Ruthlessly Bedded, Forcibly Wedded

defend herself. She knew it was futile, and that she was opening herself up for certain pain, but couldn’t stop them coming out. ‘I told you once before—I played no part in Cormac’s life.’

‘You said yourself that you knew what his plans were regarding Allegra. You seriously expect me to believe that he didn’t use you to act as her confidante? To ease her doubts and fears? Encourage her to trust in him?’

Cara shook her head and placed her hand unconsciously over her belly, to soothe the dull throb of pain that had faint alarm bells ringing. She told herself it was just the turmoil this man was creating.

‘I swear to you, I hardly knew your sister.’ A vivid memory rushed back. The first few times Cara had met Allegra, Cormac had pretended that she was the live-in maid. It was something that had amused him. Crippled by her own lack of finances and her efforts to study to achieve a degree and be free of Cormac, Cara had learnt to let his cruel jibes and tricks go over her head.

Vicenzo snorted disbelievingly. ‘My reports showed that she spent time at Cormac’s apartment. She went to that club practically every night—the same club you said yourself was a second home. So please don’t pretend that you didn’t know her intimately. Can’t you even admit to that?’

Anger bounced off Vicenzo in waves, and suddenly Cara felt very tired and not very well at all. A cold sweat was breaking out all over her body. This conversation was proving to her that Vicenzo was impossible to remonstrate with. She stood up and placed her napkin on the table.

‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am about your sister.’ She had to muster every atom of courage within her to say the next words. ‘Contrary to what you might think, your precious report showed you only the most superficial aspects of my life. I can’t speak for Cormac and Allegra, because unfortunately from what I knew everything you saw was real. But their social life did not include me. My reality was very different to theirs.’ She was shaking inwardly. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to bed. It’s been a long day.’

She turned and started walking. She heard his chair move as he stood behind her but just then Tommaso appeared in the doorway and said something in rapid Italian to Vicenzo. Cara smiled fleetingly at Tommaso, and used the diversion to all but run back to her room. She arrived with a hammering heart and closed the door, turning the key in the lock as if she could shut all the demons out.

Cara’s insides roiled, but she washed and changed and got into bed, and vowed to herself just as she fell into a fitful sleep that she would do whatever it took to try and show Vicenzo how wrong he was about her. She knew she wouldn’t be able to endure the entire length of her pregnancy with his mistrust and condemnation—not to mention if he took her to bed again, where all her defences fell like skittles…

Cara was having a nightmare. She knew she was dreaming but she couldn’t seem to wake herself out of it. Finally, as if climbing through layers of suffocating covers, she finally broke free and woke, sitting bolt-upright in bed with the most excruciating pain across her abdomen and sweat rolling down her back. She was crying out with the intensity of the pain, not able to hold it back.

A hand hammered on the door. ‘Cara? What’s going on?’ Vicenzo said.

Cara tried to speak, but a wave of pain washed through her, taking her words away. A keening moan came out of her mouth and she heard the door knob rattle. She tried again. ‘I can’t…I don’t know what—oh.’

Another pain made her hunch over in the bed, and it was then that she felt the wetness between her legs. She lifted the covers and looked down. Even in the dark she could see the dark stain of blood. Cara knew dimly that she was going into shock.

The baby.

‘Cara, open the door, dammit. Why the hell did you lock yourself in?’

Cara made an attempt to swing her legs out of the bed, knowing that it was very important that she reach the door to open it. When she went to stand up, though, all the blood seemed to rush from her head. The room swirled unsteadily, morphing into a welcoming blackness where there was no pain and no Vicenzo shouting at her.

‘I’m afraid it’s not much comfort but it is quite common, especially in the early stages of pregnancy as your wife was.’

The doctor’s mention of ‘your wife’ caught at Vicenzo somewhere deep and hidden. He tried to stifle the remembered panic that was still vividly fresh. When he’d crashed through her bedroom door and seen her lying so lifeless on the floor it had almost eclipsed what he’d had to endure when he’d identified Allegra’s body.

‘Are you sure she’s all right? I mean, there’s nothing else wrong with her?’

The doctor shook his head. ‘Nothing at all, she’s as fit as you or I, but mentally it will take her a bit of time to get over this. A miscarriage is never easy to deal with, no matter how early.’

A dark emotion rippled through Vicenzo. ‘How…? Why did this—?’

The doctor smiled kindly. ‘Why did this happen?’ He shrugged. ‘There’s any number of reasons, and it could just be as simple as this pregnancy was not meant to be. As I said, it’s much more common than you’d think. And it’s a myth that sex can bring on a miscarriage, so don’t beat yourself up about that.’ The doctor smiled more indulgently, making Vicenzo feel like an utter fraud. ‘I know you’re newlyweds… she’d have to have been under some kind of extreme stress to provoke such a result as this…’

Cara opened her eyes slowly and closed them again abruptly when the light hit them painfully. She heard a movement beside the bed and tried to open her eyes again. She squinted. She wasn’t sure why she was feeling so tender.

‘Cara? How are you feeling?’

That voice. Vicenzo’s voice. But not as she was used to hearing it. He sounded almost nice. She tried to speak and her voice felt scratchy. ‘Why do you sound so nice all of a sudden?’ And then the blackness sucked her down again.

When Cara woke again much later, she came to much more clearly. She remembered Vicenzo shouting at her to open the door… Her eyes flew open in an instant, and at the same time her hands went to her belly.

A big dark movement came beside her, and then Vicenzo was looming over her, hands on the bed. Cara looked up, shock rushing through her along with an odd feeling of emptiness.

‘What happened?’

Vicenzo looked down at her, his expression veiled, but not sardonic or mocking or harsh. ‘You don’t remember last night?’

Cara shook her head and shrugged. ‘I remember cramps… and then I remember waking up and seeing—’ She stopped, remembering the blood. Her eyes focused on Vicenzo again. ‘The baby…’ she whispered.