could understand why she felt like that. No one had known of Salvatore Moncada’s secret love child, not even Tonino’s own father, who had been Salvatore’s closest friend.
He wondered how his father would react when he learned Salvatore’s illegitimate daughter was the mother of his grandchild. Probably with open arms. His mother too. There hadn’t been a single conversation between Tonino and his parents in recent years where the subject of him settling down and having babies hadn’t come up, the implication being he needed to find a suitable replacement for the fiancée he’d so callously thrown away. In his parents’ eyes, Sophia had been perfect. Beautiful and rich and from a good Sicilian family. Their engagement had been celebrated in the same way the British celebrated a royal engagement. Their fury at him ending it had been off the charts. They’d taken it personally. They’d accused him of disrespecting the family name and destroying the decades-long friendship with the Messinas. There had been threats. At one point he’d thought his mother was going to slap his face.
That marriage to Sophia would have seen Tonino spend his life in misery hadn’t concerned either of them.
With a sigh, he tried to think positively of his parents. He’d had the security of their unconditional love for the first thirty years of his life whereas Orla had never met her father and as for her mother…where was she? She’d missed Aislin’s wedding. Orla rarely spoke of her. She might as well not exist.
‘Your father was a man of many contradictions,’ he told her heavily.
‘In what way?’
He thought of the best way to put it before saying, ‘He was a womaniser and a gambler. But he was also a great raconteur. He could tell the most boring story and make it funny. He was not a man anyone would trust to lend money to if they wanted to get it back and definitely not someone any man could trust to leave his wife alone in a room with.’
Her eyes widened with alarm. ‘He was a sex pest?’
‘No. Women loved him. Some loved him a little too much. He broke many hearts.’
Her lips tightened as she considered this before giving a decisive nod. ‘He didn’t break my mother’s heart.’
‘Then she was clever enough not to involve her heart.’
‘But not clever enough not to get herself pregnant by a married man.’ She closed her eyes and rested her head against the leather upholstery. ‘Still, who am I to judge her for it? I did exactly the same thing.’
‘I wasn’t married, and neither was I engaged,’ he told her firmly. ‘And I shouldn’t have to tell you that you didn’t get pregnant on your own. We were both there.’
She twisted her head again to look back at him. The faintest trace of colour flared on her cheeks as she asked, ‘Didn’t we use protection?’
‘Of course we did.’
‘Then how did I end up pregnant?’
‘We weren’t always as careful as we should have been…’ He thought of the few times they’d come together in their sleep, Tonino already deep inside her before waking fully and realising he hadn’t put a condom on. He’d withdrawn to sheath himself, knowing even then what a huge risk they’d taken. It was a risk he had never taken before or since, half asleep or otherwise.
Gazing into her confused green eyes, he felt the burn in his loins that had been such a huge part of him in their time together afresh and found himself leaning closer to her, close enough that the soft scent of her perfume coiled into his aroused senses. ‘Do you not remember?’
The colour on her cheeks became a burn to match what was happening in his loins. ‘No.’
‘But you remember us?’
‘I remember most of it, but I don’t remember…’ she swallowed ‘…the actual act.’
He leaned a little closer still and lowered his voice. ‘There was more than one act.’
Her jaw clenched while her eyes darkened and her voice lowered to match his. ‘I don’t remember anything we did in bed.’
‘It wasn’t always in a bed.’
Now her face inched closer to him, her voice dropping to a whisper. ‘I don’t need to know the details.’
‘But I can help you remember.’
Her lips parted. Their faces were so close that he could feel the heat of her breath brushing like the lightest petal against his mouth. And then she closed her eyes tightly, reared away from him and snapped her eyes back open with a glare. ‘I don’t want to remember, thank you very much.’
He laughed at this blatant lie. The constriction in his trousers burned but he welcomed it. He would bet his favourite house that Orla was suffering the feminine version of his burn. ‘Scared you’ll remember how good it was?’
‘More like I’m afraid to remember how awful it was,’ Orla retorted as airily as she could, resisting the urge to cross her legs tightly for fear that he would know why she was crossing them.
She’d been about to kiss him. Her mouth had practically salivated in anticipation. The most intimate part of her had throbbed then flooded with a warmth that still tingled acutely.
‘The brain is a funny thing, but it does try to protect the body it’s encased in,’ she added.
Her attempt to stab at the heart of his ego ended in failure. His voice became a sensuous purr that sent fresh tingles careering over her already sensitised skin. ‘I can help you remember, dolcezza. All you have to do is say the word.’
‘And what word would that be? Do I wave my hand in the air, yell out “sex” and you whisk me to bed?’ She regretted her flippant remark the moment it left her mouth.
Tonino leaned in even closer, eyes gleaming. ‘That sounds good to me. Or you can do what you did on our third night together.’
Orla knew she was taking the bait of the trap he’d laid but was unable to stop herself from whispering, ‘What did I do?’
The gleam deepened, the strong nostrils flaring as he stared at her appreciatively and put his mouth to her ear. ‘You performed a seductive striptease for me then lay on my bed naked and touched yourself—’
‘I did no such thing,’ she cut in angrily, rearing away from him. She would never do such a thing. Hadn’t her grandmother always told her that anything but straight penetrative sex within the confines of marriage was for harlots, the inference being harlots like Orla’s mother? For sure, Tonino was the sexiest man she’d ever set eyes on and for sure her body reacted in wanton ways she’d never dreamed of, but to touch herself for his titillation…?
Never.
Please, God, let it not be true.
Now Tonino was the one to rear back. The look he cast her only made her feel more mortified. ‘Dio, you really don’t remember, do you?’
The car came to a stop.
Right on cue, Finn woke up.
Cheeks
