The Sicilian's Unexpected Duty(63)

                ‘Please, don’t,’ she murmured, shaking her head. ‘One accident with scalding tea is enough for anyone in a lifetime.’

                He chuckled. ‘In that case, drink up and we can go back to bed.’

                She took a deep breath, planning to confess that she didn’t want to go back to bed. Or, rather, that she did want to go back to bed with him. But she wanted it too much. That was the problem. She wanted it far too much.

                Before she could speak he pressed a kiss into the small of her back then stood beside her at the balustrade.

                ‘I owe you an apology,’ he said, his light tone becoming serious. ‘I’d forgotten how shy you are around strangers. I shouldn’t have left you alone with anyone but me last night, not until I knew you were comfortable with them.’

                Cara blinked in shock.

                An apology was the last thing she’d expected to hear from Pepe’s mouth.

                She took a sip of her tea, determinedly looking out to the park, at the distant people walking their dogs, some carrying the morning’s newspapers, life going on blithely regardless of her personal torment.

                ‘I also should have warned you that a few of my ex-lovers would be there, but to be honest I never gave it a thought,’ he continued. ‘It’s never been an issue. I should have taken into account that you are made from a different mould from them.’

                The mention of his ex-lovers pierced like a lance into her skin. She forced herself to breathe, focusing on the park before her, allowing her attention to be captured by a young couple out for a bike ride, a toddler-sized child sitting in a special seat attached to the father’s bike.

                Pepe would never be a father in the traditional sense. He was too...free. Meeting his friends and the casual, bohemian intimacy they all shared had only confirmed everything she already knew.

                And she, Cara, was of a different mould.

                It hurt to admit it, but he was right. She could never be like those women. The scars of her childhood ran too deep. She could never share the man she loved. Just thinking of Pepe sharing intimacies with another woman made her skin go clammy and nausea swell inside her, and she didn’t even love him.

                Did she?

                No, of course she didn’t. Pepe might be able to reduce her to a quivering pulse of sensation but that didn’t mean she was falling in actual love with him.

                Did it?

                ‘I need to leave,’ she said, blurting the words out.

                Whatever her feelings for him and whatever they meant, nothing could come of them.

                Pepe stilled then cast an unreadable eye on her before getting his coffee. When he rejoined her at the balustrade he stood a good foot away from her.

                ‘I’m going to appeal to your better nature to do the right thing and give me some money now so I can return to Dublin and find a home to raise our child in.’

                ‘And if I don’t?’

                ‘Then I guess I’ll have no choice but to stay. I know I was going to leave last night but I was so...’ she almost said devastated ‘...upset that I wasn’t thinking straight. I guess my hormones were playing up too, making everything seem ten times worse than it really was.’

                Her hormones had had nothing to do with it. The white-hot jealousy she had experienced at the party had been all her own. She would rather chop her own ears off than admit it.