The Sicilian's Wife by Kate Walker Page A

quickly as this one did. It must have been quite a whirlwind romance.’
    â€˜On the contrary.’ Cesare’s tone was as smooth as his smile. ‘Megan and I have known each other for years. It’s just that when she finally decided to take the plunge, she didn’t want to hang about. And as I’d already waited years for her to realise the way I felt about her, I was more than happy to go along with her preference for a very short engagement.’
    And as I’d already waited years for her to realise the way I felt about her…
    Megan didn’t know which hurt most. The lie or the ready ease with which Cesare produced it, the smooth confidence that gave it a false, dishonest ring of truth.
    â€œâ€˜I was more than happy to go along with her preference for a very short engagement”,’ she repeated in a bitter undertone when the registrar was once again out of earshot. ‘And I’ll just bet he’ll have no trouble in working out exactly what was behind that particular remark! I don’t know why you didn’t just go ahead and tell him I was pregnant,and that was why we were dashing to the altar in this decidedly unseemly haste.’
    The look Cesare turned on her was cold to the point of glacial, something that only incensed Megan further. After all, he was the one who had engaged in the ‘all men together’ bonding, the ‘nudge, nudge’ hint of ‘she just couldn’t keep her hands off me’ in his tone.
    â€˜They’re going to have to know the truth sooner or later, Megan. You won’t be able to keep that slim-line figure for many more weeks. In a very short time, your condition will start to show, and then people are going to start counting on their fingers and coming to the natural conclusion.’
    But she had hoped to have a little time before then to try and adjust. To accept what had happened to her and come to terms with it. Everything had happened so fast. It was barely ten weeks since she had been at university, trying to tackle her exam revision in the aftermath of Gary’s bombshell that their affair was over; he didn’t want to see her any more. Four weeks later, she had first begun to suspect that something was wrong. And after that, there had been weeks of anxiety, of counting the days, of suspecting, but not knowing.
    Then in swift succession there had been the painful realisation that she was pregnant. Her mind flinched away from the memory of the day she had gone to confront Gary, the careless way he had tossed his rejection and the truth about his marriage into her face. His final, callous declaration that if she was sensible she’d ‘Get rid of the thing’ before it messed up her life for ever.
    And now here she was, married to a man who didn’t love her. Who had made his physical desire for her plain enough and had offered her a cold-blooded marriage of convenience in order to be able to indulge that passion to the full.
    And that was the bitterest blow of all, leaving the burning taste of acid in her mouth so that she felt sick and ill. Her insides had still not settled down from the shock she had felt earlier, and the nauseous ache low down in her stomach only added fuel to the already smouldering anger deep inside.
    â€˜I don’t know why you didn’t go the whole hog if you really wanted to make a good job of it—and told him that the baby wasn’t yours, but you were prepared to take it on if it meant you could get me into your bed. After all, that’s “the truth” as well, isn’t it, and if you’re so insistent on everyone knowing…’
    â€˜Megan, be quiet! This is neither the time nor the place for this.’
    Cesare barely lifted his voice above a whisper but it still had enough force to quell her instantly, driving all the fight from her mind and replacing it with a sense of shock at the way she was behaving—and where. She could only