The Sicilian's Unexpected Duty

Trying to collect his thoughts, he finished his now cold and tasteless coffee and finally allowed himself to look at Cara.

She stood with her back to the balustrade, her arms folded across her chest, staring at him.

His heart expanded to see the paleness of her cheeks and the undeniable apprehension ringing in her green eyes.

‘I thought Luisa was happy too but as the weeks passed she became more and more withdrawn, refusing to let me tell my family or her family about the baby until the time was right. And then, the morning after the first scan, the day she had agreed we could tell the world of our joy, she confessed that she’d had a one-night stand. She’d slept with someone else while I’d visited Luca at his university for a weekend.’ Now he didn’t bother hiding his bitterness. ‘She and her lover had forgotten to use contraception. She was so terrified I would find out she engineered things so that days later we too got so carried away we forgot to use contraception. That way, if she fell pregnant, she could pass the child off as mine.’

A low whistle escaped from Cara’s lips. There was no apprehension in her eyes now. Only compassion. Which somehow made him feel worse.

‘The only reason she confessed was because she couldn’t live with the guilt.’

‘What did you do?’ Cara breathed.

He laughed cynically and shook his head. ‘I said I didn’t care. I told her it didn’t matter. I told her I loved her enough that I would raise the child as my own even if there was doubt that it was mine. But that was a lie—it wasn’t her I loved enough to do that for, it was my unborn child. Because that baby was mine. I had already committed my heart to it. I had pictured the boy or girl it would be, the teenager he or she would grow into. I had pictured walking my daughter down the aisle and I had imagined my grown son asking me to be his best man.’

Long-buried unspoken memories threatened to choke him but Pepe forced himself to finish his sordid story. ‘At first she agreed. Then, a couple of weeks later, when she was fifteen weeks pregnant, she went away for a weekend to visit an aunt. That too was a lie. She had in fact gone to the UK for an abortion. Her lover—who, it transpired, she was still seeing—had given her the money to pay for it all.’

Silence hung between them, the air thick and heavy.

‘Dear God,’ Cara whispered. ‘I am so sorry.’

‘Sorry for what?’ he snarled, his attempts to keep a leash on his emotions snapping. ‘That I was deceived? That I was stupid enough to want to be cuckolded and by Francesco Calvetti of all people...’

‘He was her lover?’

‘You know him?’

She shook her head and curled her lip in distaste. ‘I know of him.’

Of course she did. Luca, his brother, had gone into business with the bastard, an association that had recently ended. Grace, his sister-in-law, despised the man. ‘When we were kids our parents used to force us to play together. He and my brother were once good friends.’

Cara placed a tentative hand on his arm. He guessed it was supposed to be a comforting gesture, but at that moment comfort was the last thing he needed. He felt too unhinged for that. Spilling his guts for the very first time was not the catharsis people claimed.

He especially didn’t want comfort from her, the woman who made him feel more unhinged than he had felt in fifteen years.

Enfolding her hand, he raised it to his cheek and placed it on his scar. ‘Luisa gave me this scar. I was so angry at what she’d done, I called her every nasty, vindictive and demeaning name I could think of. In return she slashed me with a knife from her mother’s kitchen. I’ve kept the scar as a reminder never to trust.’

Cara’s eyes were huge and filled with something that looked suspiciously like tears.

He dropped her hand. ‘So now you know it all. I hope you can now understand why I do not trust people and why I cannot give you the money you want, not until after our baby is born. It’s not personal towards you. Please believe that.’

* * *

Cara dressed mechanically in a blue skirt, black roll-neck jumper and a pair of thick black tights, and tied her hair back into a loose ponytail. Her hands shook, her mind filled with him, with Pepe.

After their talk on the balcony he had disappeared, muttering about needing a swim. Wordlessly she had let him go, too shocked and heartsick at his story to even attempt to stop him.

Her heart stopped when she found him in the kitchen eating a pain au chocolat. He’d added a black T-shirt to his jeans, his black hair was damp and he’d had a shave.

He lifted his eyes to see her standing hesitantly in the doorway, and got to his feet. ‘Please, help yourself,’ he said, indicating the plate heaped with pastries in the centre of the table. ‘I’ve made a pot of tea for you.’