The Sicilian's Mistress

She had lunch with Connor, who could hardly eat for excitement. Leaving him in Barbara’s care, she then took herself off outdoors, keen to be elsewhere when Gianni arrived to spend time with their son.

An afternoon spent energetically digging in the walled kitchen garden which had been abandoned to the forces of nature for a good twenty years proved therapeutic. She was going to marry Gianni. Of course she was. If he married her, he could hardly use her recent past as a weapon against her in any custody battle. As a wife she would be safer. That way, and only that way, could she ensure that Gianni would find it extremely difficult to try and remove their son from her care.

And if she didn’t marry him mightn’t he eventually marry someone else? With sudden violence, Milly slashed a bramble out of her path. Once she would not have believed that possible. Once she would have sworn that Gianni would die single. But that conviction had died when Gianni had stunned her by proposing. Even if it was only for his son’s benefit, Gianni was finally prepared to offer commitment. If Milly turned him down, sooner or later he would end up marrying some other woman.

And that was a development which Milly knew she would not be able to bear. She was possessive. She was very possessive. Currently hating and resenting Gianni to the same degree with which she loved him did not blind Milly to her own vulnerability. To stand by on the sidelines and watch Gianni with another woman would be to tear herself to shreds. After all, she reflected painfully, she already knew what that experience felt like. So there was a lot to be said for choosing to be miserable with Gianni now that she had faced the fact that she would be even more miserable without him.

‘I really love it when you dress up for me like this, cara…’

Milly jerked, froze, and then slowly lifted her golden head. Silhouetted against the fading light of the afternoon, Gianni was poised several feet away, a faint smile on his wide, sensual mouth. His navy cashmere coat hung open to reveal a formal pinstripe suit cut to faithfully follow his powerful frame and his long, long legs. He looked spectacular. Her eyes widened, her mouth ran dry, her heart just lurched.

Milly leant on her spade for support. Her tumbled hair was roughly caught back with a piece of twine. She wore ancient jeans, a warm but shapeless sweater and workman-like boots. Her lack of elegance didn’t trouble her. But she could see it was troubling Gianni, who was reading all sorts of deeper messages into her appearance. Women wore make-up in bed with Gianni. Women spent hours dressing to go out with him. He never had known quite how to handle her unconcern at letting him occasionally see her just as she was, bare of both fashion and artifice.

‘You lost track of time. You didn’t realise I’d arrived,’ Gianni decided instantly.

Milly was not in a conciliatory mood. ‘I could hardly have missed the helicopter landing, and that was what…two, three hours ago?’

‘Your phone is switched off. Barbara Withers told me where to find you.’ Gianni couldn’t quite conceal his irritation that he had been reduced to asking such a question. ‘You shouldn’t be working outdoors in this weather.’

‘You’re annoyed I wasn’t waiting for you at the house,’ Milly interpreted without the slightest difficulty. ‘But why come all the way down here to get an answer you don’t need? The last time you were here you made it clear that you saw my answer as a foregone conclusion.’

His lean, strong face darkened, brilliant eyes veiling to reveal only a watchful glimmer of gold.

‘And,’ Milly continued flatly, aiming a particularly vicious jab of the spade at the undergrowth surrounding her, ‘as usual you were right. How can I say no?’

‘You’re going to marry me.’ Ignoring the hostile undertones with the practised ease of a male who never looked for trouble with a woman unless it rose up and slapped him smack in the face, Gianni surveyed her with a slow smile curling his expressive mouth. He retained his cool like a cloaking device, but his eyes glittered like the heart of a fire.

‘But I have certain conditions,’ Milly extended gently.

Caught off guard, Gianni strode closer, stepping off the path to mire his polished Italian leather shoes in mud. ‘Conditions?’

Milly threw back her slight shoulders like a boxer about to enter the ring. ‘To start with, I’d like you to have a medical, so that I can be assured that you have a completely clean bill of health.’

His winged brows lifted. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Whether you choose to believe it or not, I have not been intimate with anybody but you,’ Milly stated, watching his strikingly handsome features freeze, his big, powerful body stiffen. ‘However, you can’t offer me the same reassurance, and I feel I have the right to ask.’

Gianni drew himself up to his full height, dark eyes blazing derision. ‘Porca miseria! You think that you can make me believe that you didn’t sleep with your fiancé?’

‘I don’t really care what you believe…’

‘Then what kind of nonsense is this? I have never been promiscuous…why the hell are you looking at me like that?’ he demanded in fierce condemnation.

Milly returned to her digging, thinking with inescapable bitterness and pain of the speed with which he had turned to another woman three years earlier. ‘You shouldn’t need to be told.’

The tense silence thundered and shouted and snarled. Flailed by pain and anger, Milly hacked at winter-bare brambles. ‘I have cause to know that you’re not always careful with—’

‘I have never taken risks like that with anybody but you!’ Gianni shot back in a savage undertone.

‘Then why with me?’ Milly glanced up enquiringly.

His lean brown hands closed into powerful fists. He swung restively away from her. ‘That was different…’

‘How was it different?’

He didn’t answer her. ‘A clean bill of health,’ he ground out instead, as if he was spitting tacks, apparently choosing to settle for the lesser of two evils. ‘OK. I already have that. My most recent medical was less than a month ago.’

But if Gianni thought he was getting off the hook that easily he was mistaken. Milly wasn’t finished yet. ‘I will also expect total fidelity.’