A Baby To Bind His Innocent (Mills & Boon Modern) (The Sicilian Marriage Pact, Book 1) by Michelle Smart

Author:Michelle Smart [Smart, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mills & Boon Modern
Published: 2020-06-25T11:58:17+00:00

Ciro swallowed his first mouthful of Chicken Cacciatore and stared at the woman who’d made it.

Her fork, halfway to her delectable mouth, hovered mid-air. ‘Is it okay?’

‘Claudia, this is fantastic.’

Her cheeks stained pink, her pleasure at his compliment obvious.

‘I know you like to cook but this is something else—this is restaurant standard.’

Now the staining on her cheeks was of embarrassment. ‘Don’t be silly.’

‘I’m serious. And I say it as someone who’s dined in many Michelin-starred restaurants.’

Her furrowed brow showed her continued scepticism but instead of arguing, she popped a forkful of chicken into her mouth.

He had a sip of the wine she’d opened and found it complemented the dish perfectly. ‘Who recommended the wine?’

The furrow on her brow deepened. ‘It’s the wine I always serve with this dish.’

‘Are you a secret sommelier?’

‘What’s a sommelier?’

‘A professional wine steward. They’re trained to pair food with wine.’

‘People are paid to do that?’ She pulled a musing face. ‘As our English nanny used to say, you learn something new every day. Whenever I used to make a new dish I would raid Papà’s wine cellar until I found the perfect wine to go with it.’

Ciro fought not to let the clenching of his guts at the mention of her father show on his face. Claudia was making a huge sacrifice to allow him to be father to their child. She must hate him for what he’d done to her but she was putting their baby’s needs above her own and he needed to do the same. Somehow he must learn to separate her from her father. If he couldn’t, then how could he separate his child from its grandfather?

He’d come to think her insistence on living with him until the birth was the right call.

‘Trial and error?’ he asked.

She nodded, then gave a sudden giggle. It was so rare and unexpected that it sounded like music to his ears. ‘Once, when I was trying out a new Tuscan recipe, I sampled eight bottles of red. He wasn’t very happy with me—one of them was a ten-thousand-euro Barolo.’

‘Did it pair with the recipe?’

Her initial giggle turned into a peal of laughter. ‘No!’

‘You clearly have a good nose.’

Shoulders shaking with mirth, she twitched said nose. It was such a ridiculous gesture that Ciro found himself laughing too. He drank some more of the superb wine then looked at Claudia’s glass of water. His good humour wilted. She was drinking water rather than wine, he guessed, because she’d sworn off alcohol for the pregnancy. She’d never struck him as much of a drinker, but, like the majority of their compatriots, was partial to a glass of wine with her evening meal.

Claudia must have sensed a dimming in his mood. ‘What’s wrong?’

He met the dark brown stare that seemed to read him so easily. ‘I’m just thinking how easy men have pregnancy.’

She leaned across the table to pat his hand, her eyes mock-rueful. ‘You wait until I’m the size of a whale and craving toothpaste on toast. You won’t find it so easy then, having to run around after me.

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