‘I never stopped loving you, Amy. I understand now that when you pushed me away you were in an impossible position, all alone. And my response was to block your calls. I’m disgusted with myself.’ The ring of truth in his voice made her eyes fill. ‘You are brave and strong and never let me get away with a thing. I have been lying to myself about my feelings for you for the past nine years, because I couldn’t own the pain, the hurt. I never stopped hurting after I lost you.’
She sniffled and he brushed a tear from her cheek. ‘Please tell me that this means you’re happy?’
‘I am, of course I am, but this can’t work,’ she said sadly. ‘If I lose this baby,’ she said, pressing her hands protectively over her belly. ‘And it could happen—’
‘If it does, there will be no more babies. You will not risk yourself. I will not permit it. If I lost you, I would never recover! And I never want to relive that moment when I saw you lying on the floor.’ He shuddered.
‘But your grandfather wants an heir. I don’t want to come between you and him.’
‘He has me,’ Leo declared, looking and sounding every inch the Italian autocrat. ‘If that is not enough for him, he can reproduce himself! The only thing that matters to me is being enough for you,cara.’
Tears spilling down her face, she nodded and held out her arms. ‘You are very much enough for me, Leo.’ A flicker of a smile curved her lips upwards. ‘In fact, there are times when you are too much for me.’
He kissed her as though she were made of precious glass, gentle but with the sort of tender emotion that made fresh tears spring to her eyes.
‘None of this seems real,’ she said, taking his big hands between her smaller ones. ‘This is so crazy—I’m lying in a hospital bed, terrified more than I can explain, and yet I’m also insanely happy because I love you, Leo. I don’t have the words to tell you just how much.’
‘We will get through this together, my love, and you never need be afraid again, or alone.’
Epilogue
Leo, who hadbeen walking up and down the library with the pushchair, stopped when Amy appeared in a rustle of silk with the photographer in tow. He stopped dead, a look of awe spreading across his face.
‘Leo!’ She performed a graceful twirl.
‘You look beautiful…’ He took a deep breath and stepped back, bowing at the waist in homage to the figure in ivory silk.
‘Isn’t it bad luck for you to see me in the dress before the wedding? Actually, you don’t look bad yourself.’ That had to be the understatement of the century.
‘That dress has been hanging in our bedroom for the past two weeks.’
‘Good point,’ she conceded, her nose wrinkling critically as she squinted at her reflection in the full-length mirror. ‘You don’t think it’s a bit too tight still up top?’ she queried, pressing her hands to her chest. ‘I know it’s already been let out, but the feeding is making me a bit…’
She tiptoed across to the pushchair. ‘Is she asleep?’
‘See for yourself.’
A big pair of golden-brown eyes looked up at her. ‘You know she’s bound to bawl during the service, but then I suppose without her we might not be getting married.’
Leo frowned. ‘Are you suggesting I only proposed to you because of our spectacularly beautiful daughter, our miracle baby?’
‘Of course not!’
‘Or that you said yes because of her?’
‘No, I said yes because…’ She gave a contented sigh and rubbed her hand lovingly across his lean cheek. ‘I love you, Leo,’ she said huskily. ‘This…us, everything…it all seems like a lovely dream sometimes.’
Leo glanced across at the photographer, who was scrolling through the photos on his camera, oblivious to their conversation.
‘And to answer your question, it is perfectup top,as you so quaintly phrase it, and in every other place too, as are you,cara.’
As Leo leant in and whispered in her ear she flushed and angled a warning glance in the direction of the photographer, who was still engrossed in what he was doing.
Leo rolled his eyes and muttered, ‘He’s in a world of his own.’ before raising his voice. ‘So how did it go? Lawrence?’
The photographer looked up with a vague expression. ‘Sorry?’
‘How did the shoot go? Is it in the bag now?’
