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Dio! ‘I am going to make you pay for this,’ he hissed at her his own Sicilian promise from between tightly gritted teeth.
She blinked as if he’d slapped her. Yet the very idea of laying another finger on her traitorous flesh had his stomach reeling all over again. At the same dizzying moment his sister broke free from his arms and saw her standing there.
‘It is she!’ Alegra exclaimed shrilly. ‘She is the one, Giancarlo—she is the one! I know the hair, I know the eyes!’
‘Edward…’ Natalia whispered shakily. ‘H-how is he? What—?’
‘Get out!’ Giancarlo blasted at her, losing touch with himself as the sound of Edward’s name quivering on her lips sent a shaft of burning black anguish thrusting its way through him. ‘You are not wanted here. Get out of my sight!’
Now she had gone as white as a sheet, he saw. Her beautiful eyes so dark, it could be anguish colouring them like that. But it was not anguish. It was the look of horror at being found out!
‘I just need to know how he is,’ she insisted. ‘I d-don’t want to make trouble, b-but I must know if he—’
‘You are the trouble!’ his sister fiercely responded, diverting Natalia’s attention away from him…
Natalia saw the other woman start towards her with her eyes spitting out the kind of hatred and venom Edward had always predicted she would
see.
‘Edward would not be in here if it was not for you!’ Alegra cried. ‘You could not leave well alone! You had to seek him out and play on his broken heart!’
‘He loves me,’ Natalia whispered in her own defence. ‘Love doesn’t break hearts, it helps to heal—’
Derision lanced across Giancarlo’s hard face, and his sister almost jumped on her in her rage. ‘How dare you say that when it is you who has poisoned his mind?’ the older woman launched at her shrilly. ‘You put yourself in my dead son’s place and fed on Edward’s grief and pain until he could bear it no longer and made himself ill!’
Alegra lifted up a hand. Thinking she was about to be attacked, Natalia stiffened up warily, her eyes blinking in rapid confusion as another, larger hand appeared in her vision, also raised as if ready to strike. But all Giancarlo did was capture his sister’s hand before it could throw the expected blow.
After that Natalia just stood there shaking with shock and pain, feeling as if she was being bombarded by hatred from two different sources. With Alegra it was with the words that were still spilling from her lips. With Giancarlo it was simply in his expression.
And Edward was right, she realised painfully. These people did not know the meaning of compassion.
Edward. Her heart lurched. ‘Will one of you please tell me how he is?’ she begged anxiously.
‘Why do you want to know?’ Giancarlo jeered at her. ‘So you can make a judgement whether it is worth foisting his baby back on to him now that I know the truth about you?’
The truth? Her mouth went slack in disbelief. Was he saying what she thought he was saying here? Was he actually daring to suggest that any baby she might be carrying belonged to Edward?
Oh, God—the nausea came back with a vengeance when she began to really understand what it was that Giancarlo was thinking here. ‘You believe I was Edward’s mistress.’ She breathed the terrible words out loud. He flinched as if she’d hit him. She wished she had done. ‘You think I was trying to foist his baby onto you!’
‘The truth always sounds shocking when spoken out loud,’ he grated.
‘Your truth, yes,’ she agreed.
‘What are you talking about, Giancarlo?’ his sister put in bewilderedly.
He didn’t even hear her, he was so busy despising Natalia. ‘Oh, stop looking so damned bewildered!’ he bit out in disgust. ‘Edward has already confessed everything in sheer fear of dying with it all still festering on his soul!’
‘Stop it!’ his sister cried. ‘Stop it, the both of you. This is wrong. It is—’
‘The only person with a guilty conscience around here should be you for daring to believe such a filthy thing about either of us!’ Natalia sliced over the top of her.
‘Edward always said you came from crude stock,’ she told him, taking great pleasure from seeing his arrogant face turn to rock. ‘He was right! You couldn’t have a more primitive view of life if you tried!’
‘And trying to foist one man’s child off on his brother-in-law is not crude?’
‘Giancarlo!’ Alegra inserted furiously. ‘This has gone far enough!’
More than far enough, agreed Natalia, and with a final slaying glance at him she turned and walked out to go in search of the one who really mattered here.
