Page 37 of Public Wife, Private Mistress

'Idiota —' His voice was rough and he reached out a hand and pulled her towards him. 'You know how eas­ily you burn. Five minutes in this heat and your skin will be raw, cara mia. Stay in the shade.'

The concern in his tone and the warmth of his gaze were almost more than she could bear and she had to remind herself that this was all for his sister's benefit. Not hers. Consoling herself with the fact that he would undoubtedly be leaving to go and work in his study any minute, she reluctantly shuffled into the shade, even though that brought her closer to him.

She concentrated on Chiara. 'How are you feeling?'

'Pretty well. Just a bit of a headache.' The girl glanced up from the teenage magazine that she was de­vouring and gave a rueful smile. 'And I can't remember anything that's happened since your honeymoon, ap­parently. I'm relying on you to fill in the gaps.'

'Just live in the present,' Rico advised smoothly, reaching across for a tube of sun cream and squeezing some on to his hand. Then he smoothed the cream on to Stasia's back, massaging it into her skin with a gen­tle, seductive motion.

She couldn't help turning her head to look at him and instantly their eyes clashed, heat flaring between them as it always did when they touched. His hands knew her body so well. Where to stroke, how to draw the maximum response from her-—

Stasia bit back a moan of frustration. It was less than an hour since he'd left her lying utterly sated on the bed. And still it seemed that her body hadn't had enough...

'Now I know wh

y I lost my memory.' Chiara laughed, rolling on to her stomach and covering her eyes in mock horror. 'It must have been the sight of you two on your honeymoon. If this is how you are together after a year and a half, you must have been completely unbearable when you were first married. Did you ever get out of bed?'

'Chiara!' Rico's dark brows clashed in a disapprov­ing frown and his tone was sharp. Suddenly he was very much the older brother. 'You will not speak like that.'

Chiara sighed. 'I'm hardly a child. Rico.' she pointed out mildly, 'and I do know the facts of life. If I didn't, you'd be worried.'

Stasia gaped in astonishment. It was the first time she had ever heard Chiara stand up to her brother.

'I'd be worried whatever you did,' Rico said roughly, reaching out a hand and touching his sister's sleek, dark hair in an affectionate gesture. 'It is a brother's role to worry. And I have always felt responsible for you, you know that.'

Chiara smiled. 'You have a wife to worry about now, Rico.' She yawned. 'And what I want to know is why haven't you two had children yet?'

For perhaps the first time in his life Rico looked to­tally shell-shocked. The silence stretched on and on and in the end it was Stasia who answered.

'That's probably my fault,' she said quietly, reaching across and taking Rico's hand in hers. If she was going to play the part then she might as well play it to the full. 'I had a career, you see. A career which I loved and which involved lots of travelling while I painted. I didn't want a child immediately. We decided to wait.'

It wasn't a lie, although it wasn't exactly the truth either. The truth was that they hadn't decided anything. They'd never talked about children. Just as they'd never discussed anything of importance. They'd just fallen into their marriage without looking left or right.

Some of the tension left Rico's shoulders and his hand tightened around hers in a gesture of approval and gratitude. Clearly he thought it was a good answer.

'I'm amazed he let you wait,' Chiara drawled, rolling on to her side and looking at them both with amusement in her eyes. 'I may have lost part of my memory but I do know that my brother is the original primitive male. He wants his wife to produce plenty of little miniatures of himself. If he's let you off the hook so far then don't be fooled. He's just biding his time. He'll get you preg­nant any day now.'

Oh, dear God—

Stasia's face burned and Rico frowned.

"That's enough, Chiara.' His words were for his sister but his eyes were on Stasia, acutely watchful. 'You are too hot?'

'No.' She shook her head and managed a smile. She wasn't hot. She was panicking. Neither of them had thought of contraception...

Feeling slightly sick, she did a quick mental calcu­lation and worked out that it was very unlikely that she could be pregnant. She'd have to be extremely unlucky. Or lucky. Somehow, despite everything that was hap­pening between them, she couldn't bring herself to feel anything other than warm and excited at the prospect of having Rico's baby. Despite the fact that their re­lationship had no future —

And what sort of a fool did that make her?

Chiara was rubbing sun lotion into her arms. 'You said you didn't want children because you had a career? Don't you have one now?'

Stasia tried to drag herself from the image of possibly being pregnant. 'I no longer paint murals,' she mur­mured. 'Now I just paint pictures, almost always to commission, so I don't have to travel as much, and sometimes I—' She broke off just in time, realizing with a flash of horror that she'd been about to say that she helped her mother with the antique business.

Realizing how close she'd come to revealing the truth that she and Rico were no longer together, Stasia bit her lip and quickly finished the sentence she'd left hanging. 'Some­times I just like to potter around the house.'

Which wasn't far from the truth. Since she'd returned from Italy she'd been unable to summon up the energy to do anything much. Her little cottage had been her sanctuary.

'I wish I could paint,' Chiara said wistfully, dropping the bottle and lying back with her eyes closed. 'It sounds very restful.'

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