The Billionaire's Bridal Bargain

‘What you said made sense to me when I thought it over,’ Lizzie cut in, desperate to shut him up. ‘This is business, nothing else. Let’s stick to that from now on and I’ll keep to my side of the bargain while your grandmother is staying with us on the island. I see no reason why we shouldn’t bring this...er...project to a successful conclusion.’

Cesare blinked, disconcerted by the sound of such prosaic language falling from her lips. He was relieved that she was calm and grateful that she now intended to accompany him to Lionos for Athene’s sake but he didn’t agree with a single word she was saying. While, uniquely for him, he hesitated in a frantic inner search for the right approach to take with her, Lizzie took the wind out of his sails altogether.

‘And that successful conclusion I mentioned?’ Lizzie continued, a forced brightness of tone accompanying her wide fake smile. ‘We’re almost there because I’m pregnant.’

‘Pregnant?’ Cesare exclaimed in almost comical disbelief, springing back out of his seat again and yanking out the chair beside his own for her use. ‘Madre di Dio...sit down.’

Taken aback by his astonished reaction to her news, Lizzie sank down on the chair. ‘It’s not earth-shaking, Cesare. Women get pregnant every day.’

‘You’re my wife... It’s a little more personal than that for me,’ Cesare parried thickly, stepping behind her to rest his hands down on her slim, taut shoulders.

Alarmingly conscious of that physical contact, Lizzie froze in dismay. ‘Could I ask you not to do that?’

‘Do what?’

‘Touch me,’ she extended in an apologetic tone. ‘I’ll understand if you’re forced to do it when your grandmother’s around to make us look like a convincing couple but we’re alone here and there’s no need for it.’

Off-balanced by that blunt response, Cesare released her shoulders and backed away. He was thinking about the baby and he was fighting off an extraordinarily strong urge to touch her stomach, which he knew was weird, not to mention an urge destined to go unfulfilled.

‘Forgive me,’ he breathed abruptly. ‘My immediate response was to touch you because I am full of joy about the baby.’

He had never looked less full of joy to Lizzie. In fact he looked a little pale and a lot tense, eyes shielded by his ridiculously long lashes, wide, sensual mouth compressed. She wanted to slap him so badly that her hands twitched on her lap. Like a magician pulling a white rabbit out of a hat, she had made her unexpected announcement, depending on it to wipe away the awkwardness lingering after their confrontation the night before. She had just let him know that he would never have a reason to touch her again because she had conceived. He should have been thrilled to be let off the hook when he didn’t deserve it. Instead, however, a tense silence stretched like a rubber band threatening to snap.

‘I didn’t think it would happen so...fast,’ Cesare admitted half under his breath.

‘Well, it saves us a lot of hassle that it has,’ Lizzie pronounced with as much positive emphasis as she could load into a single sentence. Hovering on the tip of her tongue was the highly inappropriate reminder that, after the amount of unprotected sex they had had, she thought it was more of a surprise that they hadn’t hit the jackpot the first week.

‘Hassle?’

‘If we’d had to go for the artificial insemination, it might have been a bit...icky,’ she mumbled, momentarily losing her grip on her relentless falsely cheerful front.

Icky, Cesare repeated inwardly. It was a pretty good description of how he was feeling. Icky. He had suffered a Damascene moment of revelation while he was with Serafina the previous night. A blinding light that even he could not ignore or sensibly explain away had shone over the events and emotions of the past month and he had finally understood how everything had gone so very wrong. Unfortunately for him, since Lizzie had joined him for breakfast, he had realised that ‘wrong’ was an understatement. He had dug a great big hole for himself and she was showing every intention of being perfectly happy to bury him alive in it.

Cesare went upstairs, ostensibly for a shower but he wanted privacy to make a phone call. In all his life he had never ever turned to Goffredo for advice but his father was the only touchy-feely male relative he had, who could be trusted to keep a confidence. His sisters were too young and out of the question. Each would discuss it with the other and then they would approach Lizzie to tell all because she was one of the sisterhood now and closer to his siblings than he was. Goffredo had one word of advice and it was an unpalatable one. Heaving a sigh, he then suggested his son imagine his life without her and take it from there. That mental exercise only exacerbated Cesare’s dark mood.

* * *

Lizzie wore a floaty white cotton sundress to travel out to the island and took great pains with her hair and make-up. She knew that in the greater scheme of things her appearance was unimportant but was convinced that no woman confronted by a beauty like Serafina could remain indifferent to the possibility of unkind comparisons.

Close to running late for their flight, Cesare strode down the steps, a cool and sophisticated figure in beige chinos and an ivory cotton sweater that truly enhanced his bronzed skin tone and stunning dark eyes. Climbing into the car, he barely glanced at Lizzie and she knew all her fussing had been a pathetic waste of time.

Archie sat right in the middle of the back seat, halfway between them like a dog trying to work out how he could split himself into two parts. To Lizzie’s intense annoyance, her pet ended up nudged up against a hard masculine thigh because Cesare was absently massaging Archie’s ear, which reduced her dog to a pushover.

By the time they reached the airfield and boarded the helicopter, Lizzie was becoming increasingly frustrated. Cesare’s brooding silence was getting to her and she wanted to know what was behind it. How could he simply switch off everything they had seemed to have together? It hadn’t ever just been sex between them. There had been laughter and lots of talking and an intense sense of rightness as well. At least on her side, she conceded wretchedly.

His long, powerful thigh stretched as he shifted position and a heated ache blossomed between her thighs. That surge of hormonal chemistry mortified her. She reminded herself that that side of their marriage was over, she reminded herself that she was pregnant and she still ended up glancing back at that masculine thigh. Suddenly she was remembering that only the day before she would have stretched out a hand and stroked that hard male flesh, taking the initiativ

e in a way that always surprised and pleased him. How had they seemed to be so attuned to each other when they so patently could not have been? Had she deceived herself? Had she dreamt up a whole fairy tale and tried to live it by putting Cesare in a starring role? Was this mess all her own wretched fault?

With such ideas torturing her and with a companion, who was almost as silent, it was little wonder that Lizzie had been airborne for over an hour when she was jolted by Cesare simply and suddenly turning round from the front passenger seat of the helicopter and urging her to look down at what he called ‘her’ island.

‘And Chrissie’s,’ she said unheard above the engine noise, stretching to peer over his broad shoulder as the craft dipped. She saw a long teardrop-shaped piece of land covered with lush green trees. ‘That’s Lionos?’ She gasped in astonishment for it was much bigger than she had expected. In her head she had cherished a not very inviting image of a rocky piece of land stuck in the middle of nowhere, for her mother had not made it sound an attractive place. At the same time their inheritance had never seemed very real to either her or her sister when they could not afford even to visit it.

Within minutes the helicopter was descending steeply to land in a clearing in the trees and for the first time in twenty-four hours a feeling of excited anticipation gripped Lizzie. Ignoring Cesare’s extended hand, she jumped down onto the ground and stared up at the white weatherboard house standing at the top of a slope. Like the island, it was bigger than she had expected.

‘Athene told me that her father built it in the nineteen twenties and she had five siblings, so it had to be spacious,’ Cesare supplied as he released Archie and the dog went scampering off to do what dogs did when they’d been confined for a long time. ‘Primo says it really needs to be knocked down and rebuilt but he’s done his best within the time frame he’s had.’

‘He’s frighteningly efficient,’ Lizzie remarked, mounting the slope, striving to ignore and avoid the supportive hand Cesare had planted to the base of her spine and a little breathless in her haste.