A Sicilian Husband - Kate Walker [19]
‘Is it any of your…?’
The silver phone case closed with a dangerous snap and Gio obviously changed his mind about what he had been about to say.
‘My sister-in-law,’ he conceded unexpectedly, but the words were still coldly clipped, falling like shards of ice into the rapidly cooling atmosphere. ‘Signora Megan Santorino. The wife of my half-brother Cesare. You don’t believe me? Here…’
The phone was tossed down onto the bed, sliding across the blue and white bedspread to just within reach of Terrie’s fingers.
‘Ring back—hear for yourself. The redial button is—’
‘I don’t need the redial button!’ Terrie spat, painfully embarrassed by unnecessary instruction, the over-elaborate pretence at concern for her to get it right. ‘I don’t need to ring back! I—I believe you!’
How could she think anything else when she saw the flaring fury in his eyes, the tension that held his long body taut? She’d blundered badly somewhere.
‘Gio—I believe you. Please—I’m sorry. Forgive me.’
For the space of several distinctly uneven heartbeats, he simply glared into her eyes, his jaw set tight, his mouth clamped into a thin line. But then at last, to her infinite relief, he raked both hands through the raven darkness of his hair and nodded slowly.
‘OK,’ he said, his tone losing just a touch of that attacking quality. ‘Fine.’
And that was it? Terrie wondered. Topic closed? Continue as before? She didn’t know if she could.
The sharply heated little exchange had taught her something. A lesson she had more than needed. It had shown her just how little she knew about this man, other than the most basic facts.
It had also revealed another side to Gio Cardella. A very different, very disturbing side that was in total contrast to the urbane, courteous, charming man who had been her dinner companion this evening. It had shown her Giovanni Cardella, the hotshot international lawyer, the man who had been in court today prosecuting an important fraud case—and won. In those few, unnervingly uncomfortable moments she had come up against Giovanni Cardella, counsel for the prosecution—and quite frankly it had unnerved her.
‘She’s seven months pregnant.’
The comment caught her unawares, all the more so because of the casually conversational way that Gio delivered it. It was as if the disturbing confrontation hadn’t happened, or he had dismissed it from his mind at once.
‘Who?’
‘Megan. She’s expecting her first baby in May and she’s already as big as a house. She rang to complain about the heat.’
‘The heat!’
Terrie’s eyes went to the windows beyond which, with the typical unreliability of an English spring, the rain had suddenly started to fall, great drops darkening the paving stones in the courtyard outside.
‘Sicily has a very different climate from England.’
‘Of—of course.’
The trace of amusement warming his voice was her undoing. She could feel it heating the blood in her veins, making it throb its way around her body. And if she glanced up she could see the way that a hint of laughter had lit up his eyes, melting the ice that had been in them moments before.
And she wanted that. Needed that change of mood. Because, terrifying as she found it to admit, she now realised that in the few short hours since she had met Giovanni Cardella things had moved on at a pace that she had neither anticipated nor, if she was honest, genuinely wanted. She wouldn’t have believed it possible, but she was already in so deep that it was going to devastate her if she had to back out now.
Or if Gio left her in anger, or some foolish mistake on her part drove him away from her.
‘Well, they brought the coffee,’ Gio muttered drily.
His gesture indicated the tray on the table, the fine china cups and saucers, the silver coffee-pot. The waiter had brought brandy too, the amber-coloured liquid glowing fierily in delicate crystal balloon glasses.
‘So do you want coffee, Teresa?’
She was thrilled to hear a new softness in his voice, the husky note of invitation that held the promise of a future, a beginning, rather than an end.
‘No,’ she whispered, her voice very low