‘But that’s not enough, is it?’ he challenged. ‘I thought it would be, but it isn’t.’
Wretchedly Libby shook her head, though in disbelief rather than agreement. She couldn’t bear it! Not only to lose Giorgio—but Romano too! Despair as debilitating as the dizziness swept over her. What little colour she had leeched from her face.
She heard someone come in—Sophia, enquiring how she was. Heard Romano dismiss her with reassuring though concise authority.
His attention, drawn away from her for only a second, returned.
‘Mamma mia!’ Anxiously he caught her to him, the strong planes and angles of his face racked with concern. ‘What is it? What’s wrong? I’d better call for a doctor.’
‘No. It’s nothing.’ How could she tell him now?
‘You fainted! You’re unwell. You could be anaemic or something. You’ve been looking pale for days. It isn’t only the strain of entering into marriage with me, is it? Let me help you. For heaven’s sake, cara! Tell me what’s wrong!’
He looked so pinched with worry that she couldn’t bear it any longer.
‘I’ve already been to the doctor, Romano. Everything’s fine. I’m not ill or anything. I had a particularly bad bout of sickness this morning. It happens. But it’s supposed to get better in a month or two.’
‘A month…’ The line between his dark brows deepened. ‘Santo cielo!’ He struck a glancing blow off his forehead. ‘Carissima…’ His whispered endearment made her ache with the longing for him to mean it. ‘Are you trying to tell me you’re…pregnant?’
Tears swam in her eyes as she nodded. This wasn’t how she had planned to tell him. She had wanted it to be with champagne and candles—with romantic music playing. Not still in her wedding dress, propped up in an undignified heap, looking more like the Bride of Dracula than the blushing variety, listening to her new husband telling her that it had all been a mistake.
‘Don’t worry,’ she murmured, ‘I won’t hold you to any lasting commitment.’ He clearly didn’t want that, did he? Any more than he thought she did. For what other reason would he be so ready to let her go? ‘This doesn’t have to change anything.’
‘It changes everything. For heaven’s sake, Libby! We’ve created a child! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’
Her pale features, tilted to his, were lined with anguish. How could he ask that? ‘It means everything to me.’
‘Then what are you trying to do to yourself? To us?’
‘There isn’t any “us”. You just said so yourself.’
‘Only because you’re refusing to let there be.’
‘What else am I supposed to do when I know you wouldn’t be marrying me if I wasn’t Giorgio’s mother? When all I am to you is the most convenient person to have as your wife?’
‘What?’ It seemed to shudder through him on a mirthless laugh. ‘Where on earth did you get that notion from?’
‘It’s true, isn’t it?’
He whispered something short and crude under his breath. ‘You aren’t serious?’ The black hair moved as he shook his head as though to clear it. ‘I can’t believe you’re actually asking me this!’
‘Why not? I tried to fool myself into believing that you were marrying me for myself. That somehow I’d broken through all your prejudices about me, and that you finally…liked me…’ she couldn’t bring herself to say ‘love’ ‘…even half as much as I liked you. But you don’t—and it serves me right for being so thick-headed and conceited as to imagine you ever could!’ She was ashamed and humiliated to realise that she was actually crying now.
‘Carissima…’ Those strong, possessive arms were gathering her more closely to him. ‘Mia Libby. Amore…’
‘Don’t…’ She couldn’t bear it! Couldn’t take those whispered words of love and all that they were doing to her when he clearly didn’t mean them. ‘Don’t try to pretend, Romano. Please….’ Reluctantly she struggled against his hard embrace, sitting up as he released her. ‘I know.’
‘Know what?’
‘Why you feel the way you do, scared to love. Unable to trust women. I know about your childhood. How your own mother didn’t want you.’
Hard lines crossed the handsome face. ‘How? Who told you?’
‘Sophia.’
Puzzlement darkened his incredible eyes. ‘Sophia?’
‘Only because I asked her. Because I heard you in the study last night. You were angry—shouting something about not being her son.’
Beneath the pristine jacket Libby felt his hard body tense rigid.
‘Why didn’t you ever tell me?’ she pressed gently and added what had puzzled her since the early hours when she’d been lying there awake, ‘Why didn’t Luca?’
Romano made a sound down his nostrils. ‘Because it doesn’t make for a very pretty story,’ he grimaced. ‘Apart from which, Luca didn’t know. I didn’t find out myself until I was fifteen years old.’
‘How?’
‘Sophia told me herself after I’d found the paperwork relating to my…circumstances.’ She could tell from the taut cast of his features how much it pained him to remember. ‘I used to wonder why she couldn’t show me the same degree of affection she showed my brother. Half-brother,’ he amended drily. She knew it rubbed against some raw wound to be opening up to her like this. ‘When I was a child I used to think I’d done something wrong. I could never seem to win her approval no matter how hard I tried. It wasn’t until Luca died that it really all came pouring out. All the grief and resentment. The whole bitter, sordid truth.
‘That day I confronted her about what she had done to you, she told me that after Luca died she intended to leave my father. That it was only his promise to secure her grandson for her that had persuaded her to stay. That was why he issued that threat against your father—although she denied any part in that. Because he was so desperate to keep Sophia with him. Desperate to make amends for all the years she had been forced to care for me.’
So it was the act of a man driven by love, Libby decided, trying not to dwell on the pain it had cost her. Even so, that hadn’t made it right.
‘When you collapsed out there you made me see that all I was doing was behaving exactly like my father. I was determined to get you to marry me and in the only way it seems the Vincenzo men know how to get what they want—through bullying and blackmail. By letting you believe I wouldn’t allow you to see Giorgio again if you didn’t. Putting my own desires first, regardless of what you wanted.’
‘For Giorgio’s sake? Because of the way you’d suffered?’ It was a magnanimous gesture. After all, it was her son he was making such a huge sacrifice for, but she wanted to be more to him than just his nephew’s mother and a convenient wife. ‘Is that why you’re prepared to settle down with someone you don’t love?’ And when he frowned—because of course he didn’t know, did he?—miserably she said, ‘That wasn’t the only thing I heard you telling Sophia last night.’
‘What did you hear?’ he asked in a voice so low that she couldn’t tell whether it was shock or anger from realising that she’d been listening to the whole conversation with his stepmother that made it sound so weighted with emotion.
‘You telling Sophia that you didn’t love me. That you were only marrying me because of Giorgio. And don’t try to tell me I didn’t interpret it correctly,’ she warned, ‘because my Italian’s improved no end since I’ve been back here and the way you speak it is textbook perfect. You said you only had Giorgio’s interests at heart and to hell with everyone else.’
Surprisingly he smiled then, a glimmer of sunlight behind a veil of clouds before his eyes darkened again with almost tortured emotion.
‘I meant to hell with everyone who would oppose my marriage to you. Not you, amore. Have my family hurt you so irreparably that you can’t see when one of its members is so crazy about you that he’ll do anything—even rip his own heart out, because that’s what it would mean to let you go if you really feel there’s no hope for us—to m
ake you his?’
‘You…’ love me, she almost said, but didn’t trust herself to. ‘But you haven’t exactly been over-abundant with your affection,’ she pointed out, unable to comprehend what he seemed to be saying. ‘And after that first time we made love, you didn’t even try to touch me again. Not until that night you proposed.’
‘Because you asked me not to,’ he reminded her gently, although it had taken all the will-power he possessed to do as she had asked, when all he had wanted to do was to declare how she made him feel and have her sobbing beneath him as he took her through the gates of paradise and back again. ‘You’d also made it very clear that you didn’t want commitment. I didn’t want to do anything that would have driven you away from me.’ How else could he have got her to respect him? Trust him enough to be able to ask her to be his wife, as he had determined she would be—eventually?
‘Only because I was already in love with you. I was afraid of what having an affair with you might cost me—not only emotionally—but also with regard to Giorgio when you got tired of me and wanted to break it off.’
‘Tired of you?’ He laughed and, catching her hand, pressed it tenderly to his lips. ‘That’s about as likely to happen as waking up in the middle of another ice age tomorrow. I love you, amore. I think I’ve loved you from the moment I first saw you standing there in the castle with those beautiful eyes proudly defying me to find fault with you.’
Surprise lifted Libby’s finely arched brows. ‘But you were so supercilious! And sometimes you were downright awful to me! It hurt so much because I respected you—even though I didn’t want to—and yet you didn’t even appear to like me.’
‘I know,’ he murmured in self-deprecation. ‘But I was in constant turmoil over the way I felt. I thought you were out for all you could get, and yet you bewitched me in spite of it. I despised you for that as much as for everything else, and for making me despise myself as well. When I thought you’d lived up to my expectations in being no good and therefore wrong for Luca, it helped to ease the guilt I felt about wanting my brother’s wife. When we met again this time, I couldn’t believe how strong the attraction still was after all I thought you’d done. I wanted you and I despised you. For the way you’d treated Luca. Giorgio. Only being interested in money—as I thought. But gradually you made me see how wrong I’d been—on every count—and I wanted you more than ever. I didn’t really understand how deeply I felt until I thought you weren’t coming—weren’t going to go through with this wedding today. It nearly drove me demented. I just didn’t dream for one moment that you could ever care about me.’
‘Then…you really do love me?’ Her tortured expression was beginning to fade, replaced by tears of incredulity.
‘Do you think I’d take such a risk on my lifelong happiness by marrying someone I didn’t? Risk Giorgio’s well-being by having him subjected to the rows and resentments of two people who shouldn’t be—don’t want to be—together?’ The like of which he had experienced through his own childhood, although he wasn’t saying that.
‘But when I told you how I felt—the day you brought me here after that awful interview,’ she reminded him, still having difficulty taking it all in, ‘you seemed embarrassed almost, as though it was the last thing you wanted to hear.’
‘Because it was what I wanted from you…so much. But you’d put up so much resistance to my proposal, I couldn’t believe that it wasn’t just sex talking.’
‘Oh, Romano…’
‘You must admit, amore, that there is no passion that burns as fiercely as ours.’
Colour crept back into her pale cheeks as she thought about it.
‘And when you looked so unhappy out there today I was convinced you didn’t want to be here. You’ve looked pale and strained almost from the day I proposed.’
‘Because I was already pregnant, although I didn’t know it at the time and all my symptoms seemed to kick in around then.’
‘Ah, carissima…’ He laid a hand tenderly over the silken-sheathed plane of her stomach. ‘I would not have known.’
His hand was warm through the flimsy dress, bringing her lashes down to hide the pleasure it stirred in her. ‘No, I wanted to surprise you.’
His strong teeth gleamed white as he laughed. ‘Well, you have certainly done that. And now, Señora Romano Vincenzo…’ the way he stressed his own name emphasised her marital connection to him this time and him alone ‘…you will start to rest and take care of yourself and promise to behave as I require a pregnant wife of mine to behave and allow herself to be fully and shamefully pampered.’
Libby laughed too now. She was already beginning to feel better. More soberly she glanced down at the shining gold band on her finger that was a symbol of their love. ‘Did we actually manage to complete the wedding ceremony?’ Concern etched her slim features as it suddenly occurred to her. ‘Are we actually married?’
‘Very much so,’ Romano breathed, sounding immensely satisfied. ‘You passed out just as I was being invited to kiss my bride. If you don’t believe me, you’ll have to watch the video footage.’
As she had had to do to try and catch up on her own child’s life.
‘I’m always missing out on the most important and significant things in my life,’ she objected, berating herself for it.
‘Not any more.’ He smiled. ‘From now on, carissima, you’re going to be around and awake to enjoy every minute we spend together. Starting from this very second. And now, if you feel up to it, I think we’d better let our guests see that what I was about to give you wasn’t actually the kiss of death but a sealing of our new life together. Our baby’s life…’
The warmth of his hand over her middle again brought her yearning towards him as he kissed her, Giorgio running in finally broke them apart.
Without a thought for the exclusive dress, he was clambering up onto Libby’s lap, saying in his breathlessly excited way, ‘I was scared, but Nonna said you weren’t ill, and that I would have to take care of you.’ And, seeing that everything appeared to be in order, he asked eagerly, ‘Are you really married to Zio?’
Libby exchanged a smile with Romano. ‘Yes, Giorgi.’
‘Then can I have a new baby brother? Please?’
Libby and Romano exchanged glances again, their shared secret concealed behind conspiratorial smiles.
‘I’ll do my best, Giorgi,’ Romano drawled, sending little frissons through Libby from the prospect of what he really meant. And as they watched the child scramble down again and scamper away, because all the excitement and goings on outside were just too much to resist, laughing, Romano dipped his head and gently kissed her again.
‘For our new life together,’ he murmured. ‘And our children’s.’
EPILOGUE
PLACING little baby Angelina in her cot, Libby reflected over the past year and decided that she could never have imagined such happiness.
Romano and Giorgio had made her life perfect, and when her baby decided it was time to complete the happy circle Romano hadn’t left her side from the start of her contractions until his little daughter popped her head out and declared to the world with a surprisingly strong set of lungs that she had arrived.
Giorgio was thrilled with his new little sister and all his problems had dissolved in the secure knowledge of his mother’s and Romano’s love for him—as well as for each other. In fact, Libby thought proudly now, his school appraisals at the end of the last term had reported that in several of his subjects he was actually top of his class.
As for Sophia, things had remained a little awkward between her and Libby until the moment that Libby had placed tiny Angelina Vincenzo into her arms.
‘She’ll need her Nonna—very badly,’ Libby had whispered on seeing the tears well up into her stepmother-in-law’s eyes. ‘Especially when she runs to you if I refuse to let her have all her own way.’
‘You’re very forgiving,’ Romano had remarked a few days later when they left the castle to fly back to Capri. H
e couldn’t believe how devoid of bitterness she was. How ready to share her joy and happiness even with those who had hurt her so badly. ‘It’s a special gift you have,’ he’d said.
She’d given one of her embarrassed little shrugs. ‘She didn’t have the second chance we did—or the love we share,’ she remembered responding.
And now, as she heard his familiar tread on the marble stairs, turned and met the love in his eyes over the bouquet of red roses he was carrying to celebrate their first wedding anniversary, she returned his smile with her heart swelling in response, and knew that that was the greatest gift of all.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-2038-0
BLACKMAILED FOR HER BABY
First North American Publication 2008.
Copyright © 2008 by Elizabeth Power.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Blackmailed For Her Baby (Bought For Her Baby Series Book 4) Page 18
