The Costanzo Baby Secret by Catherine Spencer

it to preserve your privacy after my mother’s unscheduled visit.”
    “The point I’m making,” she went on, doggedly ignoring the interruption, “is that I’ve been here almost a week, and to put it bluntly, I’m suffocating. I step out of my suite, and a maid immediately shows up to escort me to wherever I’m supposed to go next. I try to familiarize myself with my surroundings, and I’m stymied at every turn. I feel like a hamster running endlessly on a wheel, but never getting anywhere.”
    “Then how about this?” he said soothingly. “I’ll take the afternoon off and, after lunch, we’ll tour the island by boat. If you feel up to it, we can even stop in your favorite cove and go snorkeling. Would you like that?”
    She’d like it better if he’d just be straight with her, instead of stalling for time. Before he’d squelched it, she’d seen the brief flash of dismay in his eyes when she’d mentioned the emptiness inside, and guessed he knew exactly what caused it. And if he thought a dip in the sea would be enough to wash it from her thoughts, he was mistaken. Either he gave her the answers she sought, or she’d find someone who would.
    On the other hand, after whining about boredom and lack of freedom, she could hardly turn down his invitation to do something different, and visiting a place that had meant something to her in the past might prove to be the key that would unlock her mind.
    “Yes, I would,” she said, swallowing her frustration and doing her best to sound suitably appeased. “Thank you.”
     
    Viewing Pantelleria by boat instead of from the air gave her a whole new perspective on the island. In places, giant cliffs swept down to isolated pockets of pebble beach. In others, great outcroppings of purple-black lava rose up from the cobalt Mediterranean to encircle dreamy lagoons.
    Montagna Grande, towering nearly three thousand feet above sea level, stood guard over bright green fertile valleys crisscrossed with ancient stone walls. In other areas, the softer gray-green of low-growing juniper, heather and myrtle that Dario said was called macchia, ran wild over the land. “The scent when the wind blows from the west is enough to knock your head off,” he told her.
    They sailed past isolated farms and a tiny fishing village where water bubbled up from the thermal springs in its harbor. Another village clung to the edge of a sheer cliff, with glorious views across the sea. But awe inspiring though all that was, the spectacle much closer at hand stirred Maeve’s blood more.
    Dario in tailored black trousers and white shirt was a sight that would kick any woman’s heart rate up a notch. But Dario in swimming trunks, with the wind ruffling his hair, was enough to stop a woman’s pulse altogether.
    Seated beside him in the eighteen-foot Donzi runabout, Maeve had to keep reminding herself that this man really was her husband, and of all the women in the world he might have chosen, he’d picked her to be his wife.
    His bronzed torso gleamed in the sun. The only shadows came from the play of muscle in his forearms as he effortlessly navigated Pantelleria’s jagged coastline. The hands loosely gripping the steering wheel were strong and capable. Once, they had touched her intimately. She knew it, even though shecouldn’t remember when, because looking at them sent a spasm of awareness shooting through her body.
    And his mouth—had it done the same thing? Or was the sudden damp flood at her core brought on by wishful thinking?
    Catching her inspecting him and quite misunderstanding the reason, he grinned and said, “Relax, Maeve, I know what I’m doing. We’re not going to run aground.”
    “I wasn’t watching you,” she said, rolling truth and fib together into a seamless whole. “I was admiring the view.”
    “Then you’re facing the wrong way.” Shifting the throttle so that the boat idled in Neutral, he lifted his arm and pointed off the starboard bow. “Look over