A Sicilian Husband - Kate Walker [57]
‘Non c’e problema,’ he muttered automatically. ‘It’s fine.’
But then he looked down at her hand, small and delicate, as it lay on his arm. In the sunlight the scent of her skin was an evocative perfume, one that stirred his senses to a demanding throb.
‘What happened to “hands off”?’ he queried softly, lacing the words with a touch of wry amusement.
‘Oh, that…’
For the space of a couple of heartbeats, Terrie looked nonplussed, but then swiftly she recovered, even shot him a provocatively challenging glance from the corners of her eyes.
‘I only said “hands off” to you! Nowhere is it written that the rule applies to me!’
‘You little witch!’
He made it a low, rolling growl, the sound of a dozing tiger, half-roused from sleep, but too lazily contented to bother with pouncing. He was still having trouble adjusting to the discovery he had made about himself just moments before.
‘But perhaps it’s just as well that there is some contact between us. My mother was starting to wonder just what sort of a couple we are…’
‘You told her we are—a couple?’
It was her turn to look disconcerted and she snatched her hand back as if the slight connection between them had burned her, making her flinch away.
‘Naturalmente.’
‘But then—won’t she think it’s odd that we don’t share…that we aren’t…?’
‘Sleeping together?’
A quick, ironic smile tugged at the corners of his mouth at the memory of his conversation with his mother earlier that week.
‘Not at all, cara mia. This is Sicily, remember. Mama is still old-fashioned enough to approve of the fact that we have separate rooms. She believes that it is a sign of how serious we are about each other—that I treat you with such respect.’
‘And so how will you explain it if I am pregnant?’
‘My mother is a realist. She knows that the behaviour she admires here is not necessarily the same everywhere else. Besides, she has always dreamed of having more grandchildren, and now that Cesare and Megan are about to present her with a new member of the family she is hoping to see her dream come true. She would not worry if a baby was conceived before marriage—just as long as it was born into a properly formalised relationship.’
‘Marriage?’ Terrie looked stunned. ‘We didn’t discuss marriage.’
‘We didn’t discuss it, but you must have realised that it was the obvious solution if you should turn out to be carrying my child.’
‘Not that obvious to me!’
It was as if a violent thunderstorm was brewing inside her head, making Terrie’s thoughts spin.
Marriage. To Gio. How would she feel about that?
The question had knocked her completely off balance, but it was the answer that sent her spinning over the edge and into a freefall of panic-stricken shock.
She couldn’t think of anything that she would like better. Couldn’t imagine anything more terrifyingly wonderful than the prospect of waking up every day, for the rest of her existence, and knowing that Gio was there, in her life—that this devastating, stunning, sexy man was her husband.
‘I didn’t think—’
‘Then think!’ Gio ordered curtly. ‘Any day now we will know. And when we know we will have to act. If you are incinta, then the sooner we announce our proposed union the better.’
The spiralling freefall of confusion had ended by dropping her, mentally at least, into an ice-cold pond, sobering her up fast. While she had been thinking of togetherness and a future filled with the time to get to know this man properly, to share his life, his home, his bed, Gio’s thoughts had all been of practicalities. Of making public their ‘proposed union’, for all the world as if it was to be nothing but a legal deal he had thrashed out in court.
But why should that surprise her? It was, after all, the only way Gio actually thought about the possibility of their marriage. He had made that plain before they had left England, telling her in no uncertain terms that he had no heart left to give to her.
‘I’m not looking for another