‘Kathy—we have just got married,’ Sergio pointed out.
‘So?’ Kathy hurled back wrathfully. ‘I can already see that I’ve made a dreadful mistake and I’m not too proud to admit it!’
Sergio rested incredulous golden eyes on her. He lowered lush black lashes, his gaze intent. ‘You’re not thinking this through—’
‘You picked a weak moment to ask me to marry you. I was in labour, for goodness’ sake! If I’d been my normal self I’d never have agreed to be your wife. I’m leaving you—’
Sergio moved at speed to plant his lean powerful frame squarely between her and the door. ‘No, you’re not, delizia mia.’ He took out his mobile and made a call.
‘What are you doing?’ Kathy demanded.
‘We’ll leave together. I may have ruined your day, but that’s no reason why we have to share our misery with our hosts and our guests.’
Kathy studied her case, which was already sitting packed in readiness for their departure. She sank down at the foot of the bed. ‘You’re making me unhappy—’
Sergio moved forward at a measured pace. ‘It’s early days yet. Obviously, I’m far from perfect. But in my own defence I have to ask why you didn’t tell me that you’d met Abramo. Or Grazia?’
‘I didn’t want to spoil the wedding,’ Kathy mumbled in a wobbly voice. ‘If you’d wanted me to know about them, you’d have told me about them, right?’
‘Please don’t cry,’ Sergio breathed gruffly, taking a step closer to her. ‘Obviously I owe you a little family history…’
His mother had died when he was eight years old. Five years later, his father had married his mistress, Cecilia, who already had a ten-year-old son: Sergio’s half-brother, Abramo. Unfortunately, marriage to a man several decades older, who was inclined to frown on her extravagance, failed to meet Cecilia’s expectations and she took a series of lovers.
‘I minded my own business—’ Sergio’s lean strong features darkened ‘—but when my father was receiving cancer treatment, Cecilia began an affair with the family lawyer, Umberto Tessano. He was my father’s closest friend and in charge of our business interests.’
Kathy winced. ‘What age were you then?’
‘Twenty-two, and in my final year at Oxford University. I found my stepmother in bed with Tessano at our London apartment. I felt that I had no choice but to tell my father, but Cecilia and her lover got their story in first.’ Sergio vented a bitter laugh of remembrance, his classic profile settling into grim lines.
As the silence dragged Kathy breathed, ‘And what was that?’
‘That for some time I had been harassing my stepmother with sexual attentions—’
‘Oh, no!’ Kathy exclaimed with a feeling grimace
‘—and that that particular day I made a drunken assault on her virtue from which Tessano gallantly rescued her.’
‘Surely your father didn’t believe such nonsense?’
‘When his lifelong best friend confirmed that sordid account, I had no hope of being believed,’ Sergio breathed heavily. ‘I had a playboy reputation and Cecilia was beautiful. I can’t blame my father because he was a sick man and he loved her. At the time he was dying. I didn’t know that but they did. In so far as my father was able within the law, and with Tessano’s encouragement, I was disinherited in favour of Cecilia and Abramo. My stepmother married Tessano three months after the funeral.’
His story rocked Kathy out of her self-absorption; she was appalled. There was, she was discovering, a great deal more unpleasantness to the events that had torn Abramo and Sergio apart than she had innocently imagined. The greed and envy of his stepmother and his half-brother had combined to tear Sergio’s life asunder. ‘Having your father turn against you when he was so ill must’ve been a nightmare for you.’
‘It shattered me.’ A muscle pulled taut at the edge of Sergio’s wide sensual mouth. ‘He died two months later still believing their lies. Up until that point, my life had been easy and privileged. At birth, I was the little prince, the heir to the Azzarini estates and I took it all for granted. Then it was all taken away from me.’
In a quick movement, Kathy got up and reached for his hands in a spontaneous gesture of sympathy, because she had been deeply attached to her own father and she knew how much that misjudgement and rejection from one so close must have tormented Sergio. Her softened green eyes clung to the bold angularity of his bronzed masculine features. ‘You should have told me about your family ages ago. But then you don’t tell me anything.’ Her voice grew more hesitant as she registered that he had finished talking and had still not made a reference to Grazia’s role. Feeling self-conscious, she made an abrupt movement to withdraw her hands from his.