Carrying His Scandalous Heir by Julia James

Author:Julia James [James, Julia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarlequinUKLtd
Published: 2017-10-31T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

CESARE STOOD IN the massive fortified gateway that led to the walled courtyard of the castello, watching the Marchese’s car wind its stately way down the hairpin road snaking into the valley below. Then he turned away, walked back into the castello.

The visit of Francesca and her parents had been a complete success, and now she was going with her parents to the family seat in the north of Italy before flying back to the USA to settle her affairs there.

There was no immediate rush for them to marry—the date was set for late summer, and Francesca’s mother was intent on enjoying every moment of the lavish preparations. Also, Francesca wanted to see if she could secure a post-doctoral position at a physics department in Italy. When she returned from America, visited the castello once more, Cesare would start to take her out and about with him on prenuptial social engagements. Start his personal courtship of her, the woman who would be his bride.

As the woman he had set aside could never be.

Could never be in his life again in any way.

As it always did, the guillotine sliced down in his head. That subject was still not safe. With iron self-discipline—a self-discipline that he seemed to need increasingly now, but which, surely to God, would fade as time passed—he put aside the thoughts he must not have, the memories he must not recall.

He strode indoors, but as he did so, he glanced up the massive oak staircase that led to the upper floor of the staterooms. That floor was dominated by the full-length galleria, once the exercise space for the ladies of the house in bad weather, which now contained the bulk of the artworks here at the castello.

Including the Luciezo-Caradino triptych.

As if impelled, Cesare felt himself heading towards the base of the stairs. Then, abruptly, he pulled away. No, he would not go and look at it. To what purpose? He knew what it looked like. Knew why he wanted to go and look at it.

His expression steeled. His ancestor might have been born at a time when a man could ‘have it all’, but those times were gone. There could be no honour in thinking otherwise—not a shred of it.

I have made my choice and I will abide by it. Carla is in the past now, and she must stay there. My future is with Francesca. And Francesca has made her choice too—she has chosen to be my wife.

He walked into his study, sitting himself down at his mahogany desk, ready to catch up on work after several days of entertaining Francesca and her family. His eyes flickered. He had made his choice—Francesca had made hers. But Carla—Carla had not made a choice, had she?

For a moment—just a brief, flashing moment before that guillotine cut down again across his mind—he saw her that final morning.

Naked, stripped bare of everything that she’d thought she had—everything she had presumed.

The guillotine sliced down. Harsh thoughts sliced down with it. It was a harshness that was necessary.

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