The Billionaire's Bridal Bargain

by Lynne Graham

  ‘Yes, this is your home and Lizzie’s now,’ Athene said a little tearfully and fumbled for a tissue. ‘I have so many memories of my brothers and sisters here and now that they’re all gone...’

  Lizzie watched Cesare mop up his grandmother’s tears with a deft touch and the right words and, minutes later, Athene was laughing as she recounted a childhood adventure with her brothers. She accompanied them on the official tour and Primo served afternoon tea out on the terrace, apparently an old tradition that Athene loved.

  ‘Primo is an absolute treasure,’ Athene told Lizzie as Cesare murmured an apology and withdrew to answer his phone before walking back into the house.

  ‘And even better he cooks, which I’m not very good at,’ Lizzie admitted, topping up the older woman’s tea.

  ‘Have you and Cesare had a row?’ her companion asked without warning. ‘I’m not an interfering old woman but I can feel that something’s wrong.’

  Lizzie felt that even an award-winning actress would have been challenged to carry off a smile at that point. ‘A hiccup,’ she downplayed studiously, her cheeks burning tomato-red as if the lie might be emblazoned on her forehead.

  ‘My grandson has a remarkable brain, which serves him well in business. He’s not quite so good at relationships,’ Athene remarked wryly, gentle amusement in her warm brown eyes. ‘There’s bound to be hiccups as you call them. He’s set in his ways and you’ll challenge him. That’s good for him. After all, anyone with eyes can see how deeply attached you are to each other.’

  Lizzie’s opinion of Athene’s shrewdness nosedived at that pronouncement but the awkward moment passed over and she managed to relax again. The old lady eventually nodded off in the shade and Lizzie went back indoors.

  ‘I need to warn you,’ Lizzie almost whispered round the corner of the door of the room Cesare had set up as an office. ‘Athene thinks we’ve had a row but that that’s normal, so not really anything to worry about...but we’ll need to make a real effort to impress.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be easier simply to talk to me?’ Cesare suggested, rising from behind his desk, all sleek Italian designer style in his tailored oatmeal-coloured casuals.

  Lizzie continued to hover defensively in the doorway. ‘I just don’t think we have anything to talk about.’

  ‘Do you know what time I went to bed last night?’

  Lizzie blinked in confusion. ‘How would I?’

  ‘I was out tramping round the island looking for you. Primo couldn’t raise a signal on my cell phone until midnight and I only found out then that you had returned to the house hours earlier!’

  Lizzie dealt him an astonished look. ‘But why were you looking for me in the first place? I wasn’t lost.’

  Cesare studied her as if she were irretrievably dim. ‘There are all kinds of hazards out there. Fast currents in the sea, steep drops, dangerous rocks...’

  Definitely behaving oddly, Lizzie labelled as she breathed in deep. ‘Cesare, I’m not some little fluffy woman who can’t look after herself. I’m an outdoors woman, used to working in all weathers and accustomed to constantly considering safety aspects on the farm.’

  ‘But I was worried about you!’ Cesare shot back at her in furious frustration.

  Lizzie tossed her head, platinum-blonde hair shimmering across her slight shoulders in the sunlight, green eyes wide and wary. ‘Well, you didn’t need to be. I should’ve thought you would’ve been more worried about how Serafina is managing while we’re together here when you belong with her.’

  ‘I do not belong with Serafina!’ Cesare raked at her so loudly, she jumped.

  ‘No?’

  ‘Do I strike you as being an idiot? I was a boy when I fell in love with her and full of romantic idealism but I’m all grown-up now,’ he completed grimly.

  ‘Well, you went rushing over to that palazzo fast enough the other night,’ Lizzie argued in a less aggressive prompt. ‘That was where you went, wasn’t it?’

  His stunning gaze widened to smouldering gold eyes of challenge. ‘You think I went over there to be with her?’

  ‘What else was I supposed to think?’ Lizzie asked tightly. ‘You left me in anger...’

  ‘I wasn’t angry with you, I was angry with her!’ Cesare exclaimed in full-volume contradiction and Lizzie hastily backed to the door to close it firmly shut. ‘How dare she have the insolence to approach my wife with the tacky details of an affair that happened a decade ago? I’d never heard such rubbish in my life and I was determined to finally have it out with her.’

  Tacky details scarcely dovetailed with Serafina’s suggestion that the barn episode had been a very precious memory for them both. Furthermore Lizzie was transfixed by the idea that he had rushed out of the house in a rage because Serafina had dared to approach his wife. Lizzie went pink over her misreading of the situation. ‘And did you have it out with her?’

  ‘Sì...I said a lot that she will not forget in a hurry. If she wasn’t so vain, she would have accepted a long time ago that I would sooner chew off my own arm than have anything to do with her again. How could you think that of me?’ Cesare raked at her in apparent wonderment. ‘A woman who walked out on me because I wasn’t rich enough? A disloyal, deceitful woman with the morals of a whore... She first offered herself back to me three years after she married Matteo and she did it again last night, which outraged me.’

  Lizzie was so astonished by what she was finding out that she was rooted to the floor where she stood. Not only did he no longer care about Serafina, he evidently despised her and her eagerness to get him back. There was nothing fake about the driving derision he exuded. ‘And of course you said no?’

  ‘I never thought about her again after that first incident,’ Cesare admitted flatly. ‘By that stage I was grateful that, by marrying her, Matteo had saved me from making a serious mistake. No sane man would want a treacherous woman but, unfortunately for him, Matteo was besotted with her.’

  Lizzie nodded slowly.

  ‘Serafina won’t be bothering either of us again, I assure you,’ Cesare spelled out. ‘She told me that she’s bored with the countryside and will be moving back to her home in Florence.’

  Lizzie was thinking about him having spent hours searching for her the night before because he was concerned that she might have met with an accident. Even though she was a seasoned outdoorswoman, she could not help but be touched by his naive assumption that she required his protection. She had made so many silly assumptions about Serafina and suddenly it was obvious that she had been listening to an extremely vain and spoilt woman spouting her belief that she was both irresistible and unforgettable. Cesare, on the other hand, had recovered from Serafina’s betrayal by appreciating what a narrow escape he had had. That, she recognised, was absolutely in line with his character while rushing off to be with Serafina while he was married would not have been.

  ‘I’m glad she’s moving...I didn’t like her,’ Lizzie confided in a case of severe understatement. A light-headed sensation engulfed her and she gripped the back of a chair. ‘Sorry, I get a bit dizzy now and again.’

  ‘Is that like being only a tiny bit pregnant?’ Cesare enquired, scooping her up as she swayed and planting her carefully down into the armchair. ‘You need to be taking more rest and eating more food.’

  ‘And what would you know about it?’ Lizzie mumbled, momentarily giving way to the heaviness of her body and slumping into the depths of the chair like a sagging cushion.

  ‘Possibly as much as you,’ Cesare dared. ‘I contacted an obstetrician for advice.’

  Her lower lip dropped. ‘You did...what?’

  ‘It’s my baby too,’ he countered defensively. ‘I had no idea how to look after you properly. It made sense to consult someone with the relevant knowledge.’

  Her eyes stung again. Against all the odds, he was making su
ch an effort to put across the point that, although he didn’t want a real marriage with her, he did care about her welfare and their child’s. Her throat convulsed. The tears she had been holding back were gaining on her, no matter how hard she tried to hold them back.

  As Cesare stared across the barrier of his desk he saw two tears rolling down Lizzie’s cheeks and his last defences fell to basement level. He had caused this fiasco. He had made her unhappy.

  ‘I’m sorry...I’m so sorry,’ Cesare told her gruffly.

  Lizzie opened her wet eyes to find Cesare on his knees at her feet, stunning dark golden eyes stricken. ‘Sorry? What about?’

  ‘I’m sorry I hurt you. For years I had this set of rules with women,’ he breathed raggedly, grabbing both her hands and crushing them between his. ‘I never got involved. I never got involved with anyone after Serafina. And then I met you and I...I thought it would be the same with you and I tried to stick to the same rules but you were too much for me, only I didn’t see it...’

  ‘Slow down...’ Lizzie begged, struggling to work out what he was telling her in such a rush. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘That I’m mad about you, that I love you and I never want to lose you,’ Cesare told her, crushing the life out of her poor fingers, his physical intensity as great as the emotional intensity now clear in his eyes.

  Her lashes fluttered in bemusement. ‘But you said—’

  ‘Forget what I said. I was still trying to stick to my rules but it was idiocy,’ he told her with a fierce fervour that was in itself impressive. ‘I drove to Serafina’s in a rage because she’d dared to try and upset you and I was driving back, thinking about what a vicious witch she is and thinking about you too...and that’s when I realised.’

  ‘That you love me?’ Lizzie probed numbly, unsure what to believe, her thoughts spinning.

  ‘I think I was scared to deal with what I was feeling for you, so I avoided thinking about it altogether...’ Cesare hesitated. ‘You know, I’m not much like Goffredo. I don’t spend much time thinking about feelings and stuff.’

  Lizzie was pleasantly surprised to learn that he had spent any time thinking about feelings but she couldn’t smile when she was in shock. For the first time ever outside the bedroom she was seeing Cesare without the cool front he wore to the world and he wasn’t half as smooth with words in the emotional category as he was with other things. Yet there was something hugely endearing about that inept surge of sentiment and confession because every syllable of it rang with raw honesty.

  ‘So, you think you love me?’ she pressed a little shakily, scared to hope, scared to dream, scared he didn’t yet know his own heart.

  ‘I know I love you. I only had to think of how warm and happy everything has seemed since we got married. I only have to think of being without you to know that what I feel for you is so much more than I ever felt for Serafina,’ he confessed huskily.

  A huge smile suddenly lit up Lizzie’s face as she finally dared to really look at him again, scanning the superb bone structure, the straight nose and the perfect mouth. This time around, she revelled unashamedly in his essential gorgeousness because for the first time ever he felt like hers.

  ‘I didn’t want to fall for you either. Mum made so many mistakes and she was never really happy. I was afraid of falling for you,’ Lizzie admitted, freeing a hand to brush his thick black hair off his brow in a gesture that came very close to an adoring caress. ‘I really did think we were going to go the business route and then...my goodness, I couldn’t stop thinking about you, couldn’t take my eyes off you, couldn’t keep my hands off you. You’re sort of addictive but I didn’t want to get hurt.’

  ‘I hope I will never hurt you again.’

  ‘Why are you still on your knees?’ Lizzie whispered, genuinely bewildered.

  ‘I rang my father for advice. I didn’t give him details,’ Cesare stressed when she looked at him in dismay. ‘I just admitted that I’d said some very stupid things and he had only one word of advice...’

  Lizzie viewed him expectantly.

  Cesare bit the bullet and confided, ‘Grovel.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Lizzie giggled, tickled pink.

  ‘I’m only going to do it once because I’m never ever likely to screw up as badly with you again, amata mia,’ Cesare delivered, springing back upright without any loss of presence to open the door before striding back to scoop his wife up out of her chair. ‘I’ve learned a lot from this experience.’

  ‘Have you?’ Lizzie asked curiously, resting back against his broad chest, sublimely happy just to be in his arms again, breathing in the delicious scent of him and free to think about all the wicked bedroom skills he was undoubtedly about to unleash on her.

  ‘For a whole month I took you for granted. I’ll never make that mistake again. I love you. My family loves you.’

  ‘Even my father said that you were a sensible man,’ Lizzie inputted with amusement.

  ‘Very sensible. You’re a wonderful woman, cara mia.’ Cesare lowered her the whole formidable length of his lean, hard body to the landing floor and kissed her with hungry, driving passion.

  Lizzie was more than ready to drown now in his potent fervour to reconnect with her. Excitement laced her happiness with a heady sense of joy and quiet security. She simply knew that she had a glorious life ahead of her with her husband and her child.

  On the ground floor, Athene was in a self-congratulating mood.

  ‘I do hope I’ve sorted them out. Cesare’s stubborn but his wife is soft. As if I would simply fall asleep in the middle of a conversation!’ Athene chuckled as she took over Primo’s kitchen to make her grandson’s favourite cake. ‘I think we’ll have a rather late dinner tonight, Primo...’

  * * *

  Three years later, Lizzie relaxed on the front veranda of the house on Lionos while she awaited Cesare’s return from a business trip. Her children were with her. Max was two, a toddler with the unusual combination of his mother’s pale hair and his father’s dark eyes. He was industriously racing toy cars on the boards beneath her feet and making very noisy vroom-vroom sounds. In a travel cot in the shade a dark-haired six-month-old baby girl slumbered, sucking her thumb, while Archie dozed on the front doormat.

  Gianna had not been planned, Lizzie reflected, her eyes tender as she bent down to try and extract her daughter’s thumb from her rosebud mouth. She managed it but even in sleep within minutes the thumb crept back. She gave up when she heard the distant beat of the helicopter’s approach, sliding upright to get a better view over the bay.

  Max abandoned his cars and joined her. ‘Papa...Papa!’ he exclaimed, well aware of what that sound presaged in his secure little world.

  Lizzie stroked her son’s silky head and smiled dreamily. She always enjoyed the sunshine and the peace on Lionos but it would soon be disrupted by Cesare’s forceful, exciting presence and she couldn’t wait; she really couldn’t wait. Three years had not dimmed the chemistry between them.

  Athene spent spring to summer on the island, preferring her Rome apartment and its greater convenience in the winter. Lizzie had grown to love her husband’s grandmother as much as she loved the rest of his family. He had been so blessed by all that love and warmth and to give him his due becoming a parent had made Cesare more sensitive towards his own relatives. He was much more relaxed with his large and convivial family than he had once been and his father and his sisters were frequent visitors to their homes in London, Tuscany and Lionos. Lizzie often teased her husband that she had stayed married to him because she couldn’t bear the thought of losing his family.

  Sadly, since her marriage she had seen much less of her own father and sister. Brian Whitaker came on occasional visits but he didn’t like flying or foreign food or even people talking their own language in his vicinity. Lizzie had purchased a compact home for the older man in the
village where he had grown up and he seemed as happy there as he would be anywhere. She had taken him to see a consultant for his Parkinson’s disease and he was on a new drug regimen and showing considerable improvement.

  Disconcertingly, although Chrissie regularly hitched a flight home with Cesare when he was in London on business, she had become fiercely independent and now had secrets she was reluctant to share. Lizzie had watched anxiously from the sidelines of her sister’s life as things went badly wrong for the sibling she adored and troubled times rolled in. Cesare had advised her to let Chrissie stand on her own feet and not to interfere when Lizzie would more happily have rushed in and tried to wave a magic wand over Chrissie’s difficulties to make them vanish. She had had to accept that Chrissie was an adult with the right to make her own decisions...and her own mistakes. That said, however, she was still very close to her sister and very protective of her.

  The helicopter finally appeared in the bright blue cloudless sky and descended out of sight behind the trees. Max was jumping up and down by that stage and clapping his hands. In a flash he was gone and running down the slope to greet his father with Archie chasing at his heels, shaggy ears flying, tongue hanging out.

  ‘Go ahead,’ a voice said softly from behind Lizzie. ‘I’ll sit with Gianna.’

  Lizzie flashed a grateful smile at Athene and raced down the slope after her son like a teenager. Cesare took one look at his wife, pale hair flying, cheeks flushed below brilliant green eyes full of warmth and welcome, and set Max down again to open his arms.

  ‘I really missed you!’ Lizzie complained into his shoulder. ‘You’re far too missable.’

  ‘I’ll work on it,’ Cesare promised, smoothing her hair back from her brow, wondering whether or not he should admit that he had worked night and day to get back to her within a week. He missed his family more every time he left them behind and planned complex travel schedules that minimised his absences.

  ‘I shouldn’t be whingeing,’ Lizzie muttered guiltily, drinking in the familiar musky scent of his skin, her body quickening with the piercingly sweet pleasure-pain of desire that made her slim body quiver against his long, lean length.