly, unable to explain even to his own satisfaction what had ignited the sheer rage that had gripped him once he’d got his hands on Fantino. The concept of anyone laying a single finger on Isla without her permission had incensed him. The awareness that she might not be his cousin’s only victim had made him even angrier and determined to keep a watch on Fantino to ensure that he kept his promises to reform.

‘I didn’t want any violence, and your mother must’ve been very upset by all this,’ she muttered ruefully.

‘A generation back, a man could’ve been killed for any action that could damage a woman’s reputation. Community disapproval controlled bad behaviour. My mother is only upset that you did not feel you could trust us with the story of what happened to you that day,’ Alissandru explained grittily. ‘Now, if you are in agreement, let us bury this matter.’

Isla nodded vigorously. ‘Yes.’

‘I have a fundraiser for a children’s hospice that I support to attend this evening,’ Alissandru told her. ‘Will you accompany me?’

‘If it’s black tie, I have nothing to wear.’

‘Grazia has already offered to provide you with a suitable dress,’ Alissandru cut in. ‘She’ll be present tonight and would like to see you again. She is probably planning to ask you at least a hundred nosy questions.’

Isla looked up into his lean, darkly handsome face and tried to face telling him what she knew she had to tell him and she lost colour and dropped her head. ‘Thank her for her offer. It’s a very generous gesture, but I’m afraid I’d prefer to spend a quiet evening here.’

‘You’ve had a distressing afternoon,’ Alissandru conceded reluctantly, studying her with his shrewd gaze, picking up on her pallor and the shadows of strain below her eyes, wishing he could give her thoughts a more positive turn, wishing that Fantino’s sleazy behaviour hadn’t cast a pall over their day, for there was no denying that it had with Isla looking so drawn and fragile.

‘A quiet evening and a good sleep will do me good,’ Isla declared with a forced and brittle smile.

‘How important is it that you sleep alone?’ Alissandru asked bluntly, a long forefinger tracing the ripe curve of her lower lip. ‘Because I don’t sleep so well without you...’

Her dark blue eyes flew wide, her heart thumping at the smouldering appraisal he was giving her. It sent wicked little tingles coasting through her, started up a hot, needy throb at her core. Because I don’t sleep so well without you... That was a statement that threw her heart wide open, filling her with dangerous warmth and an almost overpowering desire to throw herself into his arms. He was going out without her but he still wanted to spend the night with her.

Alissandru bent his dark head and kissed her, savouring the softness of her lips and the sweetness of her instant response, fierce arousal threatening his self-control and just as quickly unnerving him. You can go one night without her, he told himself irritably. You’re not an addict. Why was everything with Isla so blasted complicated? He thought of Paulu’s second will, which he had lodged with Marco, and suppressed a heavy sigh. He had felt foolish when Marco had erupted in approval of that discovery on the family’s behalf when he knew he had no intention of having the contents of that second will actioned. Should he already have explained that decision to the family lawyer? But admitting that he was in a relationship with Isla had struck him as too private a revelation to make to one of his employees. If further explanation was required in the future, he would deal with it then, he thought in exasperation.

‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ he told her abruptly, releasing her to stride back to his car.

Isla stood there a few seconds longer, wondering what had happened, wondering why he had changed his mind about joining her after the fundraiser. She wandered back indoors, feeling strangely unsettled by her recollection of the sudden detachment that had momentarily frozen Alissandru’s lean dark face, banishing his usual smile. Maybe he was getting tired of her, maybe he was only just beginning to realise that, she reasoned.

And how did that make her feel? As if the roof was about to fall in, she acknowledged guiltily, taken aback by the awful hollow sensation that filled her when she thought of Alissandru walking away from her. She had got attached, hadn’t she? Seriously attached in spite of all the signs that he was not in the market for any kind of commitment. And even worse, now she was pregnant and that fact was more important than her feelings or his.

Isla walked around the house, busying herself with tidying up while she pondered her dilemma. There was really no avoiding the obvious. Alissandru had always been honest with her and she owed him the same honesty. A couple of hours later, her nerves nibbling at her in painful bites, she showered and changed and drove up to the palazzo, trying not to ask herself how it would feel when she saw angry resentment and regret in Alissandru’s face when she told him she had once again conceived. As ever impervious to mood, Puggle danced at her heels, eager to see Constantia or Alissandru, both of whom could be depended on to feed him.

As she mounted the steps, a thickset older man emerged and hesitated. ‘You must be Tania’s sister, Isla,’ he guessed as he extended his hand. ‘I’m Marco Morelli, the Rossetti family lawyer.’

Isla tensed at the explanation. ‘I suppose you’ll be getting together some papers for me to sign,’ she remarked, thinking of the legalities of selling the house back to Alissandru. She had already nominally agreed to sell the house back to him but the sticking point was that she was only willing to accept market value while Alissandru seemed to think that it was somehow his duty to pay very generously for it.

The older man frowned and shook his head in grave dismissal. ‘No...there’s nothing. A mistake that none of us could know was a mistake is already being rectified. Now that the new will has been lodged, it is merely a question of sorting out the tangle Paulu left behind him. I am sorry you have had this experience.’

Isla had fallen very still. ‘New will?’ she queried breathlessly.

‘Alissandru said that he would explain it all to you.’ Marco Morelli checked his watch and sighed. ‘Unfortunately, I have another call to make and I can’t go into the complexities of a more recent will turning up and reversing the original right now, but if you have any questions, I would be happy to answer them for you at my office. Perhaps tomorrow...or the next day?’ he prompted helpfully.

‘So, there’s nothing for me to sign,’ Isla managed to gather, striving to act normally rather than betraying the reality that she had been dealt a body blow.

‘No, once you return the inheritance the matter is fully concluded,’ he assured her cheerfully. ‘I know Alissandru wishes to compensate you for this most regrettable confusion but, to be frank, he owes you nothing because he was no more aware of the second will’s existence than anyone else. I persuaded him that he had to have the will lodged legally with the courts if he wanted to avoid further complications.’

The older man bid her good day and hurried back to his car, leaving Isla standing there like a stone statue.

Slowly, very slowly as if her very bones ached, she retraced her steps to Tania’s car, Puggle lagging behind her. She knew she couldn’t face Alissandru at that moment. She had to gather herself, work out what to do next...aside from repaying what she owed. It was as if her life were a deck of cards that someone had tYhrown up into the air and now everything had changed radically.

Her independence, her plans, everything she had depended on was being torn away. Just her bad luck, as the lawyer had said. From somewhere, Alissandru had obtained another will and, within it, Paulu had presumably left his worldly goods to his brother instead. Isla was shattered. She remembered the contents of Paulu’s desk being taken away and surmised that that was most likely where the second will had been found. Even she knew that a more recently dated will would take precedence over an earlier one. But Alissandru had seemingly learned about that will weeks ago!

Yet he still hadn’t told her. The house was already his yet he was even now determined to buy it from her. Why? Because he pitied her. Her self-esteem squirmed as though it had come into contact with something very nasty and hurtful. And she was hurt, seriously hurt that he had not told her about that second will as soon as he became aware of its existence.

Knowing that Alissandru had seen her sister as avaricious, she had made a big effort to keep Alissandru’s wealth out of their relationship. Pride had demanded that she stand on her own feet and Paulu’s legacy had made it possible for her to do that. But now that financial security had vanished. And, even worse, it left her broke and in debt to Alissandru because everything she had spent in recent months, after being given access to Paulu’s money, had not been her money to spend. How was she ever going to repay that money?

Thank goodness she hadn’t spent like a lottery winner, she thought heavily. Her native caution with money had meant that she was careful, but she had spent a fair bit of money simply travelling to Sicily and had been living off it ever since. How could he not have told her about the second will?

It had been a lie of omission. Feeling sorry for her, Alissandru had kept quiet. He had planned to virtually pay her off by paying for a house he already owned and he would never have told her the truth because he would’ve let her walk away with his brother’s money. And now she was pregnant and she was going to cost Alissandru even more money. She would be the financial liability he had never wanted.

Hot tears of mortification burning the backs of her eyes, she entered the house that was no longer hers and went upstairs to pack. She would return to London. What else could she do? She had to find herself some way of making a living again, at least until the baby was born. But no way was she about to tell Alissandru about the baby now face-to-face, not with this horrible financial bombshell engulfing her at the same time. She felt devastated and humiliated and taking herself quietly away seemed like her only dignified option.

She would write Alissandru a letter. That way, he could curse and storm when he found out that there was to be another baby. He wouldn’t be forced to be polite; he wouldn’t be forced to hide his true feelings. Once the dust had settled on that revelation, she would get in touch with him again.

She went online to see how soon she could get a flight to London but ran into difficulties when it came to travelling with Puggle. Travelling with a dog across Europe could not be done without foresight and planning. Puggle had to receive an injection several days prior to travel and she would need to arrange that first. Constantia would take him, Isla thought ruefully, but when would she ever be able to return to Sicily to reclaim him? Furthermore, leaving her dog with Alissandru’s mother would entail making explanations she had no desire to have to make.

Writing a letter to Alissandru took Isla hours. After several failed attempts, she decided to keep it simple. She admitted that she had found out about the second will and that she had no alternative other than to vacate the house. She made no promises of repayment because, with neither a home nor employment awaiting her in London when she finally got there, there was little point in talking about what she couldn’t deliver. She wrote about the baby in bald terms and assured him that she would get in touch once she was settled again.

Hearts didn’t really break, she told herself firmly as she walked out of the house with Puggle confined in his carrier. She would recover...eventually. Alissandru had not encouraged her to fall in love with him. He had been quite clear from the outset that they were simply having a casual affair. Now she needed to concentrate on finding a local veterinary surgeon and somewhere she could stay with a dog in tow.