Hot-Blooded Italians. Sharon Kendrick

his friends of coveting her.

      ‘You know that they want you?’ he demanded.

      ‘I can assure you that the feeling isn’t reciprocated.’

      ‘I cannot bear the thought of another man having you!’ he raged. ‘Not now—and not ever!’

      Was it to possess her utterly and completely that he married her—or was it simply because he felt that he had compromised himself by robbing her of her innocence? But marriage also meant acceptability from his family in Sicily, and provided the respectable arena for something else Vincenzo wanted more than all the wealth in the universe.

      ‘A son,’ he breathed on their wedding night as he stroked her flat, bare belly and moved over her with dark intent. ‘I will put my son inside your body, Emma.’

      Who wouldn’t have thrilled at that avowal? Certainly not a woman swept up in the dizzy whirl of love. But the tenor of their lovemaking seemed to change from that very moment. There seemed to be a purpose to it which had not been there before. And the inevitable disappointment each month when his longed-for son failed to materialise made Emma begin to get twitchy.

      On one of their periodic visits to Sicily, even his favourite cousin Salvatore, who clearly still disapproved of her—marriage or no marriage—was heard to allude to babies. Or, rather, the lack of them. Emma felt both insulted, and hurt.

      Soon the subject began to dominate their thoughts, if not their conversation—for Vincenzo flatly refused to discuss it—and, driven to despair, Emma went secretly to see an English doctor on the Via Martinotti in Rome.

      The news was devastating enough, but Emma was frightened into stuffing the letter into a drawer, supposedly to disclose to Vincenzo when she found the ‘right’ time—though quite when she imagined that time might be always perplexed her afterwards. For how did you find the words to tell a man that his greatest wish was destined never to be fulfilled?

      Vincenzo found the letter. Was waiting for her one afternoon with it crumpled in his hand, his face dark, an expression in his eyes she had never seen there before and which sent shivers of foreboding icing over her skin.

      ‘When were you going to tell me?’ he questioned, in a voice which sounded flat and unfamiliar. ‘Or perhaps you weren’t going to bother?’

      ‘Of course I was!’

      ‘When?’

      ‘When the time seemed right,’ Emma answered miserably.

      ‘And when would that be? Is there an optimum time for announcing to your husband that you are unable to have his child?’

      Emma bit her lip. ‘We can investigate fertility treatment… adopt,’ she ventured, but there was no answering light of hope in the stony black eyes. ‘Or I can see another specialist for a second opinion.’

      ‘If you say so.’

      She had never seen Vincenzo like this before, like a tyre which had been lanced by a shard of glass—all the air and the life seemed to have left him.

      Her infertility drove a further wedge between them—that was as clear as the stars in the night sky—but Vincenzo preferred to focus instead on her deceit. The fact that she had gone to the doctor in secret. That she had kept the fact hidden from him. Until one day Emma realised that, no matter how much she tried to explain or justify her reasons, he needed someone to blame, and who better than her? He had swum against the tide by marrying an English girl instead of a Sicilian one—but he had made a bad choice and chosen one who was barren, too.

      It became one of those simple if heartbreaking decisions. Was she going to allow their marriage to wither away completely in front of her eyes, destroying even the few good memories left—or was she strong and brave enough to give Vincenzo his freedom by walking away?

      He didn’t fight her when she told him she was leaving—though his face became as hard and as forbidding as some dark stone. He probably wouldn’t even notice when she was gone, she thought bitterly—for wasn’t he just spending longer and longer days at the office, sometimes not even bothering to come home in time for dinner?

      The icy chill which greeted her decision lasted until she reached the door, and then she turned to say goodbye for the last time, something in his eyes stopped her.

      ‘Vincenzo?’ she said, hesitantly.

      And then he started to kiss her—and all the sadness and bitterness and lost love bubbled up and spilled over as he drove into her up against the wall by the front door. He made her miss her plane and then carried her upstairs one last time for one long night of exquisitely heartbreaking sex.

      She opened her eyes as he was getting dressed and that was when his face grew hard and cold and he said it: ‘Get out of here, Emma, and do not come back—for you are no wife of mine.’ And then he turned away, and walked out of the room.

      Later that morning her plane had taken off and she had been blinded by tears.

      And about a month later had discovered she was pregnant….

      ‘Next stop Waterloo!’ The bus driver’s voice broke into Emma’s reverie and with a start she realised that the bus was slowing down outside the railway station. And that nothing had been resolved.

      Like a woman walking in her sleep, she got off the bus and went into the station concourse to find a coffee shop, barely noticing the crowds of people milling around. It felt strange to be out on her own without a little baby in her care. How peculiar to just be able to walk up to a table and sit down without having to negotiate a buggy, or worry that he wouldn’t want to sit still.

      She stared at the creamy mounds of foam on her cappuccino as the dull feeling of disquiet refused to leave her—and it went much deeper than just the worry of how she was going to survive. No, her uneasiness had been provoked by seeing Vincenzo again—and no longer being able to deny the glaring truth.

      That Gino was his living image!

      Pulling her little photo wallet out of her bag, she stared down at the most recent snap of him and the sight of his gorgeous little face made her heart clench with pain and guilt. Had she been deliberately blocking out just how like his father he was? As a safety mechanism to protect her own broken heart, without thinking of their needs?

      At that moment, the phone began to ring and she grabbed it. An unknown number. Yet Emma knew exactly who it was.

      Heart pounding, she clicked the connection with a trembling finger. ‘Hello?’

      ‘Have you thought any more about my offer, cara?’

      And suddenly Emma knew that she couldn’t keep running away—because she had reached a dead end and there was nowhere left to run. And neither could she keep the truth from her estranged husband any longer. He needed to know about Gino and she needed to tell him.

      ‘Yes,’ she said slowly. ‘I’ve thought about nothing else. I need to see you.’ And why not get it over with? What would be the point of having to arrange another day of babysitting when she was already here in the capital? ‘I can meet you later, after all.’

      So she had changed her mind, as he had known she would. In one lustful rush, Vincenzo experienced triumph, anticipation, and yet it was accompanied by a bitter kind of disappointment, too. For hadn’t he admired the feisty way she’d thrown his admittedly insulting offer back in his face? Hadn’t there been echoes in that of the woman he’d fallen in love with—the one who had shown restraint, who had refused to tumble into bed with him just because he had wanted her to?

      But no. It seemed that he had been right all along, and that everyone had their price—even Emma. His mouth hardened. Especially Emma.

      ‘I’m tied up with meetings all afternoon. Do you know the Vinoly Hotel?’ he questioned coolly.

      ‘I’ve heard of it.’

      ‘Meet me there at six—in the Bay