The Tuscan's Revenge Wedding by Jennifer Blake Read Free Book Online Page A

through
the fabric of his shirt like tiny electric probes. No, some things were best
kept within the family.
    She lowered her gaze, her face changing, becoming closed in
and so somber it almost seemed she picked up his thought. “Forget I asked. It’s
really none of my business.”
    It would very likely become her business, he reasoned while
making circles with his thumbs, testing her resilient flesh under her jacket
sleeve. It wasn’t as if the secret could be kept indefinitely. Amanda Davies
could, in a few months, become a part of his family.
    With abrupt decision, he said, “Your brother did more than
drive my sister off a cliff.” He met her gray gaze, lifted a shoulder in a
fatalistic gesture. “She is pregnant. Carita is lying back there in a coma
while his child grows inside her.”
    Amanda Davies drew a breath so swift and deep her breasts
touched his chest. “You’re sure?”
    Outrage raced along his veins at this slur upon his sister’s
honor, also on his own as the head of her family. “You dare suggest Carita is
promiscuous? She is not quite twenty and has been well protected until now.
She’s barely had time or opportunity for one lover, much less enough to cause
doubt as to the father of her child.”
    Answering anger flashed in the eyes of the woman he held.
“Then I pity her if she’s been as repressed as you make it sound. I meant
nothing against her, nothing at all. I was only asking if her doctors are
certain she’s pregnant.”
    “Repressed? My only care has been to keep her safe from
playboys like your brother.”
    “Jonathan is no playboy! He’s only at loose ends.” Her anger
faded as concern softened the gray of her eyes. “Oh, but — does he know?”
    “I have no idea.” Her distress was so clear to him that he
almost pulled her into his arms to offer comfort, in spite of everything. The
brush of her thighs against his as he stood so close urged it even more. She
would not appreciate it, he was sure, and the effort it took to resist stoked
his temper even as it tested his willpower.
    “Maybe that’s why he’s so frantic to see her,” she said with
discovery in her voice. “He’s afraid they won’t care for her with that in mind.
Or they will do something, give her something that may harm the baby.”
    “He can stop worrying,” Nico answered with finality. “The
child will be a De Frenza. No one will dare do anything that might bring harm
without my express permission.”
    She watched him while thoughts flickered in her eyes like
lightning through a rain cloud. “It seems a miracle she didn’t miscarry. Are
they quite sure she’s all right?”
    “Perfectly, according to the gynecologist called when tests
revealed the danger. She may yet lose the baby, but every hour that passes
makes it less likely.”
    “No wonder her doctors were in a stir. They must have been
terrified to tell you.”
    He gave her a scowl. “I am not such an ogre.”
    “Just a man who expects everything to go according to his
exact wish,” she said, an ironic twist of her lips that made him long to put
them to better use. “But what if Carita needs all her strength to recover? What
will happen if—”
    “If she cannot live unless the baby is aborted?”
    The woman he held flinched at his plain speaking, or perhaps
the harshness in his voice. Still, she tipped her head in assent.
    “I am head of my family and bound by honor and duty to do
what is best for every member,” he answered in grim precision. “This decision,
if it must come, will fall to me. I pray I am not forced to make it.”
    “You are the head? Not your father?”
    “He died of a heart attack a decade ago.”
    “And your mother, Carita’s mother?”
    “Gone as well. She left us a month after Carita and Carisa
were born, but succumbed to breast cancer a few years later.”
    Amanda gave a small, sympathetic shake of her head. Seconds
later, her eyes widened as the implication in the similar names and timing of
the births