The Sicilian's Unexpected Duty(66)

                Cara’s eyes were huge and filled with something that looked suspiciously like tears.

                He dropped her hand. ‘So now you know it all. I hope you can now understand why I do not trust people and why I cannot give you the money you want, not until after our baby is born. It’s not personal towards you. Please believe that.’

                * * *

                Cara dressed mechanically in a blue skirt, black roll-neck jumper and a pair of thick black tights, and tied her hair back into a loose ponytail. Her hands shook, her mind filled with him, with Pepe.

                After their talk on the balcony he had disappeared, muttering about needing a swim. Wordlessly she had let him go, too shocked and heartsick at his story to even attempt to stop him.

                Her heart stopped when she found him in the kitchen eating a pain au chocolat. He’d added a black T-shirt to his jeans, his black hair was damp and he’d had a shave.

                He lifted his eyes to see her standing hesitantly in the doorway, and got to his feet. ‘Please, help yourself,’ he said, indicating the plate heaped with pastries in the centre of the table. ‘I’ve made a pot of tea for you.’

                Knowing he had gone out of his way to make the tea especially for her kick-started her heart. When he moved with fluid grace to pour a cup out for her and she spotted his bare feet, she had to blink back the sting of hot tears that burned in the backs of her eyes.

                She reached for a plain croissant and placed it on the plate he’d laid out for her, then took the seat next to him. She broke a bit of it off and popped it into her mouth, all the while watching as he added milk to her cup before placing it before her.

                ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, breaking off another piece of croissant and nibbling at it. She wanted to touch him. She wanted to place her hands on his cheeks and kiss him.

                ‘Do you know what I love the most about Grace?’ she asked him when he’d sat back down.

                He cocked an eye.

                ‘Nothing. I love everything about her. When I moved to England at thirteen and started a new school, I was cold-shouldered by practically everyone. They all had their cliques. I was the outsider. But Grace took me under her wing. She would drag me into the art room at lunch breaks. She would drag me to parties at weekends and stay right by my side, making sure everyone included me. She introduced me to art. Even when it was obvious that I couldn’t draw much more than matchstick men, she never put me down. I ended up practically moving into her home. She encouraged me to study History of Art at university because she could see that’s where my passion lay. We studied different courses but we lived together and remained inseparable. I would give my life for Grace. She was more than a best friend. She was the one person who believed in me. My parents were so wrapped up in themselves they didn’t care about me other than on the level of feeding and clothing me.’

                Cara kept her gaze on Pepe as she spoke. If he could lay his soul bare then so could she.

                ‘My father had so many affairs I lost count. Time after time, Mam would say she was leaving but every time she forgave him.’ She shuddered. ‘I would hear them having make-up sex. It was the most disgusting sound I’ve ever heard. Do you know what the worst part was?’

                He shook his head, his face a mask.

                ‘He left her. After all the affairs, the lies and the humiliation, one day he went to work and never came back. He’d found a teenage lover who “made him feel like a young man again”. My mother was utterly devastated. I don’t think she would ever have left him. She held on for two years in the hope that he would come back to her, but when he served her with divorce papers she finally accepted it was over and carted me off to England to start over.’