Annie’s eyes widened. ‘It happened then? That’s the reason you disappeared so suddenly instead of meeting me for dinner?’
‘Yes.’ A nerve pulsed in Luc’s tightly clenched jaw. ‘I had left Rome only days earlier, like the defiant and spoilt young man that I was, leaving my father to deal with the mess I left behind me. It almost killed him,’ he said flatly.
Annie knew a little of the guilt and pain Luc must be feeling—the same pain and guilt she had felt when she had to tell her own father that she was pregnant. The same determination she had felt to atone for her mistake by agreeing to work for Oscar, even though it wasn’t what she really wanted to do.
The same pain and guilt that had resulted in a single-minded, ruthless determination developing in Luc, consequently making him into the hard, implacable man he was today.
The man Annie knew herself to have fallen in love with all over again…
But at least she now knew the reason Luc had left her sitting alone in that restaurant. ‘So would you turn up this time?’ she asked lightly.
Luc frowned. ‘Sorry?’
‘If I agree to have dinner with you, are you going to turn up this time?’ she murmured ruefully.
She still had no idea why Luc had issued the invitation, but loving him as she did, and having his assurances that the heavy weight of Oliver’s custody had been removed from the equation, it certainly wasn’t an invitation Annie intended turning down.
Luc gave the ghost of a smile. ‘You will never know how much I regret not meeting you at the restaurant that night.’
Annie looked at him searchingly. Wishing she could read what was behind those enigmatic dark eyes. Wishing she knew why Luc had issued this invitation.
Well, there was only one way she could find out the answer to that! ‘If you’re only asking me out to dinner so that we can discuss Oliver—’
‘I would be more than happy to talk about Oliver—the sheer miracle of him!—twenty-four hours a day,’ Luc admitted. ‘But alternatively, I—we—do not have to talk about him at all. I want to spend time with you, Annie. To get to know you better. And for you to get to know me. You have turned my world upside down these past two days,’ he added emotionally.
‘Because of Oliver—’
‘No, not because of Oliver!’ Luc insisted.
How could he explain this to Annie? How could he make her understand the things he had discovered about himself yesterday evening when he’d gone outside and strolled so restlessly about the hospital grounds?
That it was she, and she alone, who had effected the changes in him. That since he had met her again she had completely demolished the barrier he had kept so tightly wrapped about his emotions. That his emotions were now so fully engaged, so exposed, he felt vulnerable in a way he had not believed possible.
Somehow Luc knew he had to try—more than try!— to make Annie believe these things, or risk losing her for ever.
‘Annie, my dinner invitation has nothing to do with Oliver,’ Luc said firmly. ‘I am asking that you give me a chance to…to court you, if you will, in the old-fashioned way.’
She became very still. ‘Why?’ she breathed.
Luc drew in a ragged breath and decided to risk everything on one last throw of the dice. ‘Because I love you. Because since meeting you again two days ago I have come to admire and love you more than any other woman on earth. Because the thought of having to allow you to walk out of my life for a second time is totally destroying me!’ His hands were tightly clenched at his sides, his jaw clamped together so tightly that it looked in danger of snapping from the pressure.
Annie stared at him. Simply stared. Rendered com-pletely and utterly dumbstruck by what Luc had just said. By how he looked.
The pained darkness of his eyes, and the tension in his face and body were all clear testament to how important Annie’s response to his declaration was to him. Luc loved her?
Somehow, during the confusion and pain of the past two days, Luc had managed to fall in love with her?
But why not? After all, hadn’t she fallen in love with him all over again during those same two days?
Still she hesitated. ‘Are you sure this doesn’t have anything to do with Oliver?’
Luc released his breath in a rush. ‘Doesn’t the fact that I am signing over full custody of Oliver to you, relinquishing all right to him other than the ones you allow me, tell you that it does not? That I am doing those things because I cannot bear the thought of hurting you? Any more than I have already, of course,’ he added wryly. ‘Annie—’ he stepped forward to place his hands lightly on her shoulders as he looked down at her intently ‘—all I am asking is the chance, the opportunity, to—’
‘Court me,’ Annie finished evenly, a bubble of happiness, pure unadulterated happiness, beginning to rise within her.
‘It’s hopeless, isn’t it?’ he groaned softly, releasing her to run an agitated hand through the dark thickness of his hair. ‘Why am I even bothering to say these things to you? Of course you do not wish to go out to dinner with me. Do not want us to get to know each other better.’ His expression was grim. ‘Why should you want me anywhere near you when I have either threatened or made love to you since the moment we first met again?’ He shook his head. ‘I am sorry, Annie. So very, very sorry!’ He turned sharply on his heel, his expression bleak as he left the room.
Annie couldn’t move for several seconds, the closing of the front door what finally galvanised her into action as she hurried into the hallway and wrenched that door open.
Luc’s back was towards her as he stood in the driveway unlocking his car. ‘Where are you going?’ she demanded dazedly.
His shoulders stiffened before he turned slowly to face her. ‘I will be back.’ He grimaced. ‘I just need some time to myself. As you, no doubt, need some time away from me.’ His eyes were no longer black and remorseless but the colour of warm chocolate, and that telltale nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched cheek.
The bubble of happiness inside Annie became bigger, and then bigger still, until she felt full to bursting with it.
She leant against the door frame. ‘You know, Luc, you’ve done nothing the past couple of minutes but ask questions and then answer them yourself. If you carry on like this I may have to attempt another judo throw on you just so that I can get a word in edgewise,’ she teased, remembering exactly what had happened the last time she had tried that.
It was obvious Luc also remembered as his expression softened slightly as he answered her. ‘This time I would probably let you succeed.’
‘Let me succeed?’ Annie echoed drily. ‘Now there’s a challenge if ever I heard one!’ She walked slowly down the path towards him.
Luc looked down at her as she came to a halt in front of him, the sunlight picking out the gleaming red highlights in her hair, and her eyes the clear blue of the Caribbean Sea in a youthfully beautiful face.
Annie was so petite, and yet at the same time so very strong; she had to be to have stood up to him the past two days! So young and yet at the same time so wise and knowing.
And she held Luc’s heart in the palms of her tiny hands…
He reached out to grasp both of those hands in his. ‘I really am sorry for the way I have behaved towards you, Annie.’
‘How sorry?’
‘Very sorry.’
‘And…?’
‘I really am very, very sorry?’
‘And…?’ she repeated with some frustration.
Luc gave a pained frown. ‘I do not understand.’
Annie sighed. ‘That was your cue to repeat your dinner invitation. In fact, it was an invitation for you to repeat all your questions. Oh, what the hell!’ she dismissed, throwing her arms joyously about Luc’s neck as she finally allowed her happiness to show. ‘Forget the questions—my answer is yes!’ She beamed up at him glowingly.
Luc’s arms moved possessively about the slenderness of her waist as he looked down at her hungrily. ‘You will allow
me to take you out? To court you? To show you how much I have come to love you?’
‘Yes. No. And very much yes,’ Annie answered, more light-hearted than she had felt for a very long time. ‘Any time, anyplace!’
Luc loved her.
He really loved her.
Annie knew—had absolutely no doubts—that nothing else on earth could have convinced Luc to back down from continuing to pursue his claim on Oliver unless he loved her very, very much.
‘Yes, I may take you out to dinner?’ Luc said slowly. ‘No, I may not court you? And yes, I may show you how very much I have come to love you?’
‘You forgot “any time, any place.’’’ Annie grinned up at him unabashedly. ‘Of course now, and Tilly’s front garden, may not be the time or the place,’ she added teasingly. ‘But just as soon as we can be alone somewhere together—definitely yes!’
Luc became very still as he stared down uncertainly into the beautiful glow of Annie’s face. ‘I want you to marry me, Annie, not just make love with me.’
‘That’s why I don’t think the old-fashioned courting is a good idea,’ she chided happily, sobering when she could see that Luc still truly didn’t understand. ‘You don’t need to court me, Luc.’ She reached up and tenderly touched the side of his face. ‘I already love you and want to marry you,’ she revealed huskily.
Luc looked stunned for a second, then the hunger in his eyes deepened as Annie allowed him to see all the love for him she had been keeping in check. For so long, it seemed.
But no more. Now she could kiss Luc. Hold him. Tell him exactly how much and for how long she had loved him.
Something she proceeded to do to both their satisfaction…
Two weeks later
‘Cheer up, Daddy.’ Annie turned to smile at her father as the two of them sat on the terrace at the de Salvatore vineyard near Venice watching Luc in the pool as he attempted to teach Oliver how to swim. Oscar had given the three of them some time alone together before joining them in Italy to celebrate the announcement of Annie and Luc’s engagement. ‘Look on it as gaining a son rather than losing a daughter!’
‘I’m not in the least unhappy at the thought of having Luca de Salvatore as my son-in-law,’ Oscar assured with a smile, still a handsome man despite being in his early sixties. ‘Especially as it’s what I hoped would happen when I sent you to that particular business conference at Lake Garda,’ he added softly.
Annie turned to him. ‘What?’
Oscar took one of her hands in his. ‘You didn’t really think that I would just accept it when you refused to tell me the name of your baby’s father, did you?’
Well, of course Annie had thought he had!
Actually, had she? Had she really believed that her arrogant and powerful father wouldn’t try to find out for himself exactly who Oliver’s father might be?
‘You’ve known all this time that Luc was Oliver’s father?’ she said dis believingly.
Oscar shrugged. ‘My enquiries at the time only showed that he was at the ski resort the same time as you were. But that equally applied to a lot of other men. But then I actually saw Luc across a restaurant in New York and… He and Oliver do bear a startling likeness to each other, don’t you think?’ He gazed affectionately at his grandson as Oliver giggled happily at something Luc had said to him.
Annie should have known; she should have guessed that her father had had an ulterior motive for sending her to the business conference in Italy!
‘You aren’t going to be annoyed with me over this, are you, Annie?’ her father asked as he saw the way her eyes were sparkling. ‘After all, I only made it possible for you and Luc to meet again. What happened then was up to the two of you.’
How could Annie possibly be angry with Oscar when ‘what happened then’ was the best thing that had ever happened in her life?
The past two weeks of being together had more than convinced Annie that it was her that Luc loved. Totally. To distraction.
Just as Annie loved him in the same way.
As they both adored their son.
And she had no doubts they would continue to love each other, and Oliver, and any more children that might result from their wholehearted commitment to each other.
‘Mummy, come and join us!’
She looked up at Oliver as he held on to the poolside looking at her, the cut on his head having totally healed, thank goodness, the pleasure written all over his face at being with his beloved Daddy, as he was already calling Luc.
‘Yes, Annie, come and join us,’ Luc entreated as he joined Oliver at the side of the pool, looking much younger and more relaxed, his dark eyes warmly caressing as he made no effort to hide his complete adoration of her.
‘Go!’ Oscar encouraged indulgently as Annie stood to look down at him questioningly.
Annie didn’t need to be told twice, running to the side of the pool to dive smoothly into the water, surfacing to laugh happily as Luc immediately caught her up in his arms and began kissing her.
Annie had finally faced her fears, and what she had discovered was Luc. The man she would love for the rest of her life and who would love her in the same way in return.
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Carole Mortimer for her contribution to The Balfour Brides series.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7923-4
ANNIE AND THE RED-HOT ITALIAN
First North American Publication 2011
Copyright © 2010 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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