The Sicilian's Wife by Kate Walker Read Free Book Online Page B

this.
    â€˜Tell me what you want and I’ll do it.’
    Tell me what you want and I’ll do it. Cesare’s mouth spoke the words, Megan registered, but his eyes were cold, distant, dead, no trace of emotion in them. He had clearly made himself speak because he had no other option, but there was no kindness, no caring in the words.
    â€˜Please don’t leave…’
    It was all she could manage and she heard his harshly indrawn sigh of impatience at her inanity.
    â€˜I’m not leaving, Megan. Not if you want me here. Just tell me what you want me to do.’
    â€˜I don’t know what to do!’
    It was the cry of a frightened child, and the hand that she held out towards him shook with the force of the feelings she was struggling to control.
    If he touched that hand he was lost. He could still feel the softness of her skin under his fingertips. If he licked his lips he would still taste her on his tongue. The scent of her body was in his nostrils, a potent mixture of her personal perfume and the warmth of vanilla and lily that she wore on every pulse point.
    Just to think of the way it had felt to hold her, to kiss her, made his libido give him a sharp, painful kick. Without the fury of frustration to distract him and push it from his thoughts, the nag of desire was like a bruise in his mind, clamouring urgently for attention. But he couldn’t give in to it. There was no way he could give it free rein, indulge the need he felt.
    Bitterly he cursed the fool who had appeared on the doorstep earlier that evening. He had been so sure, so fullof himself, so damn confident. He had thought that all he had to do was to walk in and Megan would be his for the taking.
    Well, he’d been pretty efficiently disillusioned on that score!
    But still, when she looked at him like this, there was no way he could just walk out and leave her. It would be like abandoning some baby fawn in a forest prowled by ravenous wolves.
    â€˜You need to be practical. I take it you want to keep this baby?’
    â€˜You take it right!’ Megan replied with a slight return of something like her old spirit. ‘I’m not—’
    â€˜And I’m not asking you to,’ Cesare put in hastily, seeing the threat of tears in the suspicious brightness of her eyes. ‘It was just one of your possible options. And you’re sure that the father won’t help?’
    â€˜Gary?’
    Her faint shudder was expressive of just how she felt on that matter.
    â€˜He made his opinion perfectly plain. I was just a passing fling—someone he amused himself with while he was here in England. He was a visiting lecturer at the university, over here from America. He neglected to tell anyone that he had a wife and two children back in the States. He certainly wasn’t in the market for a third little Gary Rowell!’
    â€˜He sounds a real charmer!’
    â€˜That was the trouble—he was—charming I mean. He—’
    â€˜I don’t want to hear any more about him!’
    Already the plague twist of jealousy was making his pulse throb at his temple, threatening his precarious hold on his mood. Clamping down on the dangerous thoughts, refusing to let them take root, he moved forward to take her by the hand and draw her away from the window.
    â€˜Come and sit down. We can talk better if you’re more comfortable. And you look dead on your feet.’
    â€˜I am tired,’ Megan admitted. ‘I haven’t been sleeping very well.’
    â€˜I can imagine.’
    He was heading towards the burgundy settee when the awareness of her hesitation, a reluctance in her step made him realise. She wasn’t exactly pulling back but still it was plain enough, without a word having to be said, that the site of their recent near lovemaking wasn’t the most tactful of places to choose to discuss the delicate topics they needed to cover. So he carefully changed direction, subtly, he