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The housekeeper smiled. ‘Welcome home and congratulations, Signora Vellutini,’ she said quietly.
Cassie nodded, feeling faintly ridiculous as she clutched her bouquet and gave Gina an uncertain smile. It was impossible to know what Gina was thinking—what was going on behind her own, rather formal smile. Did the housekeeper resent a new mistress coming into the house she had controlled for so long? she wondered.
‘Thank you so much, Gina,’ she answered quietly.
Once the housekeeper had gone, Cassie turned to Giancarlo and she reached out her hand to touch her fingers to the faint shadowing at his jaw. It seemed a long time since she had touched him—and she felt oddly nervous about doing so again. And maybe it was time to snap out of the strange, dreamlike atmosphere which had been present all day.
‘Perhaps I put things a little clumsily earlier,’ she said softly. ‘I just wanted you to know that my mother had a wonderful time today, Giancarlo. Thank you.’
He moved her cool fingers from his face and kissed their tips, one by one. ‘That is both my pleasure and my duty as your husband, cara.’
Husband. A little thrill of pride and possession ran through her as she stared up into his formidable features. She still felt disconnected from him—as if they had never been intimate as a couple before, and yet the growing life within her made mockery of that particular thought. Maybe that was what they needed. To become lovers again and to connect at the most fundamental level of all. Wouldn’t that at least block out some of the harsh words they had spoken—and the realisation that he was only here under sufferance?
‘Shall we—go to bed?’ she asked tentatively.
Giancarlo looked at the dark shadows under her eyes and the lines of tension which had pleated her pale brow and at that moment he felt a twist of guilt. She looked so damned young. So impossibly fragile. He thought of the stress she had been under and the new life which was growing within her. Maybe that was why her face looked so strained that she resembled a sacrificial lamb more than a new bride.
‘Bed is exactly what you need,’ he said.
Cassie smiled as he took her upstairs to the master bedroom and stripped the clothes from her body as he had done many times before. But this time was different. This time there was no fire and urgency as he undressed her. His fingers were as light as feathers drifting over her skin. He seemed to be almost restrained as he carried her over to the bed and quickly pulled the silken cover over her—as if he wanted to shield her nakedness from his eyes. Was it possible that Giancarlo’s desire for her had died?
And even as her body sank gratefully into the soft mattress she looked up at him in alarm—thinking how distant he seemed all of a sudden. Was he regretting that he had been forced to marry the mother of his child, or was he simply regretting not having invited his own family today, despite all the bad blood which had flowed between them?
Maybe he was thinking about Gabriella—the woman he should have married. And wishing that it were her who now lay naked and waiting in his bed. Was he? She had to know. She had to.
Some self-destructive urge took over and forced the question out—even though inwardly she prepared herself to be wounded by his answer. ‘And what about your family?’ she ventured as she looked up at him, wondering when he was going to get undressed and join her in bed.
Giancarlo stared down at the slender shape of her body outlined beneath the coverlet and felt an unmistakable kick of lust. ‘What about them?’
‘None of them there today.’
‘I did not feel that it was…appropriate.’
‘Do they…your brother and his wife…do they know about our marriage?’
‘No,’ he answered flatly.
Cassie sucked in a breath. ‘But even if…even if things aren’t good between you—don’t you think you should tell them?’
He resented her intrusion—even though her words had hit home. ‘I was planning to.’
‘Oh? When were you going to do that?’
He traced his finger over one of the faint shadows beneath her violet eyes and registered the sudden tremble of her lips. She looked all in. And even though the soft curves of her body were screaming out for his caress, he forced himself to draw back from her—telling himself that he must temper his hunger until the roses were back in her cheeks. She needed rest, not passion—and at least he could provide that for her. His mouth hardened. And maybe bury a few ghosts at the same time.
‘I thought I’d take you to Italy to meet them for yourself,’ he said slowly. ‘How does a honeymoon in Tuscany appeal to you, Cassandra?’
