The Italian's Chosen Wife by Kate Hewitt

Author:Kate Hewitt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2007-12-14T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘I THINK we will find all that you need on the Via Montenapoleone,’ Gabriella told Meghan the next day, as they took the di Agnio limousine into Milan’s shopping district. ‘The best shops are there—including the flagship Di Agnio boutique.’

Meghan nodded, barely taking in her future mother-in-law’s words. She was hopelessly distracted by the remorseless echo of Alessandro’s voice.

One of my mistresses.

After he’d left the room Meghan had opened the cupboard and found a range of clothes, from casual dresses and jeans to screamingly expensive evening gowns.

His mistresses’ clothes.

Why had he said that?

Meghan had sighed as she’d taken in one designer gown after another, her hands roaming mindlessly over silk, satin and crêpe. Of course she’d known he’d had lovers. Mistresses. He was a virile, beautiful man. Of course he had. He’d hinted at it before.

But why mention it then, in the twilit intimacy of the darkened bedroom, her lips still burning from his kisses, her senses still scattered by his touch? The remark had been delivered with the cruel, cold accuracy of an arrow to the heart…and it had met its target.

He had, Meghan knew, been warning her.

Don’t fall in love with me. The voice in her head was as loud as if he’d actually said it.

And hadn’t he? He’d warned her before. She should have realised a single moment of tenderness, companionship, desire was simply that.

A moment in an otherwise barren marriage.

A marriage of convenience…for both of them. No matter how it felt, no matter how it seemed.

He wanted someone to give him an heir. A willing woman in his bed who wouldn’t demand love. Someone to keep him from being alone. Lonely.

A woman who wouldn’t bother him too much.

And she wanted power. Safety. Security. Release from the fear and shame.

That was why she’d agreed. That was the promise she would build her life upon.

Not flimsy dreams of love, of affection, but the man Alessandro had said he meant to be.

She’d finally picked one of the gowns—a simple design of black silk that had swirled about her calves and was the least revealing—and had gone downstairs.

Dinner had been stilted, strained. Gabriella had tried to make conversation, Meghan had helped her woodenly, and Alessandro had sat in flinty silence, preoccupied, refusing even to meet Meghan’s gaze, indifferent to his mother’s.

After dinner he’d excused himself, and when Meghan had woken in the morning he’d already gone to work. She wondered if she’d actually see him again before the wedding.

The wedding. She could leave, she reminded herself. Slip out while he was at the office and never come back.

Keep running.

The trouble was, she didn’t want to.

She was damned by her own need.

Her own desire.

‘Here we are.’ Gabriella’s voice was bright, her manner only a little stiff, as the car slowed to a stop on a long, glittering street lined with the most famous and expensive designer names in the world. Boutiques with a single garment hanging in the window and a lock on the door.

The next few hours were a blur of clothes and fitting rooms.

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