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She gave a wry laugh at that.
Nico did not want one.
‘Aurora?’
Vincenzo was going through the list of questions that might come their way as they took their separate groups around the hotel. He, of course, had Nico and all the bigwigs, and she had the local dignitaries. It didn’t trouble Aurora, for it was an hour that she would not have to spend avoiding Nico’s eyes.
‘Right, I’m going to the oratory,’ Vincenzo said. ‘Good luck today. Any questions you can’t handle, just refer them to me—though remember I have to leave by eight.’
Vincenzo was appearing on breakfast television tomorrow and could not stop mentioning it.
‘Of course I’ll remember. You look very smart,’ Aurora added, for in his butterscotch suit indeed he did.
‘Thank you,’ Vincenzo said, smoothing his auburn hair. ‘So do you.’
She wore her hair up and had subtle make-up on, but it had taken some considerable effort to conceal her new curves.
Aurora had let out the waistband of her skirt herself, and her breasts were practically strapped down. She was bursting out of everything and was just a day away from telling her family the news—once Nico had safely flown out.
Today, though, he had flown in.
Should she tell him?
It was the question that she both woke and fell asleep to, and then asked herself a thousand times during the hours in between.
And as Nico and his entourage crossed the foyer she asked it again.
Should she tell the man who did not want her—the man who was attempting to cut all ties with her and the village—that she was having his baby?
Or rather, did she tell the man who wanted her only in bed and not by his side that she was pregnant? The same man who had told her as they made love to keep on wanting him.
Oh, she still wanted him—for even from this distance the sight of him jolted her senses and turned her on.
He wore a dark suit, presumably stitched by his usual master tailor, but to Aurora’s skilled eye it was looking a touch loose on him.
Nico had lost weight.
Not a lot, but enough that she wanted to race to the chef, scream for pasta and force-feed him. It was the Sicilian way.
But she restrained herself.
In fact, for once, Aurora was a picture of restraint.
‘It is good to see you.’ She smiled, and shook his hand. And this time, as Nico moved in to kiss her in the way old friends would, it was she who put up her hand to halt him. ‘I believe Vincenzo has your people gathered in the oratory.’
‘How are you, Aurora?’
‘Very well.’
She looked incredible.
Nico knew she had been working frantically, but she looked as if she had spent all these weeks lying on a recliner by the pool in the hot Sicilian sun. The Persian Orange of her uniform was indeed perfect, and brought out the little flecks of gold in her dark eyes. Her lips were plump and shaped in a mild smile.
He tried to gauge her level of hurt, and he checked for hostility in those amazing eyes, but saw none.
For there was none.
She loved him—and that, sadly, was that.
