‘I told you about my early years and the secrets I was expected to keep,’ he began slowly, but her eyes had narrowed in surprise, as if this were not the opening she had been expecting. ‘About learning how to compartmentalise my feelings and my emotions. Believe me, if you do that often enough, you can shut them away entirely and I became very good at it. But there were plenty of other lessons which my childhood taught me. I learnt that men and women play games with each other, and that love is a lie. Those were my core beliefs, Flora—and it was very hard to shift them. Indeed, I saw no reason ever to do so.’ If she noticed his change of tense, she did not comment on it. ‘And then came that night with you in Scotland. The best night of my life,’ he added quietly. ‘At least, until you came out to Milan—’
‘Don’t you dare start coming out with a load of old blarney just because you’re sexually frustrated!’ she bit out and he was relieved to see some of her brittleness waver.
‘Do you really think it’s that simple?’ he demanded. ‘If this was just about sex, don’t you think I could have flicked through my address book and found a myriad of possibilities to help me ease it?’
‘How dare you say such things to me?’
‘Why, does it make you jealous, Flora?’
She stilled and tilted her chin. ‘I told you… I’m not going to obey your verbal prompts.’
‘I spent a pretty miserable skiing holiday that Christmas,’ he admitted bleakly. ‘Marco and Alessio kept asking me what was wrong and the last thing I wanted to admit—to them, or to myself—was that I couldn’t stop thinking about you. When I found out you were pregnant I was…’
‘What?’ she questioned, seeming to forget her vow not to prompt him.
Vito’s jaw tightened. This part was more difficult. He wasn’t going to lie in order to make her feel better, because he suspected she would see right through it. And if he was to have any kind of chance with her, she needed to trust that he would only ever tell her the truth—no matter how painful that might be.
‘Scared,’ he said, in as frank an admission as he’d ever made. ‘My own experience of family life had been hell on earth and I was terrified of recreating that toxic environment. I convinced myself that you and the baby would be better off without me, but what I hadn’t factored in was the inexplicable truth…’ He stared into her extraordinary eyes. ‘Which was that somewhere along the way—without my permission, or even my comprehension…’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘I had fallen in love with you.’
He thought that any other woman—suddenly secure in the knowledge of how much he cared for her—would have thrown themselves into his arms, rather than increasing his uncertainty with their continued silence. He thought about what best to do. What did they call it? Grovelling. Yes, that was it. Some of his friends had told him they’d been forced to do it before a woman would consent to marry them, but he’d never imagined himself joining their number. He searched her expression for some reprieve but seeing none, was forced to press on.
‘When I came to find you in Ealing, I thought the reason I was so insistent you return to Milan with me was to ensure you and my unborn child were safe and that I was doing the right thing for you both. Which was true. But there was an undeniable element of victory there too. I was triumphant to have got my own way, because I like to win.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Yet ironically, it wasn’t until you had left Milan that I realised I was no winner. In fact, I was losing the only thing that mattered. Which was you. Is you. Only you and always you, Flora.’ He swallowed, the words making his throat constrict. ‘If you would have me.’
Still she said nothing and now their eyes were on a collision course, her green-gold gaze burning into him, like fire.
‘Will you have me, Flora?’ he questioned brokenly. ‘Could you love me too, after everything that I have done, or failed to do?’
Maybe Flora should have made him wait some more. Should have taken a moment to revel in this new and shining realisation of her own feminine power and the fact that he loved her. But the urgency of her answer was as vital to her own well-being as drawing in the next breath of air. She didn’t underestimate what it had taken for a man like Vito Monticello to reveal these things to her. For a buttoned-up man who mistrusted emotion, it was about as big a deal as you could get.
‘I’ve loved you for a long time, Vito,’ she answered quietly. ‘To be honest, I don’t think it’s in my power to stop loving you.’
‘Then you must marry me,’ he commanded, a low growl of exultation rumbling from him, as he pulled her into his arms.
‘Oh, yes,’ she whispered. ‘Hell, yes.’
And despite the fact that they were in broad daylight, standing in the middle of the park, Vito’s mouth was on hers and he was kissing her like a man who’d never kissed before. In fact, people had stopped to stare at them, prompting Vito to lace his fingers with hers to take her back home, where she discovered he’d given Susan the rest of the day off.
‘Do you really think it’s your place to mess with my staff?’ she teased him.
‘Why? Is there something else you’d like me to mess with?’ he murmured.
They were both breathless by the time they reached the bedroom, to a vast bed which had only ever been occupied by one person. Vito’s fingers were almost reverential as he peeled off the gentian dress and the look in his eyes as he drank in her fecund nakedness made Flora’s heart turn over with love and longing. And then it was her turn to undress him, her fingers fumbling with her eagerness to have him close again.
And there, in a room filled with rich sunshine which warmed their skin and turned it to gold, Vito pulled her into his arms, and Flora knew this was the beginning of the rest of their lives.
EPILOGUE
THE BEACH WAS SILVER, long and very beautiful.
It was also very private, which was one of the reasons they’d chosen it.
Neither Flora nor even the much-travelled Vito had ever been to Australia before, thus making it the perfect place for a honeymoon, albeit a very delayed one. Because although babymoons had their place—a holiday was much more fun when you weren’t pregnant.
Mind you, thought Flora as she let out a sigh of satisfaction, and surveyed the sleeping profile of her husband, she sometimes thought she could have been incarcerated in a coal shed with Vito Monticello and she would have been happy.
Everything he did made her happy.
As she did him. Or so he told her.
