The Sicilian's Unexpected Duty(76)

                Even if she’d been born French she would never have that certain élan Sabine carried off so effortlessly.

                ‘No.’

                She looked back at Pepe. ‘No what?’

                ‘No, I haven’t slept with her.’

                ‘I didn’t say you had,’ she pointed out primly.

                ‘You were thinking it.’ He reached out and gently stroked her cheek. ‘There is a chance a couple of my exes will be here though.’

                ‘There’s always a chance we’ll bump into your exes whenever we step out of the front door,’ she said, more tartly than she would have liked.

                She had no right to feel jealous. Ever since they’d agreed to make a go of some sort of semblance of a relationship, Pepe had treated her with nothing but respect. Whenever they went out he stuck to her side, his unspoken support worth more than all the money in the world.

                He really was nothing like her father and she knew with as deep a certainty as she’d ever known anything that he would never cheat on her.

                All the same, she couldn’t help the cloying sickness that unfurled inside her whenever she met his ex-lovers or even made the mistake of thinking about them.

                There was a reason jealousy was oft referred to as the green-eyed monster. Thinking of Pepe with anyone else made her go green inside and made the monster within her want to scratch eyes out.

                One day soon she would have to find a way to live with it.

                She had no idea how she would be able to.

                Pepe wanted them to part as friends?

                She didn’t think she’d even be able to cope with fleeting glances at him. How could anyone be strong enough to endure that, to love someone with all their heart and know the recipient would never feel the same way?

                All she could do was hold on and hope for a miracle.

                Miracles happened. Didn’t they?

                But even if they didn’t, one thing she did know was that she would not behave as her mother had with her father. Whatever happened, Cara was confident her child would never witness the selfish behaviour that Cara had witnessed from her parents. Both she and Pepe were committed to that.

                Any devastation would take place internally.

                ‘I didn’t know you owned a studio,’ she said, quickly changing the subject away from something that could easily make her vomit. As she spoke, a sharp stab of pain ran down the side of her belly.

                ‘Are you okay?’ Pepe asked, noticing her reflexive wince.

                Sucking in a quick blast of air, she nodded.

                ‘You’re sure?’

                ‘Yes.’ As she reassured him that all was well, it suddenly occurred to her that her back had ached all day. She’d been so excited about Pepe coming home after a week away that she hadn’t thought much about it.

                ‘I bought an old hotel a few years back,’ Pepe said. ‘I had it turned into a home for artists, a place where they could live and work. As you know from Grace, artists often work strange hours. The majority live in poverty.’