‘Aurora...’ Luigi warned her.
Oh, that was right—she was to stand in the corner, fade into the background and pour his martini.
She would wear the grey.
And pearl drops for earrings, but please not these rather demure mid-height heels.
‘They are very...’ Aurora sat in the beauty chair as the boutique owner touted his wares and she slipped the shoes on her feet. ‘Plain.’
‘They are perfect, Aurora,’ Luigi assured her as he finally got to work on her hair.
And Gabe was not left out.
He was a rich baby now, and he had a pretty powder-blue suit to look the part. And little powder-blue booties and a white silk bib.
She was getting good at this, Aurora thought as she arrived home at four, with her new eyelashes and nails, and lashings of make-up, and her hair in a gorgeous chignon.
‘Oh, bella!’ the nanny said. ‘Look at you!’
‘Thank you.’ Aurora took the compliment with a smile. ‘I’m going to get my new dress on soon and...’ She looked around. ‘Where is the housekeeper?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But what about dinner?’ Aurora asked, and went down the hall and looked at the gleaming table, still littered with last night’s plates. ‘And the table needs to be dressed. I didn’t even make the bed.’
She looked urgently to the nanny, who gave her the nicest smile.
‘I don’t do housework,’ she said.
‘Of course not.’ Aurora said. ‘But—’
‘In any way shape or form.’
‘Good...good...’ Aurora said.
It was no problem.
And, despite having to get through a lot of domestic duties, she would not be ringing the hotel for their dinner. That would be ridiculous when Aurora loved to cook.
And so she made the bed, and tidied the room, and life felt much as it had when she had been a cleaner in Silibri.
Except now she wore a gorgeous dress and had pretty eyes and nails. She cleared the plates and set the table, and went down to his cellar and chose some wine—which was easy for a girl who had grown up surrounded by vines.
But time was creeping on.
She put on an apron and found luck was on her side—because the passata she had bought Nico a year ago was still in the cupboard. And passata only got better with age!
One day she might take a course, so she would better be able to create the fancy dishes that Nico must like, but for now she would cook the way she knew how.
But there was no meat in his massive bare fridge. And by the time she got back from the butcher it was getting really late.
However, the pasta was made and had been cut into ribbons, and the sauce was bubbling away as she bathed Gabe and then dressed him.
‘Look at you...’ Aurora smiled at her chubby baby. His black hair was damp from the bath and he wore a pale blue sleepsuit and a gummy smile. ‘Daddy will be back soon...’
Her voice trailed off. For Nico had left this morning, just after seven, and it was now dark—and he had not so much as texted, let alone called.
With her perfect baby lying on the bed, Aurora took off her apron and changed into the plain grey shoes and smoothed the elegant grey dress. She topped up her lipstick and then carried Gabe downstairs, taking dainty steps just in case Nico arrived.
The scent of passata filled the house, the aroma of herbs and the garlic making her stomach growl. Everything was in perfect order. The pasta just needed a couple of moments in boiling water and dinner would be ready.
When he came home.
‘Perhaps I should text and see where he is,’ Aurora said to little Gabe, but he stared back at her with huge navy eyes that were turning black, like his father’s, and she remembered that Nico’s perfect wife would not do such a thing.
She would accept that he was working when he was late.
Gabe started to rub his eyes and grizzle.
‘He’s tired,’ the nanny said.
‘He’s okay,’ Aurora insisted.
She wanted Nico to come home to a stunning Aurora and a gleaming, smiling baby.
‘Why don’t I put him down to sleep?’ the nanny asked a full hour later. Gabe clearly wanted to lay down his head and he had been sick on his lovely pale blue suit. ‘You can have your nice meal and relax...’
‘No!’ Aurora said, for she wanted to sleep beside her baby.
But then she remembered the new rules that she was enforcing. A calm house, a serene and smiling Aurora...
How it ached to hand Gabe over—and then, for the first time in eight weeks, she was alone.
Eight weeks and nine months—for she had loved Gabe even when he’d lived inside her.
And Aurora loved fiercely.
She could feel snakes of anger rising in her chest as she sat there in the lounge, tapping her grey-shod foot as the night wore on. Finally she caved, and called him—but of course his phone was off.
So she called the hotel, and was eventually put through to a weary-sounding Marianna.
‘Signor Caruso is not here, Aurora.’
‘What time did he leave work?’
‘He hasn’t been in today.’
Her new shoes hurt, so she took them off. Her new eyelashes itched as she took the passata off the stove and then decided she was starving and cooked the pasta.
He could reheat his own.
The louse.
She had told him of her love, and she had shared her dark fears. And his response?
Silence.
Always, always silence from Nico, when she needed his thoughts the most.
Argh!
She threw the spaghetti at the wall—and not to check if it might stick! She threw it in frustration, in despair and in pain—because she wanted this to stop.
For this love for Nico to fade.
For the depth of her soul, where he resided, to be excised, so that she could move on with her life with her head held high.
It was nearly midnight as she sat at the dinner table and wept—because this was her life. Loving a man who did not so much as call.
Perhaps he was out with his lover. Breaking it off with her because, sorry, he’d just found out he was a father...
Maybe they were making love now.
Break-up sex.
Which would lead to make-up sex when he weakened and grew bored with his Silibrian mountain girl.
‘I hate you, Nico Caruso!’ she wept.
‘Of course you do.’
And there he was, standing in the doorway, looking a whole lot more crumpled than he had that morning but still with plenty of dash.
‘Where were you?’ Aurora demanded as she stood up. ‘Marianna said you have not been in work today.’
‘When you calm down I will tell you.’
‘Don’t tell me to calm down. You have a son now—you have responsibilities—’ She could have bitten off her tongue, and yet she could not stop, and now huge angry tears were spilling out. ‘You stay out to this time of night like an alley cat! It is not a good example to set for your son.’ She let out the hurt that was really on her mind. ‘I told you I loved you, Nico. I gave you all my fears and you gave me nothing back. I will never forgive you for that!’
‘Never?’ he checked.
‘Never, ever!’
She could feel her hair, uncoiled and spilling over her face, and she knew her make-up was smeared just when she wanted to be so calm and serene.
‘Never!’
She jabbed a finger at his chest, but he caught it and pulled her into him, and kissed her hard, his mouth smothering hers.
She pulled her face back. ‘Don’t you dare kiss me to keep me quiet,’ she said, but she made only a half-hearted effort to push him off. ‘Anyway, you still haven’t shaved. You will cut
my face to ribbons...’
‘You wanted a man with a beard, Aurora.’
‘Perhaps—but I want a man who is devoted. I want a man who does not tell me he’s in the office—’
His reply was to haul her over his shoulder.
‘You wanted a man to come home to a house in chaos and laugh and then spank you.’
‘Nico, no!’ She was wriggling, and she did not know what was happening, but then he let her down, slowly against his chest.
He did not let her go; he held her tightly in his arms. ‘Good, because I could never spank a woman—let alone the woman I love.’
She missed the moment. It was just so impossible that her mind brushed it off.
‘Oh, the woman you love? Did you say that to your redhead? Did you say that to your blonde?’
Nico had the audacity to laugh.
‘It’s not funny, Nico—how could you?’
‘As it turned out, I couldn’t.’ He was the accusing one now. ‘You’ve not only messed with my head but with my prowess, Aurora.’
‘Liar.’
‘It’s true,’ Nico said. ‘There’s been no one since you.’ And then he amended that a touch. ‘The second time around.’
That should have made her rage, but then she saw the intense look in his eyes, and she realised that in the midst of all this he had told her he loved her—that in these past agonising months there had been no one but her.
‘Don’t tell me you love me unless you mean it,’ she begged.
‘I do mean it.’
He was breathing hard and he put his hands gently on her cheeks. His thumbs wiped away her tears and he made her look at him.
‘I love you, Aurora, and you were wrong last night. This is not an occasional love—it’s an endless love. Over and over I told myself that I didn’t want it, but it turns out that I do.’
‘Why would you not want love?’ Aurora asked.
She thought she had already worked out the answer, but she needed to hear it from Nico.
‘I never knew how good it could be,’ Nico said. ‘I thought life would be better lived for the most part alone.’
For look what love had done to him.
‘I thought it was better to stay back,’ he explained. ‘But of course I couldn’t. I always wondered if it was guilt or duty that pulled me back to Silibri—I could not decide between the two. But it was neither. It was love—my love for you.’
And then came that almost grim smile. The one she was getting to know. The one that meant Nico might lose his head at any given time.
It was a gesture she could read and it was a little more that she knew about this remote man.
A shiver that ran through her as she thought how much more there was to know, and that soon he would ravish her.
He lifted her onto the granite bench, so she was at eye level with him. She looked deep into his black eyes...
One day she would count those thick dark lashes, Aurora decided. One day, when she could hold off for a moment, she would count every last one.
But there was no holding back for Nico.
There should be sparks between them, Aurora thought as his mouth moved to claim hers. He was kissing her so hard it was as if he had been starving for her—as if the air in her mouth was the air he needed to breathe.
It wasn’t elegant sex.
Nor was it serene.
She kissed him back—not just his mouth but his face, his eyes, his neck. She gave up trying to undo his shirt and moved down to his belt, but Nico had already taken care of that.
She looked down and saw him, huge and aroused. His impatient hands were tearing at her sophisticated underwear as he berated her for wearing knickers when he had to have her now.
‘Is it too soon after...?’
He was trying to slow down even as he tore the last items off...even as he confirmed that she was ready with his fingers. He was trying to be measured and controlled and...well, a responsible new father.
‘It’s not soon enough,’ she moaned. ‘Are we sorted, though?’
She meant the Nico loving her thing—for it was all too new and too much to fully take in.
‘We’re sorted,’ he told her.
And then he slipped slowly inside her, stretching her and filling her as only Nico could.
And then his hands were everywhere, shredding the flimsy dress, baring her breasts as he had wanted to on that first day in Rome.
He was the man she had first made love to—he was Nico unleashed and untamed—and he was everything Aurora needed tonight.
She wanted the fierce possession of his kiss, and she wanted the full power of Nico Caruso.
And he gave it.
Over and over and over.
She felt as hot in his hands as she had when the mountains had been ablaze in Sicily that night. And she felt as safe as she had been on that cold morning in Rome when she’d looked up into his eyes.
‘I’ve kept on wanting you,’ she told him as he thrust into her and dug his fingers into her hips.
He turned the blood in her veins into champagne and he took her body to places that would have otherwise remained unseen and unknown.
‘Aurora!’ he said, and his voice sounded like a car skidding and careering on gravel.
Aurora felt just as out of control until she heard the delicious sound of Nico calling her name.
‘Nico...’
She wrapped her legs tight around him and buried her face in his neck, inhaling the scent of Nico aroused. It was the scent she craved from the man she adored and she wanted to linger there a moment, to imprint that scent combined with the delicious feel of Nico unleashed upon her, but then she felt a lurch inside her and the swell of him within.
He summoned an orgasm from her. He simply demanded it—this very instant.
The tears and frustrations of the day seemed to gather and tighten, pulling her into a frenzied peak, and Aurora sobbed in frustration—for she simply did not know what to do with all the love she had for this man.
Except give it to him.
* * *
So much for elegance.
Nico helped Aurora down from the bench and then zipped himself up. He pocketed her bra and knickers to save the nanny finding them.
And then he surveyed the chaos.
There was spaghetti on the wall, and he felt the thump, thump of his swelling heart as he looked in the pot on the stove and smelt the herbs and the garlic, and saw the remains of the perfect dinner she had prepared for them.
No, not exactly elegant. But he warmed it up, and she grated pecorino cheese, and then they ate standing up. Like two filthy beggars, they shared what was left in the pot.
‘Your father was right,’ Nico said.
‘I’m not talking to my father,’ Aurora said.
‘But he was right about one thing,’ Nico said, as he wiped a little bit of passata from her chin. ‘“Good food and family and my day is complete. What more could I want?”’
‘You should raise your voice a little when impersonating my father,’ Aurora said.
‘But I wasn’t impersonating him.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
HE TOOK HER TO BED.
And he did not close the drapes.
They just lay there, sated and spent, with her head on his chest, his fingers playing idly with her hair, and the steady thump, thump of their hearts.
Aurora still had many questions, and she could not stop herself asking the important one. ‘Nico, where have you been all day?’ She looked up at him with urgent eyes. ‘And until so late in the night.’
She simply had to know.
‘Where do you think I’ve been, Aurora?’
‘You don’t want to know my thoughts. In them you have been to many places.’
‘Okay—where do you thin
k a man goes when the love of his life shows up?’
She went pale in his arms.
‘I went to Silibri to speak with your father.’
‘You have told him that Gabe is yours?’
‘Of course I have.’
Nico was quiet for a moment, for it had taken great restraint not to tear into Bruno and his wife for their treatment of Aurora. He could not stand to think of all they had put their daughter through when she had needed them the most.
But they would soon be family, and he had chosen to remember that.
‘What did he say?’
‘He huffed and puffed,’ Nico said.
‘And Mamma?’
He could hear the anguish in Aurora’s voice.
‘She asked how you were and then she started crying. She asked me what Gabe looked like.’
‘Yet all she had to do to find out was pick up the phone.’
‘Of course,’ Nico said. ‘But they spoke of your dating app...’
Aurora did not laugh.
‘It was confusing for them,’ he said gently. ‘And then your father got out a bottle of—’
‘Limoncello.’ Aurora finished his sentence for him.
‘I always wondered why he did not stop speaking to me after I refused to marry you,’ Nico admitted.
‘And me,’ Aurora agreed. ‘I thought your name would be mud in our house, but he kept insisting you join us.’
‘He said he would believe that I had not offended you unless I married someone else. But if I did then all bets would be off.’ He smiled as Aurora laughed. ‘He knew,’ Nico said. ‘He knew, that night when you headed out to the party, that I was churning inside.’
‘I would hope he does not know what occurred on the sofa.’
‘Of course not—or I would be dead. And anyway, a nice girl like you would never...’ He looked over and smiled.
‘Aurora, he brought out the Grappa he had been saving for this moment.’
‘You told him you were marrying me?’
‘No,’ Nico said. ‘I told him that I wanted, more than anything, to marry his daughter. And then I told him we had stuff to sort out first.’
‘Nico, don’t make a mistake,’ Aurora said. ‘I am strong.’
‘I know you are.’
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