Public Wife, Private Mistress

She looked at him, stared into the depths of his dark eyes and switched positions. If she'd found him in the same situation... 'It looked bad.' she agreed, her voice little more than a whisper.

'If you had stayed around then maybe, given time, I would have reached the right conclusion.' he said heavily. 'But as it was you left without further discus­sion and I was not given the luxury of reflection.

Emotion piled on emotion. My own and then my fam­ily's.'

Stasia's legs were shaking so badly she wondered

if they would continue to hold her. 'But if you didn't know, why did you come here today?'

Rico gave a twisted smile. 'Because, once again, you left. And this time I decided to follow you. If I'd made that same decision a year ago then maybe we'd be in a different place now.

Dio —' He glanced at her with a frown and then scooped her into his arms in a powerful movement. 'Your face has no colour at all. On second thoughts I'll risk the head injury. You need to sit down and I need a drink.'

'If I'm pale then it's because you're always covering me with a hat, and I don't need to sit down,' she mut­tered, trying to resist the temptation to bury her face in his neck. 'I'm not that pathetic—'

He ignored her and strode back up the lane with her in his arms. After a few strides Stasia gave up the fight and buried her face in his neck, feeling too shattered to resist. He hadn't known about Chiara. So why was he here? Why had he followed her?

'So if you being here has nothing to do with Chiara, then why did it take you two weeks to follow me?'

'Because for once my emotional reaction to your de­parture was followed by a period of calm reflection, undisturbed by my well-meaning but interfering fam­ily,' he said grimly, pushing open her front door and ducking his head to avoid knocking himself uncon­scious. 'And during that period of calm reflection I con­sidered a great number of things.'

He sat her down on the kitchen table and planted an arm either side of her so that she couldn't escape.

His nearness sent her senses into overdrive. Suddenly breathing seemed an effort. 'I thought you wanted a drink—'

His eyes dropped to her mouth and he took a deep breath and drew back. 'Good idea,' he breathed, glanc­ing around him. 'What is there?'

'Wine.' She leaned across the table and reached for a bottle of wine that she'd opened the night before. 'This is the only alcohol in the house. Will it do?'

He gave a wry smile, taking the bottle from her. 'I don't know. That depends on your answers to my ques­tions. I might need something considerably stronger.'

'What questions?'

'About Chiara.'

She bit her lip. 'Rico. I can't—'

'You can and you will,' he gritted, handing her a glass of wine and putting the bottle on the table. 'The time for tact and sensitivity is long past. What I want now is the truth. And I want it fast and undiluted, Stasia, starting with how often my sister invited her boyfriends into my house.'

Stasia took a gulp of wine. 'Quite often,' she mum­bled and Rico released a breath with a hiss.

'And you didn't tell me—'

'I was in an impossible position.' She gave a helpless shrug. 'Your sister already resented me—how would I have developed a relationship with her if I went running to you every time she did something I knew you would have disapproved of?'

His mouth tightened. 'So you encouraged her—'

'No!' She interrupted him quickly, her eyes blazing with anger and hurt. 'That isn't fair! I didn't encourage her. I talked to her. I tried to teach her to do the right thing. And she just resented me even more.'

Rico closed his eyes, like a man bracing himself to hear news that he was most definitely not going to like. 'Those nightclubs you went to with her—'

Stasia hesitated, still reluctant to reveal everything, but one warning glance from those fierce black eyes was sufficient to convince her that the time for discretion was long past.

'I didn't go with her,' she said finally. 'I followed her to try and persuade her to come home. If your spies had been doing their job correctly they would have told you that she arrived first and then I arrived after. We weren't together.'

'You should have said something—'

'When?' Stasia's tone was weary. 'When would I have said something? You were never there. Rico. I only ever saw you at night and even then only when the lights were out. We never even had a conversation about our own relationship, let alone anything else. We made love and fell asleep. End of story.'