A Sicilian Husband - Kate Walker [58]
‘And how would your mother feel about that?’
‘She is delighted that I have a new woman in my life. She believes that it is not good for a man to live alone.’
And any woman was better than none. Any woman would fill the space in his bed, in his house, in his life—but not in his heart. He didn’t have to say the words; they were there in his tone, in the opaque look in his eyes.
‘It was my mother who sent me out to you here. She is concerned that you and I are not getting any time alone together because of Paolo, and so she has offered to have him all day tomorrow—and all night too. He loves to sleep at her house so he’ll see it as a real treat. And we can go out and I can show you the island.’
‘That’s kind of her.’
Terrie’s response was abstracted. Her whirling brain had picked on one phrase and held on to it like a terrier fastening on to a slipper.
‘All day…and all night’.
It was crazy to let that fix in her thoughts and mean so much more than the simple phrase deserved, but she couldn’t stop herself from doing so. All week, she and Gio had been alone in the house—apart from the small, innocent person of Paolo. A totally empty house, other than the two of them, wouldn’t be so very different—would it?
And yet somehow she felt as if it would be completely unlike every other day she had already spent in the villa.
‘A full day without any parental responsibilities,’ Gio murmured. ‘It would be a pity to waste it.’
‘Mm.’
It was all that Terrie could manage. She didn’t dare to ask him just what he meant by ‘waste’. She already had some very strong suspicions as to what was behind the apparently innocent remark. And with her own newly recognised feelings still raw in her mind, she was not at all sure that she would be able to cope with the implications of that.
A full day without any parental responsibilities, Gio reflected. And who knew just how things might stand between them at the end of that day?
Twenty-four hours in which, for the first time in this upside-down relationship, they would actually have a chance to do things the conventional way—follow the usual path that most couples took.
Most male-female relationships started with liking, moved to love, and from there to the deep passion of a committed future together. That was how things had been with Lucia. He had liked her the moment he had seen her; known he loved her in the blink of an eye after that, it had seemed. Had wanted them to be together for the rest of their lives, but it was not to be.
And they had waited what had seemed like an eternity before they slept together.
None of which fitted the way things had developed with Teresa. Instead he had felt as if a tornado had swept into his life, picked him up and whirled him far from anywhere he recognised, losing track of all the familiar landmarks he had ever known. And when he had finally been set down again, he had no idea whether he was on his head or his heels. He only knew that he couldn’t get this woman out of his mind. That without her in his life he felt as if he was losing his grip on his sanity.
But when she was with him, he couldn’t work out what he wanted with her.
Perhaps tomorrow would give him a chance to get things back under control again. Maybe twenty-four hours from now, he would have some idea of just exactly where he went from here.
And whether Teresa came with him or not.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE sun had gone down completely by the time that they returned to the villa late the following evening. After their day out they had had dinner at a wonderful restaurant in Palermo, before making their way back along the winding country roads to Gio’s home. Already the heat of the day had chilled to a cool, still evening, and in the darkness the house seemed incredibly silent and empty.
‘It seems strange not to have to keep quiet for fear of waking Paolo,’ Terrie said as they made their way into the huge lounge. ‘Was he always such a light sleeper?’
‘Not for the first year.’
Gio