by Lynne Graham
Lorenzo raked long brown fingers through his ruffled blue-black hair. ‘Dio mio... I’m sorry. You should’ve told me that I’d hurt you.’
‘I didn’t want to spoil the moment...engaged as I foolishly was in trying to save my rocky marriage...the marriage that didn’t actually exist,’ she completed tightly.
‘This...us...it is an unholy mess!’ Lorenzo growled in sudden frustration.
‘Well, I’ve told you now. Perhaps you would have preferred me to approach your lawyers with this little problem.’
‘No. Not with anything that relates to our baby and, by the way, our baby is not and will never be a problem,’ Lorenzo declared, moving restively about the room, obviously too shaken up by her news to settle again.
Our baby was a label that warmed Milly’s heart and she hastily looked away from him, telling herself that she was simply relieved that he wasn’t angry or resentful. He wanted their child. That was a more positive response than she had even dared to hope for. ‘I’ll make tea. I’m afraid I don’t have any alcohol.’
Lorenzo flashed her a sudden unexpected smile that radiated charisma. ‘May I have coffee instead?’
‘Of course, you can,’ Milly told him cheerfully as she jumped up, a sense of reprieve making her body feel shaky as she walked into the sleek kitchen.
‘I want you to come home with me tonight,’ Lorenzo announced with staggering abruptness from the doorway.
Wide-eyed with astonishment, Milly whirled round to face him where he lounged gracefully against the frame. ‘Why the heck would I do that?’
‘You’re expecting my child,’ Lorenzo countered evenly, as if her question was a surprising one. ‘And you’ve lost a lot of weight. I don’t want you living here alone.’
Her facial muscles locking tight with self-discipline, Milly turned away again to put the kettle on, grateful to have something to do with her hands. ‘You threw me out, Lorenzo. I’m not coming back.’
‘I didn’t throw you out,’ he argued vehemently.
‘It’s not worth fighting about,’ Milly parried quickly. ‘You were right when you said our relationship was an unholy mess. So, let’s not dig ourselves into a deeper hole. Leave things as they are.’
‘But I don’t like how things are,’ Lorenzo framed without apology. ‘This child will be my child as well and I want him or her to have my full attention from the start. I can’t achieve that if we’re living apart.’
Milly’s slight shoulders sagged wearily. ‘I’m not sure I’d have told you if I’d known you were going to make this much fuss. I’m pregnant...deal with it,’ she advised. ‘And once you’ve thought us over, you’ll appreciate that we were an accident that should never have happened. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t still respect each other and maintain a civil relationship for the sake of our child.’
Lorenzo’s sculpted features had shadowed and set hard. ‘I strongly disagree with everything you just said,’ he responded in unambiguous challenge. ‘I don’t think we were an accident and nor is our baby. I want more than a civil relationship with the mother of my child. I’m a traditional man. I want my child’s mother to be my wife.’
The mug in Milly’s hand dropped from her nerveless fingers and smashed into a million pieces on the tiled floor. She jerked back a step to avoid being splashed by the hot liquid and then gasped as a tiny flying piece of china stung her leg, before stooping down in an automatic movement to pick up the broken china.
Lorenzo’s hands closed over hers and yanked her upright again. ‘Are you burned?’
‘No,’ she said limply.
‘But your leg’s bleeding,’ Lorenzo pointed out, bending down to lift her unresisting body up and settle her down on the kitchen counter out of harm’s way.
‘It’s only a little cut!’ she protested.
Lorenzo yanked the first-aid box off the wall and broke it open while frowning down at the blood trickling down her leg. Milly sucked in oxygen to steady herself, but she couldn’t get her whirling thoughts under her control. All she could hear was Lorenzo saying, ‘I want my child’s mother to be my wife.’ Had that been a marriage proposal? Surely not? That would be crazy. She blinked rapidly, wincing as he tugged the tiny sliver of china from her calf with tweezers and cleaned her up, covering the cut with a plaster as though she were a kid.
‘Thanks,’ she said as she watched him gathering up the broken china and cleaning up the mess she had made. Slowly, carefully, she slid back down to the floor and poured him a cup of coffee, extending it silently when he had finished.
‘Yes, I meant what I said,’ Lorenzo breathed in a raw undertone before she could speak again. ‘I want us to get married as soon as possible.’
‘You’re not in a fit state to marry anyone, least of all me,’ Milly told him roundly. ‘A year and a half ago you were getting a divorce. Then your principles forced you into staying married and pretending. You got tangled up with me but that was only a sexual thing and clearly very casual when it all went wrong. Now you’re single again. You need to start again with someone fresh. You’ve already walked away from me.’
‘And look how that turned out for me!’ Lorenzo urged impatiently. ‘I’m back and I’m not leaving you again. And what we had wasn’t casual and it wasn’t just sex.’
‘Maybe not on my side, then,’ she specified with precision. ‘But I was working blind in a marriage that was already dead, only I didn’t know that. I assumed that I had married you because I loved you. Now I know that I was never married to you at all...and, Lorenzo, no offence intended, but I don’t want to be married to a man who’s only marrying me because I’m pregnant.’
‘Well, at least I know you don’t want me for my money,’ Lorenzo replied with a wry smile. ‘But you know that I want you and I want our child as well.’
‘You can’t buy me like a package deal. I won’t come cheap or easy,’ Milly responded, tilting her chin at him before walking back towards the lounge with her tea. ‘Amazing sex isn’t enough to base a marriage on.’
‘Was I amazing?’ Lorenzo probed huskily behind her and she almost dropped a second mug at the same time as an involuntary smile tilted her lips.
‘You know you were...but then I don’t have anyone to compare you to yet, so—’ she protested jerkily.
‘Yet?’ he queried, removing the mug from her hand to press her down into a seat, setting the tea down on the coffee table in front of her. Glittering dark eyes pierced her. ‘If I can’t have you, no other man can.’
‘I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that.’ Milly sighed. ‘We are both free agents now.’
‘You’re not free while you’ve got my baby inside you,’ Lorenzo shot at her, his lean bronzed face fierce and forbidding.
‘When you’ve finished your coffee, you should leave. I’m sorry but I’m very tired. Between the exhaustion and the morning sickness, I tend to go to bed early most nights,’ she confided. ‘I’m not in the mood to argue with you—’
‘I’m not trying to argue. I’m trying to make you see sense.’
‘You’re not getting any further with me than I got with you. You said you wanted to marry me, but I don’t think you’ve thought it through,’ Milly said anxiously. ‘There’s a lot more to marriage than sex and having a child together.’
‘I know. I love you,’ Lorenzo confessed without the smallest warning. ‘I was going to wait another month before approaching you again. I suppose I was trying to be a better man than I am. I didn’t want the newspapers writing stuff about you and upsetting you. I thought that if I waited long enough, they would lose interest in us both. But I can’t live another month without you, so here I am being bloody selfish and weak!’
Milly heard only the first half of that speech and his claim that he loved her knocked her for six. ‘You can’t love me,’ she told him weakly.
‘I began to fall in love with yo
u the day you awakened from the coma. I fell deeper in love with every visit. At first, I told myself it was just sexual attraction even though it had been years since I’d been physically attracted to Brooke. I assumed that once you recovered your memory you would switch back into being the Brooke I remembered, and I knew I would continue the divorce eventually.’
‘But before we went to Italy, you said we’d see how things went for us.’
‘By that stage, I was secretly hoping that you would never recover your memory and, to be frank, I really didn’t have a proper game plan,’ Lorenzo confided grimly. ‘I only knew that I couldn’t face letting you go. I had fallen head over heels in love with a woman who was kind and compassionate and loving and I was revelling in every moment of the experience.’ A smile slashed his lean dark features. ‘I was extremely happy with you and I want that back. But I want to do everything the right way round this time. I want you to be my wife.’
‘Oh...’ was all Milly could bleat at that moment.
‘You’re not saying a flat no any more?’ Lorenzo was quick to recognise that she was weakening.
‘I’m thinking it over,’ Milly muttered, her cheeks colouring. ‘Why didn’t you at least phone me while we were apart?’
‘I was trying to be strong for both of us and I thought we were safer from press intrusion if nobody, including you, knew how I felt about you,’ he admitted grimly. ‘But I found it very hard to cope without you. I buried myself in work. It didn’t help. I came home at night and I couldn’t sleep and the house didn’t feel like home any longer without you in it.’
Milly began slowly to smile, and her hand crept up to frame one high cheekbone in a tender caress. ‘I love you, Lorenzo. I’ve missed you so much.’
Lorenzo tugged her gently into his arms and held her close. ‘How can you still love me after the mess I made of things?’
Milly jerked her head back playfully, a foam of silvery blonde ringlets falling against one cheekbone. ‘If you were perfect, you’d be boring. But you must stop hiding stuff from me in the belief that I have to be protected from every adverse event. I’m more resilient than I look,’ she told him firmly. ‘Yes, there would’ve been unpleasant stuff in the tabloids if it got out that we were together but we could have got through it. We are stronger together than we are apart.’
His ebony brows pleated. ‘I didn’t think of that angle.’
‘I know. Your glass is always half empty while mine is always half full,’ she teased, her violet eyes sparkling as she gazed up at him. ‘Let’s not care what anyone says or thinks about us. I learned how to do that at school. You must’ve been more protected than I was. I was always the kid in the unfashionable shoes, who got free lunches because she was the poor foster kid...’
Lean brown hands framed her animated face. ‘And now you’re going to be the wife of a billionaire.’
Her nose wrinkled. ‘It just goes to show...you can sleep your way to the top!’ she joked.
‘Madre di Dio... I love you so much, cara mia,’ Lorenzo husked, his mouth crashing down on hers with all the hunger he had fought to suppress for weeks giving her the strongest message yet that he needed her.
They stood there kissing, urgently entwined, too long separated to bear the idea of being apart even for a moment, both of them studiously ignoring Topsy, who was barking at their feet. She backed him up against the window, wrenching at his tie while he claimed urgent little biting kisses from her luscious mouth.
‘I gather I’m staying,’ Lorenzo pronounced with a wicked grin.
‘Wait until you’re invited,’ Milly told him, waited a heartbeat. ‘You’re invited.’
He carried her into the all-white bedroom and dropped down on the side of the bed, holding her between his spread masculine thighs. He made a production out of sliding down one strap on her shoulder and then the other, pushing them gently down her arms to her wrists so that the dress slid down baring the full swell of her breasts cupped in a strapless bra. He undid the bra, let it drop away, studying her ripe curves with reverent intensity. ‘You are perfect,’ he breathed.
‘You are not in the mood to be critical,’ Milly laughed, taking in his arousal clearly outlined by the fine fabric of his trousers.
‘Perfect,’ Lorenzo repeated aggressively as he splayed the gentle fingers of one large hand across her stomach. ‘You’ve got my baby in there...and that means the world to me.’
‘And me,’ she agreed as the dress fluttered to her feet and he gathered her into his arms and settled her down on the bed.
For a long time afterwards, there was nothing but the sheer urgency of the passion they had feared they might never experience again together, and then, in the tranquil aftermath, the real world intruded again.
Lorenzo fanned her tumbled hair back from her face and stared down at her with an adoring glow in his intense scrutiny. ‘We start again fresh from this moment with no ghosts from the past between us,’ he murmured sibilantly. ‘The house has already been cleared. I had mementoes put aside for you, photos and scrapbooks and such, but I donated the contents of the dressing room and the jewellery I bought her to a charity auction. It’s all gone.’
Milly nodded uncertainly, surprised and relieved and sad all at the same time. ‘We wouldn’t have met but for Brooke,’ she reminded him gently.
‘I can’t stand to think of a world in which I might not have met you,’ Lorenzo confessed. ‘So that is something to be grateful to her for.’
‘If her trust fund does come to me, I’d like to donate it to a good cause because I would never feel it was mine,’ Milly admitted ruefully. ‘I mean, our father never acknowledged me and neither did she really. She never once made me feel that she accepted me as an actual sister. It wouldn’t be right for me to keep it.’
‘As you wish. Just don’t let the past poison anything that we share,’ Lorenzo urged her anxiously.
Tender fingers stroked his roughened jawline. ‘I love you too much, Lorenzo Tassini, to ever let that happen,’ she whispered.
‘I hope that means that you love me enough to get married soon,’ he murmured softly, dropping a kiss down onto her reddened mouth.
Her eyes widened. ‘How soon?’
‘A couple of weeks?’
‘No, that’s far too soon,’ she told him firmly.
‘Well, if I had my choice it would be tomorrow,’ Lorenzo admitted unrepentantly.
‘Could we get married in Italy?’ she asked wistfully. ‘I’d love that.’
Lorenzo smiled. ‘I think that could be arranged and still give you time to find a beautiful white dress.’
‘I can’t wear white. I’m pregnant!’ Milly gasped with a wince.
‘That’s an old-fashioned concept,’ Lorenzo overruled. ‘You deserve to wear white and if I have anything to do with the decision, you will.’
Milly lifted her nose, knowing how bossy he was, resolved not to let him have anything to do with that decision. ‘We’ll see.’
‘Is that you placating me?’ Lorenzo asked suspiciously.
‘Possibly.’ Milly looked up at him, her whole face wreathed with happiness. ‘I love you. I can’t think of anything else right now.’
His dark eyes shimmered pure gold. ‘Why should you think of anything else? I love you too, more than I ever thought I could love anyone, bellezza mia.’
Milly slipped into a dreamy sleep. Lorenzo lay awake planning the wedding and Topsy, suspecting that she wouldn’t be welcomed into her usual spot in the bed, went for a nap underneath it.
* * *
Two months later, Milly adjusted her short veil and looked in the cheval mirror with a wide contented smile.
Her dress was a dream. Sheer lace encased her arms while a Bardot neckline exposed her shoulders and the fitted lace bodice drew attention away from the swell of her pregnant stomach, the tulle and organza layered skirt tumblin
g softly to the floor. Milly hadn’t needed to hide her bump to feel presentable. She was proud to be carrying her little girl. It was only a few weeks since they had learned that they were to have a daughter and they both liked the name Liona. While Lorenzo was hopeful that Liona would inherit her mother’s colouring, Milly was hopeful that she would inherit her father’s.
Clutching her beautiful bouquet of wildflowers, she stepped into the car that would whisk her up the hill to the village church where they would take their vows. Lorenzo’s senior lawyer had offered to lead her into the church and down the aisle. As they had become well acquainted during the proceedings that had established her sister’s death and her own survival, she had laughed and agreed, especially after he had unbent sufficiently to admit that they had been taking bets in the office about how long it would take Lorenzo to admit that he had fallen madly in love.
Her eyes were intent only on Lorenzo when she entered the crowded church. A large number of Lorenzo’s friends had chosen to accept their invitations and fly out for an autumn weekend in Tuscany. Many of them had already met her because once she had moved back in with Lorenzo he had begun entertaining again for the first time in several years. Initially her resemblance to Brooke had unsettled people, but once they had got talking to her and realised how friendly and unassuming she was that unease had melted away. In fact, for the first time ever, now settled and secure and confident in the happiness she had found, Milly was making friends.
Sunlight slanted through the stained-glass windows of the chapel, illuminating the man at the altar, who was very tall beside the small, rounded priest. His hair gleamed blue black in strong light, his eyes gilded to gold in his lean dark face and he was smiling at his bride and she grinned back, barely able now to dredge up the recollection of the forbidding, reserved and very serious man he had once appeared to be. He covered her hand with his. ‘You look radiant,’ he told her proudly.
And the ceremony began, short and sweet and with no flourishes, because neither of them needed anything fancier than the love they had for each other and the child that was on the way to make them into a family. A slender platinum ring was slid onto her finger and then one to his. Lorenzo kissed his bride without a second’s hesitation, and they walked out into the sunlight smiling and united.
