She stared at him for the longest time. “I heard you talking to Signore Santi in Papa’s room during the reception.”
Gino replayed their conversation in his mind.
“What exactly did you hear?”
“He said something about you not having to get married after all. And you said—you said you wished you hadn’t gotten married, but it was the only thing you could do at the time.”
Gino had been holding his breath. “And from that you deduced that I don’t love Ally. Is that it?”
She nodded slowly.
“Did you tell Ally what you overheard?”
“I had to. She caught me in the hall and wanted to know what was wrong.”
He closed his eyes. With those words he’d gone from joy to a new depth of despair in a matter of seconds.
“Are you angry at me?”
“No, sweetheart. But just so you know, I fell in love with Ally the moment I met her. In fact I loved her so much that when I heard she was only going to stay in Italy for one more day, I had to do something to keep her here.”
“You mean like asking her to be my violin teacher?”
Gino smiled at her. “Exactly. In my fear of losing her at the end of the month, I’m afraid I rushed her into marriage before she was ready. As you know, she lost her husband a while ago and it would be understandable if she still had feelings for him. But I didn’t want to wait for her to be my wife.
“I know I should have given her more time, but when you love someone as much as I love her, you’re not thinking clearly.
“That’s what I was telling Carlo when you happened to overhear us talking. He didn’t know how I felt about Ally. All he knew was that I’d asked her to marry me because he thought I wanted you to have a mother.
“Sofia—do you know where she is?”
His niece studied him with those intelligent brown eyes of hers. “No, but you’ve got to find her, Uncle Gino!”
“Don’t worry. I won’t come back without her.”
He flew out the door and down the hall to the stairs.
He almost had a heart attack when he discovered Ally coming up the stairs from the foyer.
She was composed as he’d ever seen her. Too composed.
“I was hoping you’d be here when I got back from Remo,” she spoke before he could. “Tell me what I need to hear.”
He knew what she was asking, but he wanted her to mean something else entirely different.
“All charges have been dropped against me. We’re free, Ally.”
“Thank heaven,” she cried with her heart in her throat.
“It’s all because of you. Now we can leave on our trip to Ischia.”
“Sofia will be overjoyed.”
He took another step towards her. “What about you?”
“You know I’ve been looking forward to it, but before we do anything, I need to talk to you.”
His heart skipped several beats. “Then let’s go to your room. It’s closest.”
He sensed her hesitation before she nodded.
Ally entered the room first and waited for him to shut the door.
“I hoped, but didn’t dare to dream you’d be freed from suspicion this fast.” He could tell she was breathing hard. “With this news, we can now discuss something that has been on my mind for a while.”
Adrenaline riddled his body. “If it’s about our marriage, you’re my wife now and that’s the way things are going to stay.”
She eyed him with a calm that unnerved him.
“I want to stay married to you, too, Gino, but I just wanted you to know that you’re free to live the way you did before we were married.”
“I’m not sure I understand. I’m afraid you’re going to have to spell that out for me.”
She heaved a sigh. “If there’s a woman you want to be with from time to time, I’ll understand.”
“You’re talking about an open marriage?”
She averted her eyes. “Yes.”
“Does that go for you, too?”
She paled. “Of course not. I plan to stay true to my wedding vows.”
“But it’s all right if I break mine, is that it?”
“As long as you’re discreet, the eyes of the world will continue to view us as a married couple.”
“So we are…”
She lifted a tremulous gaze to him once more. “I want your happiness, Gino.”
“We went over all this before we got married. We agreed to stay married no matter what.”
“But a lifetime is too long for a man like you who can finally stop worrying about everyone else’s needs and concentrate on your own for a change.
“I have no doubts there’s a remarkable, marvelous woman out there somewhere waiting to meet a man like you. If and when that time comes, you can tell her the truth about us. If you decide to act on that love, you can do it knowing we had this conversation. You’re an honorable man, Gino, but you’ll be carrying it too far if you have to deny yourself a full life. I can’t let our marriage stand in the way of your true happiness.”
His hands formed fists. “Did you make this decision before you left the palazzo? Or after Sofia admitted eavesdropping on my conversation with Carlo?”
She didn’t break eye contact with him. “Before.”
She was lying, just the way she’d lied to him at the jail when she’d made that ridiculous confession in order to be set free. The fact was, she didn’t have a dishonest bone in her body.
“What if I told you I want you in my bed.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
Her answer stunned him.
“A man can sleep with his wife and the woman he really loves without much problem.”
“Your husband did a lot of damage, but don’t judge every man by his behavior.”
“I’m not talking about Jim.”
“I think you are,” he challenged her. “That’s what I’ve been afraid of since I made up my mind I was going to marry you whether you were ready or not.”
“Ready?”
He shifted his weight. “I know the kind of woman you are, Ally. You would never have married Jim if you hadn’t been in love with him.
“You think I don’t know that what he did has scarred you? But I was willing to take the chance that I could get you to love me like that one day.
“The only trouble is, in forcing marriage, I may have acted too soon. That’s what I was telling Carlo, that I should have given you more time to get used to me.
“Unfortunately Sofia only heard the first part. If she’d stayed to hear the rest, she would know I fell hopelessly in love with you the night we met. I couldn’t imagine life without you, so despite the risks, I got you to marry me first, and planned to spend the rest of my life finding ways to make you fall in love with me.
“When I repeated my vows before God, I meant every word of them, Ally. I love you more than my own life. If I can’t get you to love me back, then I’d still rather live with you than anyone else. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Her lovely body quivered in response. It defeated him more than any words she might have spoken.
“I’ve been a fool to hope for a miracle,” his voice grated. He started for the door, needing to get out of there.
“Don’t leave, darling,” she called to him. But she said it in Italian, not English.
In the next minute he was treated to words in his native tongue he never expected to hear pour from her lips and heart. When he turned in her direction, she came running toward him.
“I love you, Gino Di Montefalco.” She threw her arms around his neck. “I love you more than I thought it was possible to love a man.”
She covered his face and hair with kisses. “When I met Jim, I fell in love, but it didn’t take long to realize he didn’t have the substance I’d endowed him with. Somewhere along the way my love died. Maybe he sensed it before he ever met Donata. I’ll never know the answer to that, but I do know that the night I
met you changed my entire life.”
She cupped his face in her hands, staring up at him with adoring green eyes.
“Do you honestly think I would have agreed to marry you if I hadn’t wanted it with all my heart and soul?
“Oh, Gino— Love me, darling. It seems like a century that I’ve been waiting for you.”
Ally waited impatiently for her husband to wake up.
The sun had risen above the horizon. The birds were singing. The marvelous scent of lavender filtered through the open window of her room.
She lay facing him with their legs entwined.
They’d never made it up the stairs to his suite. In their desperate desire to love each other, they’d never come out of her room.
She knew he needed sleep. After being up all night while he’d been in Rome, only to spend all of last night making love to her, he deserved his rest.
But she was so on fire for him, it was impossible not to touch him.
He had silky black lashes she loved to feel against her cheek. Even in sleep his mouth had a sensuous curve that turned her blood molten.
He held her possessively. If she tried to move, she would waken him. Part of her was tempted. Maybe just one little kiss wouldn’t hurt.
The second she pressed her mouth to his, he responded with breathtaking urgency. Then his eyes opened and she saw the flame of desire burning in their black depths.
“Buon giorno, bellissima,” he said deep in his throat.
“Buon giorno, Apollo mio.”
“Apollo?” he questioned, pulling her on top of him.
When she explained what she meant, he laughed triumphantly. When he did that, she thought she’d die with love for him.
He sobered for a moment. “I wish I’d met you when you were eighteen.”
“Why eighteen?” she teased, tracing the line of his male mouth with her fingertip.
“You would have been old enough for me to carry you off without fear of the law coming after me.”
She buried her face in his neck. “I know how you feel. So many years have already gone by. How is it you never married? You’ve never really told me.”
He wrapped her closer in his arms. “I was waiting for you.”
“Be serious, my love.”
“I’m deadly serious,” he came back with that hint of steel in his voice.
“In my teens and early twenties, I enjoyed women as much as the next man and didn’t feel the need to settle down yet.
“After Marcello married Donata and I saw the way it was going, I thanked providence I was still a free man. That is until I met you.
“Your physical beauty attracted me immediately. Couple that with your defiance and your loyalty to my brother, a man you’d never even met, and I knew I’d met my soul mate. The trick was to get you to feel the same way about me.”
She kissed him with passion, no longer afraid to express her love.
When he finally let her up for air she said, “No trick was needed. The moment I emerged from the door of the pensione and saw you standing there like some proud, fierce Italian prince, I felt my whole soul quake.”
He chuckled before giving her a long, hard kiss she felt to her toenails. “I like the way you talk, Signora Di Montefalco. The sun god and an Italian prince. What about just plain old Gino the farmer?”
She searched his eyes. “You’re so many things, there aren’t enough adjectives in the world to describe you.”
So saying, she switched to Italian and told him she loved him.
She heard his sharp intake of breath. “Who taught you so well, you don’t sound like a foreigner.”
She kissed his eyelids. “My new daughter.”
“Sofia’s a little monkey. She held that bit of information back from me.”
“I asked her to keep it a secret.”
Gino suddenly moved so she was lying on her back. He stared down at her with fire in his eyes.
“Speaking of our niece, I think it’s time we concentrated on producing a male heir just to keep the balance.”
Ally smiled up at him. “If it’s a girl we’ll call her Gina and just keep trying until we get our own little Marcello.”
Gino’s eyes went suspiciously bright before his mouth fell on hers. She responded with the hunger of a woman who loved her husband beyond all else.
EPILOGUE
“CAN we swim a little longer, Mama?”
Ally checked her watch. “Ten more minutes. Then I need to get back to the house to feed the baby.”
Two months had gone by since their precious Marcello had entered the world. Now Ally was determined to get her figure back. At this point she was within five pounds of her goal, but it was hard with Bianca’s cooking always tempting her to eat more.
Gino had offered to come home at lunch to tend the baby. Father and son needed some playtime together.
If ever a man was made for fatherhood, it was her husband.
Little Marcello, who looked like his namesake, had already twisted his father around his baby finger.
The farmhouse was such a happy place, Ally felt like she was living in paradise.
When Gino had put it to a vote, no one wanted to live at the palazzo.
It would remain in the family until Sofia decided what to do with it.
The weather was already warm for the first of June. It was hard to believe that a year ago this month she’d come to Montefalco where Gino and a new thrilling life awaited her.
With Tomaso Castiglione behind bars for his crime, the horrific trauma of the past was over. Best of all, Sofia had been spared the details.
Feeling alive and glowing, Ally got out of the river and threw on a lightweight robe over her bikini.
Sofia’s naturally curly hair was cut short these days. It only needed a brisk toweling to look perfect.
In the last year she’d grown into a young teen who was starting to resemble Donata more and more.
Sofia kept pictures of her mother in her room. Donata had been a beauty all right, and her daughter was following in her footsteps.
The two of them got in the truck and headed for home. With Sofia being such an excellent tutor, they talked mainly in Italian.
It made a huge difference when Ally helped out at the flower stand. Of course it would take years to talk and sound like Gino, but that was her goal.
She loved the language and the country. She loved his family. She adored him.
Hoping he would be able to stay while she nursed the baby, she drove faster than usual.
“Look, Mama—there’s a taxi driving away from the house.”
“You’re right!”
Ally couldn’t imagine who’d dropped by. She slowed to a stop and parked the truck around the side, hoping their visitor wouldn’t be able to see her looking like this.
They hurried into the kitchen, then stopped. Ally’s mother sat at the table next to Gino, feeding the baby his bottle. Her husband trapped Ally’s gaze with a silent message before she cried, “Mom—”
Her mother’s dark blond head lifted. She wore a smile that transformed her.
“Oh, honey— I shouldn’t have waited so long to come. My little grandson’s adorable.”
Though Ally had invited her mother to come many times, she’d never taken her up on it. But with a new baby in the house…
Ally’s eyes filled. “He and Sofia are the light of our lives. Mom? I’d like you to meet my daughter, Sofia.”
“Come around here, honey,” her mother said to Gino’s niece. “I need to get to know both my grandchildren.”
“Just a minute, Grandma. I’ve got to get something for you.”
“For me?”
“Yes. I made it last summer and have been saving it for you. I’ll be right back.”
Ally had an idea where she was going. Taking advantage of the time, she hurried around the table and hugged her mom and the baby.
Her mother studied her. “You look wonderful, honey. Obviously marriage to this man agrees wit
h you.”
With those words her mother had let her know she’d put the past behind her and was ready to move on.
“He’s the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me.” Her voice shook with emotion.
Gino pulled her onto his lap.
“Careful, darling, I’m wet after just getting out of the river.”
“I like you exactly like this,” he whispered, kissing the side of her neck.
Sofia came back in the kitchen and walked around to Ally’s mother. She carried a sheaf of dried flowers wrapped in cellophane and tied with ribbon.
“Lavender—” she cried. “Just the way my mother used to preserve it for gifts.”
Tears welled in her gray eyes.
Ally took the baby so her mother could hug Sofia. “Thank you, honey. This is a priceless gift.”
“Mama taught me how to do it. I have my own little sticker on it. See?”
Ally’s mother looked closer. “Sofia’s Scents. That’s brilliant.” She kissed her cheeks.
“Oh, Ally—” She turned to her. “I begged Edna to fly over with me, but she said I should come alone the first time.”
“There’ll be other times, Mom.”
Gino hugged her tighter around the waist, baby and all. At least he could reach around her now. The thought gave Ally no end of satisfaction.
“We’re hoping you’ll move here permanently,” Gino said to her mother. “You and your sister can have the run of the palazzo if you’d like.”
“I’d love it if you and Aunt Edna lived here, Mom. I’ve missed you so much. You’re the children’s only grandparents. You’d be so proud of Sofia.”
She turned to Sofia. “Darling? Go get your instrument and play something for Grandma.”
“Okay.” She ran out of the kitchen.
“My wife’s been teaching her the violin. I understand I have you to thank for Ally blessing this house with music.”
Her mother was genuinely overcome. “What a beautiful thing to say.”
Soon Sofia returned and played several pieces that showed she was no beginner.
When she’d finished, Ally’s mother got out of the chair to hug her. “If you keep this up, you’re going to be able to play like Ally.”
“I hope so.”
“Is there a piano in the house?”
The Princess Bride Page 16
