he continued, his clipped words indicating how little he cared to dwell on his injuries.
‘I was lucky. I had lacerations and a couple of fractures.’
At her hissed indrawn breath he shrugged. ‘I mended quickly. I was only in hospital a few weeks. The main concern was my memory loss.’ Darkening eyes bored into hers. ‘But the specialists say there’s nothing I can do about that except let nature take its course. There’s no other brain damage.’
Carys slumped back, only now acknowledging the full depth of her fears. Relief warred with a sense of unreality.
‘I see.’ This strange, constrained conversation didn’t seem real given the past they shared. But it gave Carys a little time to work through the implications of his news.
He mightn’t remember her, but last night in his suite he’d seduced her with a combustible passion that had sheared straight through every defence she’d painstakingly erected in the last two years.
How had he done that if he couldn’t even recall her?
Was he such an awesome lover he could make any woman feel the heady, mind-blowing certainty that she wanted nothing more than Alessandro Mattani, unbridled and consummately masculine? Were the intimacies she’d shared with him and always thought so special, the wondrous sensations, something he shared with countless women?
Her weakness mortified her.
‘And your wife?’ Carys failed to keep the bitterness from her voice as she choked out the word. ‘I assume she’s not with you?’
‘Wife?’ The single syllable slashed through the heavy atmosphere in the room. ‘You’re not saying I have a wife?’
Did she imagine it or had he paled? His lazy sprawl morphed into stark rigidity as he sat up, staring.
Carys hesitated. ‘You were single when I left, but you were seeing someone else, planning to marry her. Principessa Carlotta.’ She couldn’t prevent distaste colouring her voice.
Of course Alessandro would only marry one of his own, a rich, privileged aristocrat.
Carys swallowed bile as memories surged. Of how she’d obstinately disregarded his stepmother’s warnings about Alessandro’s intentions. And about her true, temporary place in his world. Of how she’d foolishly pinned her belief and hopes on the tender passionate words he whispered in her ear. On the rapture of being with him, being loved by him.
No! Having sex with him. The love had been all on her side.
‘You seem to imply I did more than just see her.’ His tone was outraged; his eyes flashed a furious warning. ‘And that I did so while you and I were…together.’
If the cap fits, buddy. ‘So you did.’ Deliberately she turned away to focus on Leo, happily jouncing on her knees.
‘You’re mistaken.’ Alessandro didn’t raise his voice, but his whisper was lethally quiet, an unmistakeable warning. ‘I would never stoop to such despicable behaviour.’ Green eyes clashed with hers. They were so vibrant with indignation she expected to see sparks shoot from their depths.
‘I was there, remember.’ Carys took a slow breath, forcing down the rabid, useless jealousy that even now clawed to the surface. She concentrated on keeping her voice even. ‘And unlike you I have perfect recall.’
Silence. His stare would have stripped paint at twenty paces. It scoured her mercilessly.
Yet Carys refused to back down. He might believe he was incapable of such behaviour, but if his memory ever returned he was doomed to disillusionment.
‘I don’t need to remember to know the truth, Carys.’ He leaned forward, all semblance of relaxation gone. His voice echoed an unshakeable certainty. ‘No matter what you think you understand about that time, I would never betray one lover with another. Never have two lovers at the same time. It wouldn’t be honourable.’
Not honourable!
Carys suppressed an anguished laugh.
Was it honourable to have a lover share his bed but exclude her from the rest of his life because she wasn’t good enough for his aristocratic friends? To use her for temporary sex while he courted another woman?
Whatever had gone wrong between Alessandro and the principessa to prevent the marriage, that was exactly what he’d been up to.
Carys had simply been convenient, gullible, expendable.
She swung her head away, refusing to look at him. Even now the pain was too raw. A cold, leaden lump rose in her throat, but she refused to reveal her vulnerability.
She drew a slow breath. ‘When I tried to contact you about the pregnancy, your stepmother said you were preparing for your wedding. She made it clear you had no time to spare for an ex-mistress.’
‘Livia said that?’ His astonished tone drew her unwilling gaze. His eyebrows jammed together in a V of puzzlement. ‘I can’t believe it.’
No. That was the problem. He hadn’t believed her before either. Her word meant nothing against his suspicions. The reminder stiffened her backbone.
‘Frankly, Alessandro, I don’t care what you believe.’
‘It’s true Livia is fond of Carlotta,’ he murmured as if to himself. ‘And that she wants me to marry. But arranging a wedding? It never went that far.’
How convenient his loss of memory was.
Carys had confirmation of the betrothal from another source too. But most convincing of all had been the sight of Alessandro with the glamorous, blue-blooded Carlotta. Even now the recollection stabbed, sharp as a twisting stiletto in her abdomen, making her hunch involuntarily.
The princess had stared up at him with exactly the same besotted expression Carys knew she herself had worn since the day he’d swept her off her feet and into his bed. Alessandro had kept the other woman close, his arm protectively around her as if she were made of delicate porcelain. He’d gazed into her eyes, utterly absorbed in their intimate conversation as if she were the only woman in the world.
As if he didn’t have a convenient lover waiting obediently at home for him.
Carys blinked to banish the heat glazing the back of her eyes. Resolutely she focused instead on Livia’s dismissive words when Carys had rung to tell Alessandro about her pregnancy.
Alessandro will do what is necessary to provide for the child if it’s his. But don’t expect him to contact you in person. Her tone had made it clear Carys was too socially inferior to warrant anything more than a settlement engineered by his formidable legal team. The past is the past. And questions about your, shall we say…extra-curricular activities raise suspicions about the identity of the child’s father.
That slur, above all, had been hard to swallow.
How furious Alessandro’s stepmother would have been if she’d known Carys hadn’t accepted her word. Instead she’d left numerous messages on Alessandro’s private phone and sent emails, even a hand-written letter. She’d been so desperate for personal contact.
Only after months of deliberate, deafening silence had she finally accepted he wanted nothing to do with either her or her unborn child. Then she’d determined to turn her back on the past and start afresh, not even considering a legal bid to win child support. Leo was better off without a father like that.
Yet now it seemed Alessandro hadn’t known about her pregnancy.
Her breath jammed in her throat. All this time he hadn’t known!
He hadn’t rejected Leo at all.
Nor was he married.
Her head spun, trying to take in the implications, her emotions a whirling jumble. Once she might have believed that would change everything.