Happy Mother's Day! - By Sharon Kendrick Page 0,48
wasn’t the whole point that she did want him? Wouldn’t she be crazy to deny herself the physical pleasure of his body just because she couldn’t have his love? And surely it would make the alreadyexisting tension between them unendurable if she did.
After the meal ended, he drove the three of them back to the vineyard and Aisling told herself she was glad that the baby’s presence ruled out anything as traditional as being carried over the threshold. Come to think of it, she wasn’t even sure whether it was a tradition in Italy—and it did not seem appropriate to ask.
But Gianluca’s eyes narrowed as the door closed behind him, observing the tiredness which had given her such a strained look.
‘Why don’t you go and take a bath?’ he suggested softly. ‘And just relax. It’s been a long day.’
The unexpected kindness in his voice made her turn away before he could see the prick of tears in her eyes. ‘Yes. I think I will.’
Gianluca had rearranged the upstairs of the house, so that a whole floor of rooms had been arranged for them, with a nursery suite for Claudio. Which meant that she and her new husband could sleep alone, or together …
After changing out of her bridal finery, Aisling ran a bath and had a long and luxurious soak, but even though the tension was seeping from her body her mind wouldn’t stop racing. She lay there, watching all the bubbles gradually dissolve—and wondering where the hell they went from here. It was as if their energy had been focussed on the trip to Italy and the wedding—and now just the great unknown waited.
She slipped into some cool linen trousers and a shirt which made breast-feeding easier. Then she tied her hair back into a pony-tail before going downstairs to look for them.
It was strange, navigating this house where Gianluca had grown up but which was so new and so alien to her. So much of living was instinctive, she thought—like the way she still turned left out of the bathroom as if she were in her old flat, instead of in this huge place. Would she ever grow used to it—and would it ever feel like home?
She found Gianluca and Claudio in the garden which overlooked the glitter of the distant lake. For a moment her new husband didn’t hear her soft footsteps on the grass—he was far too engrossed in staring intently at the baby. It gave her just long enough for her stupid heart to turn over with longing at the vision they made, and then to collect herself before he noticed her reaction.
A huge, coach-built pram which had been sent down from Rome was parked beside an arbour which was spilling over with flowers. Soft, creamy-pink flowers with such an intoxicating fragrance which seemed to perfume the whole garden, and Aisling breathed in their scent as if her senses had been starved.
Gianluca was still in his dark wedding suit but he had removed his tie as he always did at the first opportunity—and had undone a couple of shirt buttons. He looked up from where he had been leaning over the pram, and Aisling suddenly felt almost weak with longing.
Gianluca stared at her with a thudding kind of disappointment and disbelief because it was as though the woman he had married today had gone through some sort of transformation. Like Cinderella in reverse, he thought bitterly. Gone was the sexy bride in her vertiginous shoes and the demure yet sexy ivory silk dress. In their place were some dulllooking trousers and an equally dull-looking shirt.
Well, what had he expected? He had forced her hand into matrimony and perhaps she had now decided it was time to flex her own muscles. To punish him. As a message of how she intended to conduct this marriage, it could not have been clearer.
‘You’ve changed,’ he observed softly.
Aisling was suddenly aware of a new hardness in his eyes. ‘The dressing-up part of the day is over, Gianluca—and, besides, this is much easier for feeding Claudio.’ She peered over at the pram rather desperately. ‘How is he?’
‘He’s asleep,’ he said abruptly.
‘Oh. Well, that’s … good.'Aisling stood there, feeling—redundant. She couldn’t even pick the baby up because if she did that she might look selfish—as if she was using him as some sort of prop, because she wasn’t sure what to do with herself.
‘So tell me—what do you want to do tonight? This our wedding night,’ he mocked.