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“What has happened?” she asked, staring at him.
And Julienne was unable, in the face of all the ferocity she saw in him, to keep her tone even at all. The way she’d been doing since their brusque wedding, because it was that or start screaming. And she was afraid that once she started screaming she wouldn’t stop. She’d felt it claw in her, those screams she wouldn’t let loose, when she’d told him she loved him and he’d told her love was a lie.
A lie.
And had very clearly meant it.
“I’ve been to Tuscany,” Cristiano said, and his voice wasn’t his. Not really. It was gruff, dark. But there was a different undercurrent. It was one she didn’t know.
“Did something happen to the villa?”
“Villa Cassara has stood for hundreds of years. It will stand forever. And in any case, I didn’t go to the villa.”
“Cristiano.” She used the repressive tone she sometimes employed on her sister, and it had about the same effect. One of his arrogant brows rose, with no hint of repentance. “I can’t tell if something is wrong or not. Is it?”
“Something is terribly wrong,” he told her, dark and urgent. “You are wrong.”
He might as well have hauled off and punched her in the belly. Julienne felt her jaw drop open, even as in the next moment she told herself that sheabsolutely refusedto give him the satisfaction of seeing her react like that. Or at all.
“Perhaps you missed the news,” she managed to say crisply. “I have married a Cassara. I think you know full well that’s a fast track to wrongness.” She inclined her head in a fair mockery of the aristocratic way he did it. “I will accept your condolences.”
“You have changed, Julienne.”
He moved closer to the bed, where she’d been agitatedly turning pages in her book but failing to read a single word. Because the office had called, looking for him, and that told her only that he was off doing something he didn’t want anyone to know about.
Had it started already? Was he off looking for his own long-term mistress to install in the house and push her out? Or had he lost himself in the whiskey she’d seen he’d left out on his desk, in an imitation of the father he hated and feared becoming?
And what did it say about her that she wasn’t entirely sure which route was worse?
Then his words penetrated and she frowned. “I don’t think I’ve changed. Perhaps you have. Or, more likely, you’re paying more attention than you did before because we’re living in the same house.”
“No,” he replied sternly, in that tone she recalled from the office. The one that brooked absolutely no argument. “There’s a sadness in your eyes all the time now. Do you think I don’t see it?”
“I’m sure you’re mistaken. And I’m equally sure that you don’t really care. Because if you did, you might have mentioned your thoughts on love before getting married.”
Julienne had not meant to say that.
She was horrified that she’d said that.
She flushed, and hated the fact that she was so big now that she couldn’t simply leap to her feet and walk away from her own embarrassment. Not without a struggle. Instead, she had to stay where she was, anchored to the bed by her giant belly.
By the child she was bringing into this mess. Into the arms of a man who didn’t believe in love. It was bad enough for her. What would it do to their son?
Then again, she already knew. Cristiano was a walking advertisement for exactly what would happen.
“It doesn’t matter now,” she said, nervously, because she couldn’t read that intense expression on his face. He seemed even more austere than usual. Almost as if he was in pain. And she could not bear that. “We are married. Our son will be here soon enough. We can love him, instead.”
Or I will,she promised the baby.I will love you enough for both of us.
“I went to see my grandmother,” he said as he came to a stop at the foot of the bed.
And had he said that he had personally flown himself to the moon and back, Julienne could not possibly have been more surprised.
“Your grandmother?” She gaped at him. “The fairy-tale witch?”
“Her name is Paola DeMarco.” His voice was gruff again, his face grim. “She does not use her married name, which will perhaps not surprise you.”
“Why did you go to see her?” Julienne asked. The baby kicked, hard enough to make her wince. And she told herself that was why her heart began to pound. “Did she cast a spell on you after all?”
