The Sicilian's Wife. Kate Walker

tone and knew with a deep, tearing sense of regret that she had succeeded far better than she had ever anticipated in making him think she couldn’t stand the sight of him. The real fact was that nothing could be further from the truth.

      Or did she mean that nothing could be closer to the truth?

      She didn’t know. Couldn’t decide whether she couldn’t wait to see the back of him, and would frankly be delighted if she never saw or heard from Cesare Santorino again in all her life. Or if the terrible suspicion that her heart would break if he left now and never came back was in fact the true one and the determined anger only a camouflage shield, thrown up to protect herself from the truth.

      ‘I’ll see you around.’

      She was so choked up that she could only nod in response to his curt goodbye. She knew that her silence made her look even colder and more distant than ever but it was all that she could manage. A cold, cruel hand was clutching at her throat, cutting off all her ability to speak and she knew that if she so much as opened her mouth she would burst into tears or find some other way of making a total fool of herself.

      So she watched in silence as he spun on his heel and walked away from her. She had always known that the library was a big room, a long room, but never before had the walk from the bay window where she stood to the door seemed so protracted, so endless.

      And Cesare seemed to be deliberately taking his time about it. Or was that her deceiving herself? Because he never paused; never hesitated or looked back. He just kept putting one foot in front of another in his determined march away from her.

      Still silent, she watched him cross the polished wooden floor, then the thick dark red and cream rug, then the floor again. She almost spoke then but caught back the words, clamping her lips tight on them. She let him get to the door, watched those strong fingers close around the handle, turn it…

      ‘Cesare!’

      His name burst from her, impossible to hold back.

      ‘Cesare, please!’

      He had thought she was going to let him go. He told himself it was what he wanted. That he was leaving, right now, for good! He was never, ever coming back. The crazy dreams of love and marriage and forever that had been in his thoughts when he had arrived at the house had crumbled into dust. He could almost imagine he was trampling them into the ground as he walked.

      He was leaving. He didn’t know where he was going, but he knew it would be via the nearest bar. Dio, but he could do with a drink!

      And then she spoke. Just his name, on a whisper so quiet and soft that at first he wasn’t at all sure he had heard anything. And his march towards the door was so determined, so unstoppable that he barely hesitated. He even grasped the handle of the door and turned it.

      ‘Cesare, please!’

      It stopped him dead in his tracks, still with his hand on the door.

      ‘Please don’t go!’

      How could he resist the appealing in that voice; the slight, shaken tremble on the first word that had clearly escaped her in spite of her determination not to let it. For a couple of seconds, feeling fought a nasty little battle with rational thought—thought reminding him of how he had felt a moment earlier, the kicked-in-the-teeth sensation that had followed her announcement. He tried hard to revive some of the fury, the disgust, the burning jealousy. And failed.

      And then, as he had known it must inevitably do, emotion won. There was no way he could resist that appeal to his sympathy. And so, letting his hand drop again, he turned back to face her.

      ‘What do you want, Megan?’

      She was still standing exactly where he had left her, her slender body stiffly upright, fine-boned arms hanging loose at her sides. She was so pale—ashen—that her eyes seemed unnaturally dark above her bloodless cheeks, and the skin looked as if it was stretched taut over the high, slanting cheekbones.