Convenient Brides: The Italian's Convenient Wife / His Inconvenient Wife / His Convenient Proposal. Catherine Spencer
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His shrug spoke volumes. But she was a devil for punishment, and couldn’t let go gracefully. “But not for you?”
“The world is full of beautiful women, Caroline,” he said cheerfully. “How can I be expected to choose just one?”
“Do you even believe in love?”
“But of course! I love women—all women.” He smiled his charming, devil-may-care smile. “I am Italian. I love love!”
She tried to smile back, and started to cry instead as all her hopes went up in smoke. “I thought I was special, but I’m just the latest in a long line of willing conquests, aren’t I?”
“Don’t do this, cara,” he said, rolling his magnificent brown eyes. “Don’t spoil our glorious time together with tears and recriminations.”
“I suppose I should be flattered you spared me one whole night. Silly me, to have thought it was the beginning of something lasting, something b…beautiful!”
“Ah, Caroline…!” Briefly he touched her face and let his fingers linger almost regretfully at her mouth, before stepping firmly away. “You see your world through rose-colored spectacles, cara mia, whereas I learned long ago that mine is painted in ugly shades of gray.”
If she hadn’t known then that she meant nothing to him, he drove the point home a few days later. On the Thursday before they were to fly back to the U.S., Callie and her mother stayed overnight in Rome, with the Raineros. The next morning, just as they stepped out to the street where a taxi waited to take them to the airport, Paolo drove up in a fire-red Ferrari.
He had a woman with him; a sultry, voluptuous, darkhaired beauty in a skimpy top and a thigh-high skirt, who sat so close beside him that she was practically in his lap. But when he went to kiss her, she laughed, pulled away and rolled her tongue provocatively over her full, red upper lip.
Suddenly Callie saw herself through his eyes—a pathetically naive girl with a bad case of puppy love. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to continue their affair. He liked his women sophisticated, sure of themselves and elusive. The more difficult the chase, the better he liked it.
She was so far out of her league, it was laughable. Rather than being the object of his desire, she’d been an amusing bit player. Someone to laugh about with his male friends. A convenient and willing body to keep him entertained until a better prospect showed up.
If only it could have ended then, with her humiliation complete, her heart in pieces, but her future, at least, intact. But he was not to be so easily dismissed. A month later, she discovered she was pregnant, and all that bright and shining opportunity she’d thought was hers for the taking, lay in shambles.
There would be no Smith College, no graduation summa cum laude. She had let down all the people who believed in her: her mother, who’d been so proud of her scholastic achievements; the board of governors at her private school, who’d awarded her their highest scholarship prize; her headmistress, who’d written such a glowing letter of recommendation to the college on her behalf.
And Vanessa.
“You’re what?” she exclaimed, after Callie confided in her sister. Their mother was away at the time, visiting a cousin in Florida, but Vanessa and Ermanno were in New York on the first leg of their year-long honeymoon-cum-business tour, and drove up to spend the weekend with Callie, who’d stayed home. “Good grief, Callie, I didn’t know you were seeing somebody. Have you told Mom?”
“No. I found out just before she left for Florida. She’d have canceled the trip if she’d known.”
Still reeling, Vanessa said, “I can’t believe it! You always claimed you didn’t have time for a steady boyfriend. When…who?”
It had taken all Callie’s courage to mumble, “Your brother-in-law. The day you got married.”
“Paolo?” Vanessa clapped a hand to her mouth, aghast. “My God, Ermanno will kill him!”
“Ermanno can’t know. Don’t tell him, please!” Callie begged.
But Vanessa stood firm. “I’m not keeping a secret like this from my husband. He has a right to know.”
Outraged when he heard, Ermanno’s first reaction was that he’d see to it Paolo did the honorable thing and married Callie.
She flatly refused to consider the idea. “I’m not compounding one grievous mistake with another. Marriage is out of the question, even if you could drag Paolo to the altar, which I highly doubt.”
“I’m afraid you’re right,” Ermanno said, after a moment’s reflection. “The last thing you need is a husband incapable of fidelity. We must find another solution, one which will keep this shameful secret from my father. It would destroy him, to learn that his favorite son has disgraced our family in such a way.”
He spoke without rancor, and when Callie remarked on it, shrugged philosophically and said, “I accepted long ago that, in my father’s eyes, Paolo is the golden boy who can do no wrong. I’m not saying my father doesn’t love me, too, but my brother…it’s different with him, and that’s just the way it is.”
“Your father sometimes doesn’t use the sense he was born with,” Vanessa declared, planting a loving kiss on her husband’s cheek. “But I, thank goodness, do!” Then, turning to Callie, she said, “We’ll figure out a way to help you, honey. I take it you’ve seen a doctor?”
“Yes. He pointed out my choices—abortion, adoption or keeping the baby.”
“And?” Vanessa eyed her anxiously.
“I can’t terminate the pregnancy. I couldn’t live with myself, if I did.”
Visibly relieved, her sister asked, “What about adoption?”
“Oh, Vanessa!” Callie’s eyes overflowed again. “I don’t think I could go through with that, either. Giving my baby away to strangers—” She stopped to mop her tears. “I’m so ashamed. How am I ever going to face Mom.”
“Never mind the shame,” Vanessa declared. “The point is, pregnancy isn’t something you can keep secret for very long. Soon, everyone will know, including Mom.”
“No! I could move away. Get a job. Save my money—”
“There is no need to worry about money,” Ermanno said quietly. “That is one thing I can do something about.”
“And you have to tell Mom, Callie. She’ll be shocked, of course, but you know she’ll stand by you. Maybe, with her help, you’ll be able to keep the baby.”
“I don’t think I can stand to see the disappointment in her eyes,” Callie said miserably.
As it turned out, she didn’t have to. Tragically, on the drive home from Florida, their mother was killed in a headon collision in North Carolina. She never knew she was about to become a grandmother.
The hot splash of tears on her face drew Callie back to the present—that, and Paolo’s voice, low and concerned, observing, “What did I say to make you cry, Caroline?”
“You asked me why I didn’t go to Smith,” she said, swiping her fingers over her cheeks. “If you must know, it was because of my mother’s death.”
How plausibly the lie rolled off her tongue! Accepting it without hesitation, he said, “Ah, yes! I remember now that she died not long after Ermanno married Vanessa.”
“That same summer. My father left us when I was six and Vanessa eleven, so for most of my life it had been just my mother, my sister and I. Then, in the space of two months, I was alone.”
Except for your babies, of course!
That had been the next shock to hit her.
“Definitely