The Arranged Marriage Read Online Free PDF Page B

catch these disgusting things?”
    Gina nodded, keeping her composure very calm for her son’s sake. “To Marco, it’s a great game. His uncle organises toad races for tourists. He gives them names like Fat Freddo, Forest Lump, Prince Charming...”
    “Prince Charming?” Alex cocked an eyebrow at her, his tone amused, although there was no amusement in his eyes, more a wry appreciation of the distraction she was offering. Anger at the ugly scene simmered behind it.
    Gina forced a smile at him, grateful for his help in easing the tension and the shock for Marco. “What’s more...” she went on, determined on giving her son more recovery time, “...if Prince Charming wins the race and it’s been bought to win by a woman, he tries to chat the woman into kissing it.”
    “Kiss a toad?” Michelle gagged at the thought.
    “It causes great hilarity amongst the spectators. They enjoy the mad fun of it. No one has to go through with the kissing but some do, getting their friends or family to video it so the story will be believed when they go home,” Gina patiently explained.
    “I’ll bet it makes a great story,” Alex chimed in, sealing her account with pointed approval, then turning to deal more directly with his fiancée. “It’s all a matter of perspective, Michelle.”
    “Ugh!” was her jeering response. “If you don’t mind...” She tore her wrist out of his hold. “...I’m going to wash the slime off my arm.”
    She swung on her heel and with a haughty disdain of every effort to rescue the situation, marched off to the closest rest room. Her snubbing departure left a silence loaded with spine-crawling embarrassment. Gina glanced quickly at Marco who looked as if he was still teetering on the point of bursting into tears, despite the soothing-down process.
    Alex moved to crouch in front of him. “Hey, Marco! How about we go look in the fish pond,” he suggested cheerfully.
    “Fish?” her little son repeated on a slight wobble.
    “Yep. Big red ones, gold ones, spotted ones. Let’s count them and see how many there are.” He plucked Marco out of his grandmother’s protective hold, swung him up in the air and perched him on his chest so they were face-to-face. “Can you count?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows as though in doubt.
    “Yes.” Marco nodded gravely as he counted, “One, two, four, ten...”
    “Good! Then off we go to the fish pond. If your mother permits?”
    They both turned to Gina. She was momentarily transfixed by the burning need to make reparation being transmitted by Alex King’s vivid blue eyes. The intensity of feeling bored straight into her heart, forging an even stronger connection between them.
    “Mama?”
    The hopeful appeal from Marco forced her attention to him. The threat of tears had been effectively wiped out with the exciting flush of further achievement to be pursued.
    “Yes, you may go,” she said, submitting to the need of the man and the moment, though she wasn’t at all sure this was the best action to take.
    She watched Alex King carry her son away on a new adventure, grateful for his initiative in one sense, yet feeling hopelessly ambivalent about where this was leading. She wanted to believe...all sorts of wild things...yet surely the better solution would have been for her and Marco to leave, allowing these people to sort out their differences in private. Being the meat in their sandwich was not a happy place.
    “Alessandro has a fine affinity with children,” Isabella assured her, intent on dispelling any worries she might have. “He looked after his younger brothers well when they were little boys.”
    Realising she was still standing, Gina dropped back onto her chair to show she accepted Isabella’s assurance that Marco was safe with Alex. That wasn’t the problem.
    “He’s very kind,” she replied, pasting a smile over her inner turbulence.
    Michelle’s rage had been defused but the memory of it was not about to miraculously lift. She