Marriage Made of Secrets

He took his time to twirl his wine glass, allowed his gaze to rise slowly from her bare, stunning legs, linger at her rounded hips, past her deliciously full breasts, to capture hers.

His grim smile felt as strained as the tightening in his groin. ‘When we met, I was blown away by your beauty. You were sexy, vivacious, with a reckless streak that drew me like a moth to a flame. And the sex...’ His breath stalled, his pulse kicking up another dangerous notch. ‘The sex was unbelievable, better or quite possibly the best I’d ever had.’ Her shocked gasp bounced over him and disappeared in the night breeze. ‘Unfortunately, I let it blind me into making an unforgivable error.’

Her eyes darkened. ‘What was that error?’ she whispered.

He threw back his drink in one greedy, hopefully fortifying gulp and set the glass down. ‘I think you’ll agree that catastrophe has a way of bringing into sharp focus what’s important.’

‘Yes.’

‘Two things became clear to me in the aftermath of the earthquake, cara mia. The first was that my daughter means more to me than my life itself and I would rip my heart out before I let anything remotely close to that devastation happen to her again.’

The fire in her eyes told him she felt the same. For a moment, he didn’t want to utter the next words, but he knew he needed to. ‘The second was that I...as deliciously tempting as you were...as mind-altering as the sex was, bellissima, I know now that I should never have married you.’

CHAPTER FOUR

I SHOULD NEVER have married you.

Ava stabbed the trowel deeper into the soil, oblivious to the heat and sweat cascading down her face. A grim smile stretched her lips as she recalled the horror on Lucia’s face when she’d asked for the gardening supplies.

But it had been that or go mad from replaying that statement in her head over and over. Agata Marinello’s endless text messages every two seconds hadn’t helped to improve her disposition either.

Hard physical labour was what she needed. Bone tiredness meant she would collapse exhausted into bed at night and fall asleep without torturing herself with thoughts she had no business thinking.

For the past week, Cesare had stuck religiously to the schedule they’d set out on her return. He spent time with Annabelle in the morning while she met with the Marinellos; she took over in the afternoons and they had supper with their daughter before they took turns giving her a bath and putting her to bed.

Living under the same roof as Cesare was going smoothly. The truce was working. She should’ve been happy.

She wasn’t. A very unladylike snort escaped her throat. How could she be when she was constantly in knots over Cesare’s behaviour? The man had proved himself a champion at avoiding her, yet she could feel his presence as closely as the air on her skin. Could sense his gaze on her from his window when she played at the pool with Annabelle or when they went down the jetty to watch the luxury boats sail by. What was frustrating her most was the longing she could sense in his gaze.

Cesare yearned to spend more time with his daughter, but he was keeping away because of her. Had she really got it so wrong? Had her need for a family blinded her to the fact that she was setting up that family with a man who didn’t want the full package?

Pain ripped through her and her fingers stilled as she tried to recall for what seemed like the millionth time, when things had started to change.

Cesare had been shocked by her pregnancy, even though he bounced back almost immediately. Hell, she was sure he’d been ecstatic.

He’d been a godsend during her pregnancy. Unbelievably, the sex had been her favourite part of being pregnant—the seemingly innocent back rubs that had often reached very pleasurable conclusions.

A flush suffused her face in recollection of the times he’d only had to whisper back rub in her ear to make her pulse race.

Then Annabelle had been born. Cesare had taken one of his rare trips to visit Roberto. And then, seemingly overnight, everything had changed.

She slammed the trowel into the soil.

‘Careful there, cara, or you’ll petrify the seeds before they get a chance to grow.’

‘Careful there, Cesare, or you’ll lose a foot if you annoy me.’ She silently cursed him for his ability to move so quietly despite his impressive size. If it’d been one of her brothers, she’d have had no compunction in biting his head off. In fact, she’d done so many times with Nathan, the youngest of her three brothers.