by Lynne Graham
He touched her damp cheek with a gentle forefinger and looked down into her open gaze. ‘No. I don’t think you could fake what you feel either and it’s one of the things that I love most about you. What you see is what you get, but I’m still taking advantage of your good nature and loyalty—’
Jess was so tense that she might as well have been poised on a cliff edge. ‘Did you just say that you loved me?’
‘I am hopelessly in love with you—didn’t you guess?’ Cesario vented a rueful laugh. ‘I thought I was kind of obvious.’
Jess was trembling. ‘I can be a bit slow on the uptake sometimes,’ she said shakily. ‘When did you realise you felt that way?’
‘In Italy when it was a challenge just to be away from you for a couple of hours,’ Cesario confided huskily. ‘I’ve never felt like that before.’
‘Not even about Alice?’ Jess heard herself ask, and then she winced, wishing she had not let that petty jealous question escape her lips.
‘Jess, you have never had any reason to worry about the relationship I once had with Alice. I like and respect Alice a great deal but we were a mismatch. When I was with her, I was too young to want to settle down and even though I was unfaithful she never stood up to me.’ Cesario shared those uncomfortable truths and grimaced. ‘I’m not proud of the way I treated her. I only realised that I did care about her when she was gone from my life. But I never loved her the way Stefano loves her and I wouldn’t have married her because my feelings didn’t go deep enough for that.’
‘I’m sorry to keep on going on about Alice,’ Jess said ruefully as she linked her arms round his broad shoulders, her fears about the other woman finally laid to rest by his candour. ‘But when I overheard you and Alice talking the night before we left Italy it did make me wary of your friendship with her.’
Cesario frowned. ‘What did you overhear? ‘
And once Jess had explained, he heaved a groan of comprehension. ‘Alice and Stefano have known about my condition from the start, and Alice was correct when she said that I wasn’t being fair to you in not telling you. But those weeks we shared in Italy were some of the happiest of my life…and I didn’t want to sacrifice a day of that to the reality of my condition.’
That declaration made her eyes prickle with tears. But she swiftly blinked the betraying moisture back because she knew he would take the wrong message from it and return to believing that he was the worst thing that had ever happened to her when in fact he was the best. ‘I fell in love with you in Italy as well.’
‘I was ahead of you there,’ Cesario claimed, tipping up her chin with his fingers to look down into her silvery grey eyes. ‘I probably fell for you at the moment I saw you in your wedding gown at the church—you looked like my every dream come true. And that’s from a guy who never thought he was romantic.’
Jess had never felt that, for a thousand and one little and large romantic gestures had made their honeymoon special. But she smiled up at him with her heart in her eyes. ‘I love you so much…’
‘I’m never going to stop wanting you, amata mia,’ Cesario pronounced with driven sincerity, brilliant dark eyes pinned to her with adoring intensity. ‘But I didn’t want to do this to you. I wanted to make you happy, not sad.’
‘And whatever happens you will make me happy,’ Jess told him with confidence. ‘Every day we have together now is a day we wouldn’t have had, if you had succeeded in scaring me off yesterday.’
‘But it’s not fair to put you through this with me,’ Cesario groaned, unable to hide his guilty look of concern.
Jess smoothed gentle fingertips across the taut line of one high masculine cheekbone. ‘How would you feel if it was me that had the tumour? Could you just walk away?’
‘Infierno! Are you joking?’ Cesario demanded incredulously.
‘Well, then, don’t expect me to be any different. I love you too,’ she reminded him. ‘I want to be with you, whatever happens.’
And in a flood of passionate appreciation that he could not hide from her, Cesario covered her mouth with his and kissed her breathless. She trailed his jacket off in the midst of it, embarked on undoing his shirt buttons and spread loving hands over the warmth of his hair-roughened torso. His lean, strong body was urgent and aroused against hers and she shut out the negative thoughts that lurked ready to threaten her happiness.
The man she loved loved her back with the same heat and passion and, for now, that was enough for her. She would take happiness where she could find it and make the most of every moment with him.
Rio, named Cesario at birth after his father, kicked the ball and it hit a window with a loud thump followed by the noise of shattering glass.
‘Mamma!’ he yelled in dismay.
Jess, who had been sitting in the shade of the loggia, rose to her feet and hurried along the terrace to ensure that her son stayed well away from the broken glass while shooing away the dogs at the same time. She checked his clothing for tiny shards, moved him well clear of the debris and then smiled at Tommaso. Having returned the ball, the older man, a long look of calm resignation on his face, was already advancing with a brush and shovel to clear up the mess. It was expected that a lively little boy would practise his football moves and, at five years old, boys didn’t come much livelier than Rio.
He was blessed with his father’s lustrous dark eyes and his mother’s black curls; his decided appeal made it very likely that some day he would be a heartbreaker as well. Born a week after his due date in a straightforward delivery, Rio had delighted his mother from the first moment he’d drawn breath and motherhood had more than lived up to all her expectations, though been rather more tiring than she had appreciated. Although Rio had been a very good-natured baby he had also required little sleep and after more interrupted nights than she still cared to recall Jess had been glad to have the support of a good nanny. Having inherited his parents’ stubborn streak, determination and intelligence, Rio could be a handful.
Her entire family enjoyed a long summer holiday at Collina Verde every year. Her parents were currently attending evening classes in Italian and working hard to learn the language. Her half-brothers still worked on the Halston estate, but her father had surprised them all by finding a new job at a local garden centre where he was happily employed as a deputy manager. Jess was also in regular contact with her other brother, Luke Dunn-Montgomery, and the previous year he and his girlfriend had joined her for a winter break at Cesario’s opulent villa in Morocco. She had heard nothing more from her birth father but was content with that situation. Alice and Stefano and their children were regular visitors, and Alice had gradually become Jess’s best friend. The couples shared family events and celebrations.
Soon after Rio’s birth, Jess had opted to buy into the veterinary practice as a partner and she still worked part-time hours. That same year, her animal sanctuary had won charitable status. Full-time employees, assisted by a rota of volunteers, now kept the rescue facility running efficiently and many animals had been happily rehomed since the sanctuary had reopened on the Halston estate. Dozy, her narcoleptic greyhound, was asleep by the wall next to Johnson, her collie. Harley the Labrador and Hugs the wolfhound had passed away due to old age, but their places had since been filled by Owen, a lively Jack Russell, who acted as a seeing-eye guide to his friend, Bix, a blind Great Dane. Weed and Magic, however, were now scampering cheerfully in the wake of the two little girls running across the terrace.
Graziella, an adorable three-year-old, with her mother’s light grey eyes, rushed to show Jess the painting she had done at the summer playgroup she attended. Her little sister, Allegra, an apple-cheeked toddler of eighteen months with an explosion of black curls, bowled along behind Graziella like a shadow.
Jess gathered both girls into her arms with a grin but her whole face lit up when Cesario, her tall, dark and very handsome husband, strode out of the house. He bounced a new football across the terrace to Rio, who gave a whoop of pleasure and grabbed both ball
and father in his enthusiasm, chattering in ninety-mile-an-hour Italian about the window he had broken.
‘Daddy didn’t play music in the car like I wanted,’ confided Graziella crossly. ‘We had football.’
From beneath the vine-covered loggia, Jess surveyed the man she loved with amused eyes. He made a special effort to take time off and spend it with his family during the long summers they usually spent at Collina Verde. Although she rarely thought back now to the period when she had feared she would lose Cesario, because she felt it was good to move on mentally, she valued the happiness she had found with him and her children all the more from the knowledge that she could so easily have lost him.
Having changed his mind and finally agreed to accept treatment, Cesario had benefited from the latest neurosurgical techniques. Stereotactic surgery, in which CT images were used to pinpoint the location of the tumour and target it with carefully controlled doses of gamma radiation, had been utilised and this noninvasive method had protected all healthy tissue from damage. He had spent only three days in hospital and, after a successful procedure, had experienced neither complications nor subsequent problems. The tumour was gone and follow-up scans remained reassuringly clear.
‘Do you think we’re spoiling Graziella?’ Cesario remarked as their nanny, Izzy, put in an appearance to take the children indoors for lunch. ‘She’s a real little bossy-boots.’
‘I wonder who she gets that from,’ Jess commented tongue in cheek, since she had noticed that her elder daughter could twist her father round her little finger with just the suggestion of tears or disappointment. ‘Or do you think it could be that maybe she just doesn’t like football radio commentaries?’
A wickedly appreciative grin slashed Cesario’s wide sensual mouth. ‘She takes after her mamma then, her very beautiful, very much loved—’
‘And very pregnant mamma,’ Jess completed, hopelessly conscious of the size of her pregnant body on such a warm day. She was within weeks of her delivery date for their fourth child. She already knew that she was carrying a second boy, who would very probably be christened Roberto after his doting grandfather. Their children had given them both so much joy that they weren’t quite sure when they would consider their family complete.
Cesario splayed a protective hand across the proud swell of her belly. ‘Very beautiful, very pregnant mamma,’ he traded huskily as he pulled her back against him, ‘whom I was extremely lucky to find and marry in my hour of greatest need.’
Jess leant back against the support of his big powerful body and sighed in blissful relaxation, enjoying a moment of perfect peace without the children providing a distraction. ‘We found each other and once I had had a taste of you and Italy I knew you were the man for me. I love you so much.’
Cesario turned her slowly round in the circle of his arms and looked down into the silvery grey eyes he still found so enthralling. ‘The love of my life,’ he breathed and kissed her with tender loving care…
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
® and TM are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
First published in Great Britain 2011
Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
© Lynne Graham 2011
ISBN: 978-1-408-92551-5
Table of Contents
Cover
Excerpt
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Copyright
