A Whisper of Disgrace(38)
‘I can smell it.’ He sat up as she placed it on the table beside the bed. ‘You make the best coffee in the world.’
‘This is true,’ she said seriously. ‘Because I’m Sicilian and we do the best of everything.’ But as Rosa lifted the pot to pour her own coffee, she was aware of how hollow her words sounded. She used to revel in her Sicilian roots and identity, with the fierce pride which had been drummed into her ever since she could remember. Being born and raised on the beautiful Mediterranean island had always given her a feeling of belonging. She’d felt part of her family and also part of the bigger island community, which had always existed there. But not any more. Her mother’s betrayal seemed to have had even wider-reaching repercussions than she’d originally anticipated. Not only had her relationships within the family been dramatically altered, but a wall of silence seemed to have descended since Rosa’s dramatic flight from her homeland.
‘Have you heard anything from your family?’ he questioned softly.
Had he read her thoughts, or had her wistfulness shown on her face? She didn’t want to show him she was hurt because she was trying very hard not to be. But it did hurt that neither of her brothers had been in touch, even though she’d emailed them her new phone number and told them she was now married and living in Paris.
‘I’ve heard from Lia,’ she said slowly. ‘She’s the half-sister I never knew I had. The one I insulted after my mother had dropped her bombshell. I wrote and apologised for the way I lashed out at her and she was so sweet. She said she understood. She also said she’d always wanted a sister—she just hadn’t been expecting to find one quite so dramatically! But I guess we’ll never get to know each other now.’
Kulal frowned. ‘There’s nothing stopping you going back to Sicily, you know—if you wanted to speak to them face to face,’ he said. ‘I could take you there, if it would help.’
Rosa shook her head. And have everyone cluster round and want to find out about her glamorous new husband? She wasn’t that good an actress and somehow she couldn’t bear the pity she’d have to endure when her family discovered the truth of why they’d married. ‘I told you—I can’t imagine me ever wanting to go back. There’s no place for me there now. The person I used to be doesn’t exist any more.’
Because the new Rosa was now a princess, even if it was only a very temporary role. She didn’t get to wear a crown but she got to share the bed of a man who was a real-life prince. A desert sheikh—a man who couldn’t seem to get enough of her … and much as she revelled in his attention, she knew it was getting dangerous. She’d been feeling that for days now. It happened every time she opened her eyes and saw him lying next to her and it continued throughout the day. She hugged the memory of their lovemaking to her like a delicious present. She’d never felt so contented—nor ecstatic—in her whole life and she knew that it would be madness to allow her feelings for Kulal to grow.
But how did you stop yourself feeling something when your heart was determined to do the opposite? She picked up her cup and sipped her coffee. She could not afford to get too attached to her husband, because one day they were going to split. She knew that. She’d signed that damned pre-nup, hadn’t she? The one which offered her a massively generous amount of money, in exchange for a ‘clean break’ settlement? She just needed to train herself to get used to that bald fact and to maintain some kind of emotional distance.
She tried telling herself she was okay with it, when Kulal announced that their honeymoon was over and that he was planning to return to work at his foundation the following Monday. But the reality was that she’d wanted to cling to him and beg him not to go and that feeling had scared her more than her very real dilemma—about how to usefully spend her days while he was working.
‘I’m not sure what I’m going to do all day in Paris, with you back at the office full-time,’ she said.
He glittered her a smile. ‘Do more of what you did in Sicily. You were a lady of leisure there, weren’t you?’
Rosa didn’t let her smile slip, even though it wasn’t the most flattering way to describe her former life. It was true she hadn’t had a career, though she’d been awarded a respectable languages degree from the University of Palermo. But it had been difficult to find a job which hadn’t been vetoed by her controlling family. She’d done bits of interpreting work whenever she could, but opportunities were scarce. So she’d ended up with a part-time administrative job at the university where she’d studied—and it had felt a bit like stepping back in time. As if she hadn’t progressed much beyond the student she’d once been.