Latin Lovers: Hot-Blooded Sicilians: Valentino's Love-Child / The Sicilian Doctor's Proposal / Sicilian Millionaire, Bought Bride

“Uh, okay?” she asked, rather than said.

He took three deep breaths, letting each one out slower than the one before. Then he opened his eyes and looked at her with this Zen-like expression that was almost as weird as his babbling. “May I come in?”

“You’re asking me?” Not demanding she invite him in. Not just forging ahead, assuming he was welcome? “What’s going on, Tino?”

He didn’t answer, simply giving the room behind her a significant look.

“Oh, all right. Come in.” She stepped back.

It wasn’t the most gracious invitation she had ever extended, but she was still disoriented from falling asleep after speaking to Agata on the phone. And Tino was acting strange.

Really. Really.

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“I could use a whiskey,” he said in an odd tone. “But I will get it. You sit down.”

“You’ve only been here once before, Tino. You don’t know where I keep anything.”

His hands fisted at his sides, but then the Zen thing was back and he said in a very patient tone, “So tell me.”

She knew he wanted her back, but enough to sublimate his usually passionate nature? She would never have guessed.

“Why don’t I just get us our drinks instead?”

“You aren’t having whiskey, are you?”

She rolled her eyes. “I never drink hard spirits. You know that.”

But he’d never acted as if he thought she shouldn’t before. Though, considering how tipsy she got on a single glass of wine, perhaps his concern made a certain kind of sense. And honestly, she’d never implied she wanted to drink hard liquor before. But still. “What’s the matter with you tonight?”

“We have things to discuss.”

“We’ve done all the talking that needs doing.” For right now, anyway. She was frankly too tired and too nauseous to rehash their breakup. She was feeling week and wishing he would just hold her.

She had to get a handle on these cravings. Or she was going to do something stupid, like ask him to fulfill them.

He didn’t bother answering. He simply guided her back to the small love seat she’d been dozing on and pressed her to sit down. Bemused by his insistence on getting their beverages, she did. He then picked up her feet and turned her so that they rested on the love seat as well.

Apparently not content with that level of coddling, he tucked the throw she’d been sleeping under around her legs.

He nodded, as if in approval. “I will get our drinks now.”

He was seriously working on getting back in her good graces. But no amount of tender care could make up for his refusal to see her as nothing more than a casual lover. Why couldn’t he see that?

“If you insist on serving, I’d like a cup of tea.” Something that hopefully would settle her tummy. “There is some ginger tea in the cupboard above the kettle. That’s where you’ll find the whiskey, as well.”

An unopened bottle she had purchased in the hope that one day he would break his pattern and show enough interest in her life outside their sexual trysts to come see her.

He went to the kitchen area, nothing more than an alcove off the main living area, really. She watched him fill the kettle and flip the switch to heat the water. The domesticity of the scene tugged at her helter-skelter emotions. It was so much like something she wanted to experience all the time—for the right reasons—that stupid tears burned her eyes before she resolutely blinked them away.

He pulled down the box of tea and the bottle of whiskey from the cupboard. “I’ve never had ginger tea before.”

She had. When she’d been pregnant before. And she was one of the lucky women it helped. “It’s not something I drink often.”

He gave her an enigmatic look but said nothing as he poured his own drink and waited for her water to boil.

She didn’t ask him why he was there or what he wanted to talk about, because the answer was obvious. He wanted her back in his bed, but she’d do her best to avoid that particular conversation. “How is Gio?”

“You saw him only three days ago.”

She shrugged. “I wish I taught more days a week,” she admitted, before her brain caught up with her mouth.

“I understand.”

“You do?”

“You hold my son in deep affection.” “He’s easy to love.” “I agree.” “Urn … “

“He wishes he could see you more often, as well.”

“I know.” Only, his father did not want them to grow closer. He’d made that clear.

“I think we can rectify that problem soon enough.”

How? Was he going to up the ante of getting her back in bed by offering time with his family on a regular basis? Her rather creative and active imagination offered up a second option. One a lot less palatable.

Maybe he had decided to remarry after all. To find the paragon of Sicilian virtue he thought Gio deserved as a stepmother. Someone who would eradicate the child’s fantasies about being his favorite teacher’s son.

Faith went from weepy to annoyed in the space of a heartbeat. “I wouldn’t rush into anything if I were you.”

“And yet some things require quick action.”

“Marriage isn’t one of them.”

Surprise showed clearly on Tino’s face. “You believe I plan to marry?”

“Isn’t that the way you plan to fix your son’s desire to see me more?” Provide the little boy with a mother so he wouldn’t miss the teacher he had decided he wanted in that capacity.

“It is, in fact.”

Despite everything—knowing how he felt, knowing that he did not want her in his life like that—at Tino’s words, unpleasant shock coursed through Faith. Somewhere deep inside, she had believed he would not go that far.

Her stomach tightened in a now familiar warning and she shot to her feet, kicking the lap blanket away. When she reached the commode, she retched. Though, since she had not been hungry earlier, she did nothing but dry heave. It hurt and it scared her. Though she knew that the cramps were in her stomach and not her womb, a tiny part of her brain kept saying it was one and the same.

Tino had come into the small room with her and she could hear water running, but she couldn’t look up long enough to see what he was doing. Then a cold, damp cloth draped the nape of her neck while another one was pressed gently to her forehead. Tino rubbed her back in a soothing circular motion, crooning to her in Italian.

The heaving stopped and she found herself leaning sideways into his strength. He said nothing, just let her draw heat and comfort from his touch. She didn’t know how long they remained like that—him crouching around her like a protective angel—her kneeling on the floor, but eventually she moved to stand.