'Thick as a brick?' Jessica echoed, licking her dry lips in shock.
'Enjoy many scintillating conversations with her, did you?'
'Well... no, but you seemed so keen to keep her
around; I thought '
'You really expected me to chuck her out the day of the funeral?' Carlo enquired gently.
Jessica reddened. 'You should have told me how you felt about her.'
'I thought it was obvious...and you didn't ask,’ Carlo
reminded her drily. 'Until we had that stupid argument,
I had no idea she even bothered you. You came at me
out of the blue and I was in a bad mood.' Unusually,
he hesitated, his sensual mouth twisting. 'I don't pay
much attention to Sunny, I have to admit. I did think
she'd given up on her aspiration to move from my
father's bed to mine '
'Like hell she had,' Jessica muttered feelingly.
'So I discovered. That night I woke up to find her wrapped round me like a boa constrictor, I was disgusted with her. I knew she wasn't in love with me. The first time Sunny looked at herself in a mirror she fell in love for the rest of her life,' Carlo drawled with an expressive grimace. 'I paid her off. The minute she got that cheque in her hand, she was off like a hare for pastures new. She won't approach me again. She hates me like poison now. I don't think it had ever crossed Sunny's mind that a man could find her repulsive.'
That was music to Jessica's ears. Carlo had fulfilled what he felt to be his obligations to his former stepmother and if Jessica had only given him time, he would have done that while they were still living together. She knew then that she had to tell him what she had been forced to tolerate from Sunny.
His state of shock by the time she had finished speaking spoke for him. He had had no suspicion that Sunny was putting that much effort into undermining their relationship.
A disturbing silence fell then. Jessica began to wonder if Carlo had gone to all this trouble to force her to face him merely to prove that he had not been guilty of lusting after Sunny.
'I've also been thinking,’ Carlo finally said heavily, 'about how much I allowed what happened with Bella to influence my attitude to you. Six years ago, I suspect you paid some of her dues for her. I was still pretty bitter. My ego was still smarting. I was determined that the next woman I wanted would come to me only on my terms. I didn't trust my own emotions. I wouldn't admit how strong my feelings for you were.'
'Strong?' Disturbed by the gravity of his mood, Jessica prompted him uncertainly.
'I was in love with you,' Carlo confessed harshly, and it was as if the admission had been tortured out of him.
'In love with me?' she whispered dazedly, and she couldn't even get excited by the revelation when he looked so grim about giving her that knowledge. She collided with shimmering golden eyes and sensed that for the very first time she was hearing the truth, not parts of it but all of it.
‘Did you never ask yourself why I behaved as I did? Do you really believe I would have gone to so much trouble merely to get you into bed?' Carlo prompted with a derisive twist to his strained mouth. 'It was my misfortune to fall for a woman on the brink of marrying another man. I wanted time with you and you wouldn't give me that time... and what was worst of all was knowing that you were fighting an attraction as strong as mine right from the beginning!'
'Yes,' she acknowledged unsteadily. 'But I didn't rec
ognise that attraction for what it was. I was terrified of
it,’ She flushed unhappily and tried to laugh. 'I thought
I was turning into a scarlet woman, but '
'You hurt me as Bella never had the power to hurt me,' Carlo cut in flatly.
Hot moisture stung her eyes. She saw the truth of that statement in his expressive eyes. That was another first. He wasn't shielding his emotions from her. His guard was down.