The Proud Wife Read Online Free Page B

told herself. He didn’t like it, that much was plain from the way his whole body stilled and tightened in his seat, his head coming up so that his blue eyes blazed into hers. They were like shards of ice, so cold and clear. And she almost felt that the laser-like burn from them might actually mark her cheek where it rested.
    When he sat opposite her like this with his back to the windows, he was little more than a dark silhouette, black against the gloomy sky outside. The surprisingly pale eyesin his carved face were all she could really make out—not that it mattered. The truth was that every stunning feature, from the broad, high forehead down to the surprisingly full and sensual mouth, was seared into her memory, impossible to erase. And, if she let them, those memories would destroy her hard-won composure, take her back to the time when she had worshipped the ground this man walked on. To the time that had almost totally broken her.
    Just in the moment that she had looked up across the narrow road, and had seen him standing at the rain-dashed window, it had been like the first time she had met him. Then she had seen him through rain-spattered glass too, through the windscreen of her elderly Mini in the middle of an ice storm in a London street. She had been so stunned by the shocking sensuality of the tall, dark stranger’s beauty that she had lost control of the wheel just for a second—and had been horrified by the appalling crunch and screeching sound as her car had scraped against the side of his luxurious vehicle.
    The world had seemed to spin round her, her breath stilling in her lungs, and she had hardly been able to remember who she was or think to give him her insurance details. In the end she hadn’t needed them because he had assured her that the damage was slight and that he would cover the cost of repairs to both cars if she would promise to have dinner with him that night.
    She had been totally off-balance where this man was concerned ever since. Just being with him was like being in the eye of some wild, tropical storm every day. She had been swept off her feet, out of reality and into a world of such total delight, wealth and glamour that it had seemed impossible such a fantasy could actually exist.
    She had been right about that, of course. She’d had a few short months of perfect delight, total joy—but in theend the fantasy had crashed in flames, burning up all her dreams and illusions as it flared out of control. The passion they had once shared had turned in on itself and destroyed them. Or, rather, it had destroyed Marina, driving her away in misery and pain while Pietro had simply picked up his life and gone on with it as before. He hadn’t even troubled to contact her, never mind come after her when she had fled the marriage that had turned into a nightmare. He had sent that one cold command that she return, and when she had refused he had turned his back on her as if she had never existed.
    Until now. Until that cold, brutal summons to come to Sicily to discuss the ending of the marriage that had never really been.
    When she had walked into the room and seen him standing to one side of the room, dark and inscrutable, watching every move she made, it was as if the past years had evaporated in a second. Every memory, every sensation she had ever experienced, had returned in the space of a heartbeat. All the defences, the armour she had built around herself in order to be able to get on with her life, had disintegrated, crumbling at her feet, leaving her shaken and defenceless when she most needed to be strong.
    She had told herself that she would be completely in control for this meeting. That she would be cool, calm and collected when she and Pietro came face to face again. She had done all her crying for the loss of her marriage, the destruction of her illusions in the past, and now she was going to put them all behind her. She had thought that she was prepared