‘No, that’s not necessary. It’s Elletra’s mess and she needs to clean it up,’ Micha replied, not unkindly, but firmly.
‘But I don’t want her to be grounded all summer. And the others will be here soon,’ he said, his voice concerned.
‘Is she really going to be grounded?’ Elisabetta, their youngest at twelve, piped up from behind Micha where she was making daisy chains.
Micha turned to take in the light halo of rich curls on her head.
‘Not if she cleans her room,’ he said, reaching to sweep her up into his arms and tickle her sides, sending her into a riot of giggles as Emilio looked on, wanting to join in, but struggling with being the young man he was feeling his way into. Micha pulled him into the fray and the three of them were a jumble of limbs and laughs and kisses.
‘You started without me,’ Maria complained as she collapsed onto the ground to join them, Elisabetta climbing from Micha onto her mother, her long limbs angular and pointy as Micha took an elbow to the gut that made both Maria and Emilio laugh.
‘Where’s Elletra?’ Elisabetta asked.
‘Tidying her room,’ Maria growled gently.
Emilio rolled away and Micha propped himself up on one arm, taking in his beautiful wife. Not one day had gone by where he hadn’t realised how lucky he was. They’d spent too much time apart, he’d missed out on too much and he’d vowed that he would never miss another moment as long as they lived. He loved her with the kind of adoration that he thought might have lessened with time, but instead it had only grown.
‘Don’t look at me like that in front of the kids,’ Maria whispered as she planted a frustratingly chaste kiss against his lips.
‘Why not?’ he asked. ‘I want another.’
Maria’s eyes widened with shock, her gasp a punch of air against his mouth.
‘What?’ Maria said, becoming very still.
‘Yes, Antonio and Ivy have four, Erin and Enzo also have four. We need another.’
‘It’s not a competition, Micha,’ she said, slapping him on the arm.
‘I know that. I just… I want four,’ he said with a careless shrug.
‘Our first just put three more grey hairs on my head. Are you sure you want another? Now?’ Maria demanded.
‘You’re so sexy when you’re pregnant,mi amore,’ he whispered, reaching his hand out to stroke across her stomach.
‘Sweet talk will get you nowhere, Micha,’ she warned.
The sound of a car on the gravel drive at the front of the house made the kids scatter, running full pelt to greet their cousins. Whether it was Enzo’s brood or Antonio’s, it didn’t matter. The cousins ranging in age from six to sixteen had nicknamed themselves the Musketeers.
‘Okay. How aboutdirtytalk?’ he asked, cutting off the squeal of her laughing shock with a kiss that told her he was deadly serious.
Micha pulled Maria over him and stared up at his incredible wife. Her capacity to laugh and to love had always inspired him, and he loved her with a fierceness that surprised him even now. He swept back the curtain of curls that had fallen across her face.
‘Youareserious,’ she realised with a half smile that distracted him for a moment.
‘Absolutely.’
Maria let out an exasperated sigh that kind of surprised him. Of course, this would absolutely be her decision and he would never want her to do something she didn’t want to do. But the thing about the love he felt for her and their children, it was exponential. It never ran out. It just kept increasing and it never filled him completely or stopped because there was just more and more space until it filled everything around them. He’d not quite ever imagined it that way, but it was how it worked for him, for her, for their family. The one they had created despite the difficult personalities in the Gallo clan.
After his marriage to Maria and the challenge her father had tried to mount with Gallo Group, he and Antonio had sat down together, without their wives, and talked properly for the first time since he’d been sent to Paris.
He’d realised in the course of that conversation that he hadn’t just lost Maria, but he’d also lost Antonio, who had been acting in defence of Maria. Misunderstandings and miscommunications, furthered by Gio’s agenda to see the two cousins together, had kept them apart and it had taken a while to get back into the firm friendship they’d once had as youngsters. And Enzo and Erin had soon become part of their group.
‘Of course if you don’t want to—’
His words stopped when she slapped him a little harder than necessary on the arm.
‘What was that for?’ he asked, rubbing his arm.
