He stilled, tensed, swinging around to look at her with a gaze that was dark and unyielding. Cold. ‘Why do you say that?’
Meghan shrugged, discomfited by his sudden change of mood, his quiet, lethal tone. ‘Because you are.’
He shook his head; Meghan thought she heard him laugh softly. She didn’t like the sound.
‘Dinner is in half an hour. My mother keeps a formal table. Will you be ready?’
A formal table? With a rush of nerves, Meghan realised she didn’t have anything appropriate to wear. ‘I’m afraid my haversack doesn’t hold evening gowns,’ she joked, but Alessandro just shrugged.
‘There are some clothes in the cupboard in this room. I imagine something suitable can be found there. And tomorrow you will go with my mother to buy a new wardrobe, as I said.’
Meghan gave him a teasing little smile. ‘And who do these clothes belong to?’
Alessandro watched her for a moment, his face expressionless, his tone bland. When he spoke, it was with cold decision. ‘I imagine,’ he replied, ‘they belong to one of my mistresses. I will see you at dinner.’
He slipped from the bed and the room, leaving Meghan alone in the darkness with the shock and pain caused by a comment so cruelly, so casually delivered.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘I THINK we will find all that you need on the Via Montenapoleone,’ Gabriella told Meghan the next day, as they took the di Agnio limousine into Milan’s shopping district. ‘The best shops are there— including the flagship Di Agnio boutique.’
Meghan nodded, barely taking in her future mother-in-law’s words. She was hopelessly distracted by the remorseless echo of Alessandro’s voice.
One of my mistresses.
After he’d left the room Meghan had opened the cupboard and found a range of clothes, from casual dresses and jeans to screamingly expensive evening gowns.
His mistresses’ clothes.
Why had he said that?
Meghan had sighed as she’d taken in one designer gown after another, her hands roaming mindlessly over silk, satin and crêpe. Of course she’d known he’d had lovers. Mistresses. He was a virile, beautiful man. Of course he had. He’d hinted at it before.
But why mention it then, in the twilit intimacy of the darkened bedroom, her lips still burning from his kisses, her senses still scattered by his touch? The remark had been delivered with the cruel, cold accuracy of an arrow to the heart … and it had met its target.
He had, Meghan knew, been warning her.
Don’t fall in love with me. The voice in her head was as loud as if he’d actually said it.
And hadn’t he? He’d warned her before. She should have realised a single moment of tenderness, companionship, desire was simply that.
A moment in an otherwise barren marriage.
A marriage of convenience … for both of them. No matter how it felt, no matter how it seemed.
He wanted someone to give him an heir. A willing woman in his bed who wouldn’t demand love. Someone to keep him from being alone. Lonely.
A woman who wouldn’t bother him too much.
And she wanted power. Safety. Security. Release from the fear and shame.
That was why she’d agreed. That was the promise she would build her life upon.
Not flimsy dreams of love, of affection, but the man Alessandro had said he meant to be.
She’d finally picked one of the gowns—a simple design of black silk that had swirled about her calves and was the least revealing—and had gone downstairs.
Dinner had been stilted, strained. Gabriella had tried to make conversation, Meghan had helped her woodenly, and Alessandro had sat in flinty silence, preoccupied, refusing even to meet Meghan’s gaze, indifferent to his mother’s.
After dinner he’d excused himself, and when Meghan had woken in the morning he’d already gone to work. She wondered if she’d actually see him again before the wedding.
The wedding. She could leave, she reminded herself. Slip out while he was at the office and never come back.
Keep running.
The trouble was, she didn’t want to.
She was damned by her own need.
Her own desire.
‘Here we are.’ Gabriella’s voice was bright, her manner only a little stiff, as the car slowed to a stop on a long, glittering street lined with the most famous and expensive designer names in the world. Boutiques with a single garment hanging in the window and a lock on the door.
The next few hours were a blur of clothes and fitting rooms. Gabriella spoke rapid Italian with sleek saleswomen who examined Meghan’s body and thrust clothes at her as if she were no more than a problem, a rather difficult problem, to be fixed.
Three hours and a dozen designer bags later, Gabriella glanced consideringly at Meghan and said, ‘I know Alessandro has not mentioned it, but since you are to be married, perhaps we could do your hair? Your make-up? There is a salon on the next street that can take you now.’
Meghan nodded dumbly. She hadn’t had a haircut in over six months.
‘Buon.’ Gabriella smiled. ‘As sudden as this arrangement may be, every bride wants to look beautiful on her wedding day, yes? And what of your dress?’
‘Dress?’ Meghan repeated uncertainly. She was humbled by Gabriella’s acceptance, by the woman’s friendliness.
‘Wedding dress,’ Gabriella explained. ‘There are few shops that can fit and alter a dress in so short a time.’
‘It’s going to be a very small wedding,’ Meghan said hurriedly. ‘I can wear something simple. One of the dresses you bought for me.’
‘No, that will not do. You need a proper dress—a bride’s dress.’ Gabriella paused. ‘You can wear mine.’
‘What?’ Meghan was stunned.
Gabriella laughed lightly. ‘I know, it is old—but they call it vintage these days, yes? And it is a timeless classic, I assure you. I have a seamstress who can alter it in a matter of hours.’
‘I can’t—’ Meghan began, and Gabriella fixed her with a pale, penetrating stare so similar to her son’s.
‘But why not? You are marrying my son, are you not? You are going to be my daughter-in-law. You need a dress. Of course, if you don’t like it you must not wear it. We can find something else.’
‘It’s not that.’ Meghan stared down at her hands. ‘It’s just …’ She looked up, open, honest. She had to know. She would not start this life, begin in this family, with mistrust. ‘Why don’t you hate me?’
Gabriella looked taken aback. ‘But why should I hate you?’
‘I’ve known Alessandro for a very short while. I’m not from your … class.’ She stumbled over the words, the explanation. ‘I’m not even Italian. Perhaps you had someone in mind for him already …’
Gabriella shook her head. ‘No, my dear. The only thing I have in mind for Alessandro now is his own happiness.’
‘Yet …’ Meghan swallowed. ‘There’s so much tension between you.’
Gabriella