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Di CESARE PREGNANT MISTRESS - Chapter 42
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But there was no time to explain that James’s appearance today was a complete surprise to her, because one of the officials announced that the registrar had arrived and invited everyone to take a seat.
And suddenly this was it—in a few minutes’ time she would be Alexander’s wife. The strange trance-like calm that had cocooned her since she had slipped into her cream wool wedding dress and matching coat that morning fractured, and her heart began to jerk painfully beneath her ribcage.
Memories of her marriage to Fabian came tumbling back, she had been so full of hope and expectations that day, but a year later her dreams had been cruelly destroyed—and, even worse, she had lost her baby. Now she had no hopes and no expectations, she thought sadly as she took her place next to Alexander. All she had was a deep and abiding love in return.
For a few seconds panic threatened to overwhelm her. She couldn’t go through with it. Instinctively she placed her hand over her stomach. The tiny fluttering sensation beneath her fingers as the baby moved made her heart leap, and the tension drained from her body. For her baby’s sake she could do anything.
The ceremony passed in a blur and her hands were visibly shaking when Alexander slipped a plain gold band on her finger. She could not bring herself to look at him, but she could feel the tension emanating from him, and she wondered if he too was besieged with doubts.
Did he wish that he was marrying Donata rather than a woman he believed was as unscrupulous as his stepmother? He had made no futher reference to Donata, and although his sister Jocasta was attending the wedding, there was no sign of his beautiful cousin. But Stephanie could not forget the triumphant gleam in Donata’s eyes when she had emerged from Alexander’s bedroom in Florence and was certain that she had Alexander had been lovers.
The thought was agony, and she blinked hard to dispel her tears as the registrar pronounced them man and wife and Alexander turned towards her, brushing his mouth briefly over hers in a kiss that held neither passion or warmth. It was a fitting beginning to a marriage that was based on convenience rather than love, Stephanie thought dismally. Her heart ached, but pride came to her rescue and she pinned a bright smile on her face and turned to receive the congratulations of their guests.
It was many hours later before Alexander’s plane landed in Florence and he settled Stephanie in his car for the last leg of their journey to the Villa Rosala. In the dim interior she looked pale and incredibly fragile, her long eyelashes making dark crescents on her cheeks.
His mouth tightened. He had feared that the journey to the Villa would be too much. They should have stayed in Florence tonight and travelled on to the house in the morning, but for some reason Stephanie had adamantly refused to stay at the Florence apartment, and had seemed so upset at the idea that he had reluctantly given in.
It seemed irrational to him, but he’d blamed her sudden dislike of the apartment on the pregnancy hormones that had turned her from the cool, level-headed woman he had first met into an emotionally fragile mass of insecurities. She had experienced no more bleeding, thank God, but no amount of reassurance from medical experts had calmed her fears of suffering a miscarriage.
Perhaps it was natural for pregnant women to worry endlessly, he brooded, frustrated by his inability to help her and her refusal to confide her concerns to him. Instead she spent a lot of time in her bedroom, clearly wanting to avoid him. Usually he had no patience for tears, but the sound of her weeping caused a peculiar pain in his gut. She hadn’t smiled once since he had made the arrangements for their wedding, and he guessed her tears were because she hadn’t wanted to marry him—but in that she had had no choice, he thought grimly. Because no child of his would be born illegitimate.
He swore beneath his breath and forced himself to concentrate on the narrow, twisting road that snaked though the dark Tuscan countryside. ‘Not much further now,’ he murmured when he felt Stephanie’s eyes on him. ‘You must be tired. It’s been a long day.’
‘Mmm.’ But an unexpectedly lovely day, Stephanie mused, thinking back to the short but moving wedding ceremony, and the celebratory lunch afterwards at a nearby hotel.
All her family had been there—her sister Vicky looking heavily pregnant—Jess had been her maid of honour, and spent most of her time bickering with Daniel, as usual, it was amazing how two intelligent people could be so blind, Stephanie thought sleepily. She liked the idea of having Jess for a sister-in-law; she just wished the two of them would stop fighting and recognize that they were attracted to each other.
‘I loved the flowers,’ she said to Alexander, recalling the profusion of pink and cream roses and lilies whose exquisite perfume had filled the register office. ‘I thought Mum must have ordered them, but she was as surprised as me.’
‘I’m glad you liked them, cara,’ The amusement in Alexander’s voice caused her heart to skip a beat.
‘You mean…you? Why?’ she faltered. ‘I mean, thank you—they were beautiful…But you didn’t have to. I didn’t expect anything.’
‘No,’ Alexander said in a curiously, dry tone. ‘I have come to realise that you have very few expectations.’
Any other woman would have demanded that the wedding take place at some grand location, followed by a lavish reception as befitted his billion-pound fortune. Stephanie had asked for nothing other than the attendance of her family and close friends, and he had even had to bully her into choosing a wedding ring from a top Hatton Garden jewellers.