And with a gentle, lingering kiss, he left her, feeling just a teeny bit like Alice falling down the rabbit hole…
‘So—what do you need?’
Isabelle shrugged and laughed a little wildly. ‘I have no idea. You tell me. I’m quite happy to go with what I’ve got.’
‘What have you got?’
She shrugged again, running a mental eye over her wardrobe. Not that she needed to, it was sparse enough to see with one quick glance. ‘I’ve got a nice dress that I feel good in. And a couple of pairs of trousers that are quite smart, and some pretty tops. How cold is it in your parents’ house?’
‘Not cold, but it can get draughty. You’ll need jumpers, perhaps a couple of little jackets? And more than one dress. We may be invited out, and we’ll go for lunch, maybe go out for dinner. You’ll need quite a few changes for all that.’
She thought of her lovely little dress, and sighed. ‘Luca, I really don’t see the point. I am what I am.’
‘Of course you are, and I don’t want anybody to think anything else, but I don’t want you feeling under pressure because you haven’t got anything to wear. And if you have only one dress…’
‘I won’t feel under pressure. But I don’t want to go today. I’ll get something next week on my days off.’
‘No. This was my idea.’
‘Then I’m not going to Italy.’
She’d folded her arms, and she had that mulish look on her face again, the chin tilted up, the eyes flashing a challenge that did nothing except give him an overwhelming desire to take her straight to bed.
‘OK. We’ll do something else today,’ he suggested, saving the shopping trip for another day when she was feeling less combative. Maybe in Florence, if she agreed.
She hesitated, then nodded. ‘All right. Can we go out into the country and take a walk by the Thames? I love walking in the countryside and to be honest fresh air is much more appealing than trailing round stuffy shops. And yesterday was such fun.’
He gave in, knowing when he was beaten. For now. ‘Come on, then, let’s go, and we’ll have lunch somewhere in a pub by the water. Happy now?’
She smiled, her eyes softening. ‘Happy,’ she said, and his heart melted. Tucking her coat round her shoulders, he ushered her out to his car, buckled her in and set off.
They had a wonderful day. The sun shone on them, the water sparkled and they found a lovely pub right on the river for lunch.
And Luca was like he’d been in Florence, flirting with her, attentive, funny and just plain gorgeous, and she found herself falling headlong even further in love, despite her best efforts.
Would marriage to him be so bad? She didn’t know, but it was irrelevant, she told herself, because he hadn’t asked her, anyway.
Until they got back to her house, and he made her a drink and sat down beside her on the sofa and took her hand in his. ‘So, cara, have you enjoyed the weekend?’
‘You know I have. It’s been lovely.’
‘And could you see yourself spending other days like that with me? All of them?’
Her heart speeded up, and she searched his eyes. ‘What are you saying, Luca?’ she asked softly, confused and stupidly, ridiculously hopeful.
His mouth twisted into a wry smile. ‘I believe I’m asking you to marry me,’ he said gruffly. ‘Only I’m not doing it very well, if you can’t work it out. So—do you think you could? Marry me, and spend your life with me, bringing up our child? There would be all sorts of advantages—a huge family, for both of you, for a start. I know that’s something you lack, and something I could provide with bells on. There would be lots of little cousins for the baby, and devoted uncles and aunts and grandparents—have you told your mother yet, by the way?’
She shook her head, still wondering if he was proposing that she marry him or his family, and wondering if there was actually a difference or if it might be one and the same thing.
‘You should. She needs to know. And so do my parents, but I’d like something a little more concrete to tell them—preferably that we’re going to be married. But that’s your call.’
She swallowed. It was such a huge step, and she wasn’t at all sure she was ready for it, but it would give her baby security, and love, and she would know that if anything happened to her, God forbid, the child wouldn’t be alone. And she knew that was something that had worried her mother a great deal.
‘If I said yes—there would have to be conditions,’ she warned, and he raised a brow.
‘Conditions?’
She nodded. ‘I want a pre-nuptial agreement, so that my house is protected for the baby. I know that probably seems silly to you, since your house is worth much more than mine, but I need that security, in case anything happens in the future. And I’m not interested in your house. That’s not what this is about. My childhood was so uncertain, and I just want to protect my baby’s future.’
She wanted a pre-nup? He nearly laughed out loud. If she’d had the slightest idea how rich he was, just how much family money was behind him, she would have been mortified. But clearly she didn’t, or she wouldn’t have suggested it for an instant. She’d be mad to.
‘Well?’
He smiled slightly. ‘OK—but there are conditions on my side, too. At some point, we’ll probably end up moving back to Italy. Can you do that? Would you?’
Her eyes widened. ‘Move there? To live?’
‘Si. It’s my home. It’s where I live, where I want my child brought up, ideally, surrounded by his family, so that he knows who he is and understands my place in his life, but we’ll make sure the house will remain cared for so you can stay in it when we come back to England to visit your friends and family, if you don’t want to stay in mine.’
‘Luca, I can’t!’
He lifted a brow. ‘Can’t? Can’t what?’
‘Live in Italy,’ she said, panic starting to choke her. ‘I can’t speak a word of Italian, Luca! I struggled to order a coffee.’
‘You can learn, cara,’ he said, his voice softening persuasively. ‘It’s not so hard. And all my family speak perfect English. Think of the advantages—beautiful countryside, a warm, loving family…’
‘Suffocating, you said,’ she reminded him, the panic invading every part of her, and he smiled gently.
‘They can be, but mostly it’s wonderful. And the weather is fantastic. You’ll love it.’
He let his words hang for a moment, then lifted his shoulders. ‘So that’s my choice for us, anyway. I marry you, we live in Italy, at least at some point in the future, and we bring up our child—our children—together. The choice is yours, cara. You don’t have to marry me, of course you don’t, but there are huge advantages for all of us, and I know it’ll mean compromises for you, but we can’t just think about ourselves any more. Let me know when you’ve decided—but you need to know that this will be a proper marriage, one that we work on together. I’ll give you and our child the protection of my name, but you won’t have affairs and neither will I, you and the child will live with me and there will be no divorce, Isabelle. When I marry, it will be for life. I won’t betray you, and I’ll give it everything I have, but I won’t give up on us, and I don’t expect you to. So don’t say yes unless you’re absolutely sure.’
She stared into his eyes, her mind reeling. Live in Italy, with Luca—or here, without him, with the child dragged from pillar to post, shared custody, rows about access, the trauma and drama of holidays and birthdays and Christmas? And in Italy there’d be a family, a great, huge suffocating family to love their baby to pieces.
If she didn’t marry him, there was the possibility that she could face the future alone and without support. She had friends and family, but would they pay her bills when she was sick, or look after the baby if she died?
She felt her jaw sag, and snapped it up and turned away hastily. She hadn’t given that possibility serious thought, but what if she did die? Accidents happened. Would he have her baby? And if so, would he know their child, or would i
t be a stranger to him? Would the baby know him, if they lived in different countries? Or even be able to speak the same language as its new-found family?
‘Difficult, isn’t it, cara?’ he murmured, and she closed her eyes and took a steadying breath. Emotion was another thing, she’d discovered, that pushed her nausea over the edge, and she could feel her throat closing with the prospect of all that uncertainty.
If her mother had been the one to die and not her father, would she have gone to him? And would he have loved her? What if she didn’t marry Luca and he married someone else who had his children? Would her child be welcomed by them if she died, any more than she would have been welcomed by her father’s other family? She doubted it.
At a time when his or her world had already fallen apart, her baby could be lonely and isolated and afraid. Without any emotional security.
And that, above all, was the thing that mattered. Luca and his family represented security, a safety net for all of them, and that was something she’d never had and always yearned for.
There was no contest, really. She found a rather wobbly smile and took a deep breath.
‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘I will marry you, Luca. And we’ll make it work.’
He closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them again, he was smiling. ‘Thank you. I’ll tell my mother—she can start planning.’
‘Planning what?’ she asked, a horrible suspicion suddenly entering her mind. ‘I don’t want a big wedding.’
He laughed. ‘Neither do I, but I have a huge family.’
‘No. I’m not joking, Luca. I won’t marry you if it has to be a big wedding. I was going to do that last time, and it was all planned and bought and organised, right down to the name cards for the tables. I don’t want that again. I just want to marry you.’
He studied her thoughtfully for a moment, then nodded slowly and to her surprise he backed down. ‘OK—but I want to do this surrounded by my close family, at least, and some old friends. And your mother should be with you, tesoro. We could get married in the local church?’
She shook her head. ‘No. Can’t we get married in a registry office? I just—I want a really simple ceremony, no fuss. Just a couple of witnesses. Please, Luca. I can’t face all that razzamatazz.’
‘We must have family.’
She shrugged. ‘Really? It hardly seems worth it—it’s not like it’s a proper wedding. It’ll be over in half an hour.’
Luca opened his mouth, shut it again and said nothing. She was asking him to marry without his family, in a civil ceremony—because it wasn’t a proper wedding?
‘It will be a proper wedding,’ he told her firmly. ‘It will just be quiet. Please, cara. Do this for me. Marry me in Tuscany—we can have a quiet wedding there.’
‘Very quiet,’ she insisted.
‘Of course. Just our families and maybe a few close friends.’
She nodded. ‘I’m sorry—I know it’s probably not at all what you had in mind.’
‘Tesoro, none of this is what I had in mind, but it’s all negotiable, and if this is what you would like, then it’s what we’ll have. We can have a civil wedding in the town hall followed by a church blessing and a small reception. OK?’
‘Won’t your mother mind?’
He laughed softly. ‘It’s not up to my mother. It’s our wedding, we’ll have what we want. I won’t tell them yet, though. I’ll save it until we get there. And now I’m going to leave you to rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
He stood up, drew her into his arms and kissed her tenderly, then wrapped her firmly against his chest. ‘Just a few more weeks, cara,’ he murmured, and eased away from her, kissing her fleetingly once more before letting himself out of the house and closing the door, leaving her alone to wonder what on earth she’d talked herself into.
‘You’re doing what?’
‘Going to Italy with Luca to meet his family, and to plan our wedding.’
‘Ohmigod, you jammy thing!’ Sarah exclaimed, her eyes filling. ‘Oh, that’s fantastic!’
Was it? Fantastic, to be planning a wedding when she was pregnant with his child?
Yes, actually, she realised, it was—not that Sarah knew about that, because they’d agreed not to tell anyone yet, but the baby was getting more real with every hour that passed, and Luca was spoiling her rotten. She still wouldn’t yield on the clothes, though, and so she enlisted Sarah’s help. ‘I need your advice. I’m going to need lots more clothes for when I go to meet them, and I want decent ones, but I won’t let him buy them for me.’
‘You must be mad. I’d let him. Hell, any man that wants to take me shopping can have me. The only place I get to go these days with a man is the supermarket, and that’s only to make sure I buy him enough meat! For heaven’s sake, Izzie, he’s going to be your husband!’
‘Shh!’ Isabelle chuckled and shook her head. ‘Not too loud, we’re not broadcasting it. Anyway, I’m not letting him do it, so what can I do on a shoestring?’
‘Charity shops. I know just the one,’ Sarah said, her eyes alight. ‘There’s a woman who brings the most gorgeous things in, and they’re too tall and too tight for me, but they’d fit you perfectly, and they’re fabulous. Some of them still have tags on. We’ll go tomorrow.’
So they did, and by a stroke of luck they arrived just a few minutes after another consignment from the mystery lady.
And they were a perfect fit. Half an hour later, Isabelle emerged with three dresses, four tops, a jacket, another pair of trousers—and there were even a pair of Jimmy Choos in her size that looked unworn, and the prices were ridiculous. Even so, she’d still spent part of her re-roofing budget, but not nearly as much as if she’d gone to the designers directly—and the charity would benefit, which was an added bonus.
‘Oh, you’re so lucky, I love those shoes,’ Sarah said wistfully. ‘Oh, you’re going to look fabulous.’
‘I hope so. I really don’t want to let him down.’
‘Don’t be absurd! How on earth could you let him down? Who the hell is he? Anyway, you’re wonderful. He should consider himself lucky to have you.’
Isabelle didn’t bother to explain. She wasn’t sure she really knew, anyway, and she just hoped that yesterday’s fashion would be good enough.
He was waiting on her doorstep when she arrived home with a carrier bag in each hand emblazoned with the name of the charity.
‘Where have you been?’ he asked curiously.
‘Shopping,’ she said, cursing her luck that he should have been there so she couldn’t smuggle the things into her house without him knowing.
He frowned at the bags. ‘In a charity shop?’
‘Why not? If I’m having to buy clothes for Italy, I can’t afford to do everything in the high street shops,’ she said, aware of how distinctly frugal she was being with the truth, but he just frowned.
‘You went to a charity shop for clothes to wear to meet my family?’ he said, looking appalled, and she met his eyes defiantly.
‘It’s called recycling. Very environmentally sound.’ And cheaper by miles.
‘But I offered—’
‘I know. And I declined. Besides, it’s pointless spending a fortune because they won’t fit me for long, and I hate waste. Do you have a problem with that?’
His mouth opened, then snapped shut. ‘No. No problem,’ he said through clenched teeth, and she suppressed a smile.
‘Good. Just so we both know where we stand. Don’t worry, it’s all really good stuff, I won’t disgrace you.’
‘I didn’t think you would for a moment.’
‘Good. What’s in your shopping bag?’
‘Food. Some of it could do with going in the freezer. Luckily it’s not warm out here.’
She felt a pang of guilt and quickly suppressed it. She hadn’t been expecting him, hadn’t asked him to shop for her, and it was in no way her fault that he was there mid-way through the afternoon. Then she remembered he’d been on call last night and this was
his afternoon off, and then she did feel guilty, because he was probably exhausted.
‘You should have rung me.’
‘I did. You weren’t answering your phone.’
Just then it let out a series of beeps, and she pulled it out and found several messages about missed calls from him. ‘Sorry. I must have been on the Tube. Come on in. I’ll put the kettle on.’
‘I’ll do it. Go and hang up your things.’
He went into the kitchen, inwardly seething, and listened to her pottering upstairs with her charity shop finds—charity shop, of all things!—while he put the shopping away and made them tea, dropping the tea bag in the bin just as she ran back downstairs.
‘Perfect timing. Here—it’s ginger and lemon.’
‘Thanks. So—have you had a nice afternoon?’ she asked brightly.
‘Busy. I’ve booked the flights for Friday morning. We need to be at the airport at six-thirty. I take it your passport’s valid?’
She nodded numbly.
‘Good. We’re going via Pisa because my car’s in Firenze. I’ll get it delivered to the airport ready for us.’
She caught her jaw in time. Get it delivered? It was slowly beginning to dawn on her what she was getting herself into, and she felt a shiver of apprehension. Maybe she should have let him take her to Harrods—or not.
This way, at least, her pride would be intact, and she was reasonably confident she wouldn’t disgrace him, but—Friday? Dear heaven.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THEY TOUCHED DOWN late in the morning on a gloriously sunny day, and Isabelle was never more glad to be back on land in her life.
Her legs were wobbly, her heart was pounding and she’d struggled with nausea for the entire flight. And now they were standing outside the airport in the brilliant early March sunshine, and all she wanted was to go somewhere still and quiet and lie down for a while until the vibrations had gone from her body and her heart had slowed.
Not that that was likely to happen in a hurry. She was on a knife-edge, filled with apprehension over meeting Luca’s family, no matter how wonderful and welcoming and marvellous he said they were.
The Valtieri Marriage Deal Page 11
