‘I said, she’s beautiful, isn’t she?’ Aunt Carlotta’s voice had taken a distinctly frosty tone. Somehow, in between her non-stop nattering, she had managed to acquire Lily without him noticing. She held the baby aloft for his perusal.
He peered down at the chubby face with the black eyes staring up at him, and all he could think was how like a little dark-haired piglet she looked. ‘Yes, beautiful,’ he lied, forcing a wide smile.
Seriously, how could anyone think babies were beautiful? Cute at a push maybe, but beautiful? Why anyone raved about them was beyond him. They were the most boring of creatures. He quite liked toddlers though. Especially when they were getting up to mischief.
He was saved from having to fake any more enthusiasm by a great-aunt barging him out of the way so she too could coo at the poor child.
Using this momentary lapse of Aunt Carlotta’s attention, he sidled away.
Was this the way people acted at all christenings? From the way his relatives were behaving, anyone would think Lily had been conceived from a virgin birth. Having not attended a christening in nearly fifteen years, he wouldn’t know. Given a chance, he would have got out of this one too. But there’d been no way, not when he’d been made godfather. Luca, his brother, would have strung him up if he’d tried to avoid it.
He wondered how long it would take for Luca and Grace to try again. No doubt they would keep trying until a boy was born. His own parents had struck gold from the outset, the need for an heir immediately satisfied with Luca’s birth. Pepe’s own conception was more along the ‘spare’ lines and to give Luca a playmate.
Was he being unfair to his parents? He didn’t know or care. He’d been feeling out of sorts all day, and having the red-headed geisha glaring at him as if he were the Antichrist was not helping his mood.
Forget it, he thought, reaching for another glass of red from a passing maid. No one would notice if he left earlier than was deemed polite...
‘You look stressed, Pepe.’
He muttered an expletive under his breath.
He should have known he wouldn’t be able to escape without her collaring him. There had been something too determined in that expression of hers.
Plastering another fake smile on his face, he turned around and faced her. ‘Cara!’ he exclaimed with bonhomie so fake even Lily would see through it. Grabbing her shoulder with his free hand, he pulled her into him and leaned down to kiss both her cheeks. She was so short he almost had to double over. ‘How are you? Enjoying the party?’
Her dark coppery eyebrows knotted together into a glare. ‘Oh, yes. I’m having a marvellous time.’
Pretending not to notice the definite edge to her voice, he nodded and raised the wattage of his grin. ‘Fabulous. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have—’
‘Running away again, are you?’ Her Irish lilt had thickened since he’d last seen her. When they’d first met, here in Sicily three years ago, her voice had contained only the lightest of traces; by all accounts she’d left Ireland for England when she was a teenager. When he’d seduced her in Dublin four months ago, he’d noticed her accent had become more pronounced. Now there was no doubting her heritage.
‘I have to be somewhere.’
‘Really?’ If an inflection could cut glass, that one word would have done the trick. She nodded her head in his sister-in-law’s direction. ‘She’s the reason you stole my phone, isn’t she?’ It wasn’t a question.