by Maya Blake
She held up her hand, stopping the torrent of words. ‘You know what, I don’t believe you. Because you said it yourself, you play to win. Always. Finding out Alessandro did this to me put you in a position of weakness. So you withheld it from me. It’s that simple.’
‘Finding out my own flesh and blood did such a horrible thing to us both made me ashamed,’ he bit out. ‘He smiled to my face and stabbed me in the back. He did worse to you and, for that, I’m sorry, Mia. Sono così dispiaciuto,’ he muttered thickly, taking a step towards her.
Again she held up her hand. Because something inside her was crumbling. And she couldn’t afford to let it. ‘Don’t.’
For the first time in her life, she spotted naked fear on Rocco’s face. He hid it well. In the bunching of his fists before clasping them behind his back. In the measured breaths he attempted to take while his gaze remained glued to her face. In the restraint he showed when she started to back away from him.
‘Where are you going?’ he finally jerked out when she grasped the door handle.
She stopped but didn’t turn around. ‘I’ve lived in fear for over three years. You can live with not knowing how this is going to turn out. See how you like it.’
He was in hell. Not just any hell. The special kind of hell reserved for bastardi like him who believed they could control the outcome of any event. He’d known the moment Allegra approached him with that cat-with-cream look on her face that his sin was coming home to roost.
He’d lied to the woman he’d never forgotten, the woman who owned his heart. All so he could hang onto her for much longer than he deserved. Just so he could try this contentment on for size when all along he’d known it was much more? That he simply couldn’t live without her because he was nothing without her.
The next hour passed in excruciating torture, each second feeling like his last.
Rocco wanted to honour her wish to stay away, but what if each moment put her farther out of his reach? He’d never been one to sit and wait for things to come to him.
So, he wasn’t surprised when his feet propelled him out of the door.
She was sitting with her back against the wall next to the lift, her head bowed. Rocco froze in place as she slowly lifted her head and speared him with eyes filled with pain and censure.
‘You handled this badly, Rocco. So very badly.’
‘Sì, I know.’
Tears filmed her stunning green eyes and he wanted to claw his own heart out. ‘You hurt me. So much.’
Regret and fear shook through him. He swallowed both down. Everything was on the line. And now, more than ever, he needed to play to win. Deciding to risk it, he strode to her, scooped her up in his arms and returned to the suite.
And when she jerked herself out of his hold, he set her free. ‘I swear on my life that I will never hurt you again.’
She shook her head, placing the length of the living room between them. ‘I don’t want that sort of promise. You can’t guarantee that if you don’t trust me.’
‘I can and I do. Even at that first meeting in London, things Alessandro had said and done niggled at me. I didn’t want to believe it. But on the plane when you asked me to believe you about the blueprints, I knew you were innocent of this too. But...we’d been barely been married for a day. We were so new. And what I felt for you overwhelmed me. All of this is no excuse, amante. But all I ask is that you give me chance to make things right.’
She brushed at a tear, and he felt it to his soul.
Dio mio, what had he done?
‘How?’
‘Whatever hoops you choose, I will jump through them. All I ask is that you don’t leave me.’
‘What if that’s exactly what I want?’
He locked his knees to stop from reaching for her. ‘Is that what you want? Truly?’
She didn’t reply. But he spotted her fingers caressing her ring. Wild hope flared in his chest.
‘What I want is...impossible.’
He shook his head. ‘Nothing is impossible. Name it, amore. Speak the words and it will be yours.’
Her lips firmed for a long moment. ‘I can’t,’ she whispered.
‘Then let me speak them for you. You want to be loved—ti amo tanto. You deserve to be adored—you are my heart itself. I had no blueprint for love, mio prezioso. Not until you spread your love all over me and showed me just how sublime it could be. Even then, I remained blind. But I’m not blind any more, Mia. I might fail sometimes, but I will never fail at loving you.’
‘Oh, Rocco.’ Her voice broke, and, sì, he was un bastardo, because it was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard.
Unable to stand the distance between them, he crossed the room and reclaimed her. To his eternal gratitude, she wrapped her arms around his neck.
They kissed long and hard and desperately, until she broke free. ‘I’m going to hold you to that promise. You know that, don’t you?’ she whispered.
‘I would expect nothing less, amore mio.’
Then, simply because he believed he would expire if he didn’t kiss her again, he did.
But again, she broke free. He groaned, laid his forehead against hers, and just rejoiced in having her. His wife. His heart. In his arms.
‘Shall we go and find our son?’
Rocco shook his head. ‘Not until I’ve shown his mother just how much I love her.’
Her smile was wide, stunning enough to snatch the breath from his lungs. ‘I’m not going to stop you.’
He swung her into his arms and strode for the master suite. As he walked across the threshold, she laid her hand over his heart. ‘Rocco?’
‘Yes, my heart?’
‘Just so we’re even... I love you too.’
EPILOGUE
Five years later
THE CLICK OF the camera’s shutter roused Mia from a drowsy sun-drenched nap. Even before she opened her eyes, her lips were twitching with a reluctant smile.
‘I should start charging you royalties for all these pictures you keep taking of me.’
Her teasing admonishing didn’t detract her husband one iota. The moment she opened her eyes, he zoomed in, taking another lightning-fast series of pictures.
Only when he was satisfied did he lower the high-powered camera. ‘Name your price and I will gladly pay it, amore,’ he murmured, his avid gaze trailing adoringly from her unfettered hair, make-up-free face, and down her body to her belly, where Mia knew he would linger for hours if she permitted him.
At nearly eight months pregnant with their third child, she had very little inclination to do much besides laze about waiting for their baby’s arrival. A situation Rocco took full advantage of, memorialising each moment of their summer break, including this private beach picnic at their Palermo villa.
He leaned down, dropped a kiss on her forehead, then traced a few more down to the corner of her mouth. There he paused, his gaze intense as he whispered, ‘Call me primitive if you will, but I find you even more beautiful like this, with our child growing healthy and content, inside you.’ His voice had grown steadily gruff and the kiss that followed lingered until she reluctantly pulled away, glancing over his shoulder towards the beach.
‘Keep going and you’ll scandalise the children.’
Rocco grimaced, then followed her gaze to where eight-year-old Gianni was patiently showing his three-year-old sister, Luciana, how to build a sandcastle. ‘I will contain myself, for the bambinis’ sake,’ he grumbled.
Mia laughed. As if on cue, both children looked up and grinned. And, of course, Rocco raised his camera and snapped several photos.
She sighed in contentment, resting her hand on her belly as she mused in wonder over the last five years. dpg!
Save for a few bumps in the road, marriage to Rocco so far had been beyond blissful. The only trying period had been when Allegra’s en
gagement had hit the rocks and she’d decided to sell Vitelli secrets to a tabloid magazine, fabricating a story about Mia’s alleged clashes with her late husband causing her being disowned by the Vitellis.
Rocco, adamant about protecting Mia’s honour, had given a TV interview, setting the record straight. And, before the whole world, had issued a heartfelt apology to Mia.
She hadn’t even known she needed that last selfless act until Rocco had offered it, making their bond even stronger.
Her smile widened when Rocco rested his hand over hers, love blazing from his eyes when their baby kicked in response.
‘No more pictures, please. Just sit with me,’ she said.
He raised their linked hands and kissed her fingers. ‘Anything for you, il mio cuore.’
Perhaps it was the hormones. Or perhaps it was the sheer happiness that often felt too big to be contained in her heart, but Mia felt tears prickle her eyes. ‘You did it, Rocco.’
He glanced at her, one brow rising in the sexy, arrogant way that stole her breath. ‘Did what?’
‘You’ve kept your promise. Every day you make me feel worthy. That I matter. That our children matter. You’ve made us the centre of your world, and I adore you for it.’
He inhaled, heavily and shakily, his eyes growing suspiciously misty as he smiled down at her. ‘I vowed to you that I would, did I not? I intend to keep that promise. In this life and in the next. Because, you see, it’s quite simple, amore mio. You are my everything.’
Coming next month
CHRISTMAS IN THE KING’S BED
Caitlin Crews
“Your Majesty. Really.” Calista moistened her lip and he found himself drawn to that, too. What was the matter with him? “You can’t possibly think that we would suit for anything more than a temporary arrangement to appease my father’s worst impulses.”
“I need to marry, Lady Calista. I need to produce heirs, and quickly, to prove to my people the kingdom is at last in safe hands. There will be no divorce.” Orion smiled more than he should have, perhaps, when she looked stricken. “We are stuck. In each other’s pockets, it seems.”
She blanched at that, but he had no pity for her. Or nothing so simple as pity, anyway.
He moved toward her, taking stock of the way she lifted her head too quickly—very much as if she was beating back the urge to leap backward. To scramble away from him, as if he was some kind of predator.
The truth was, something in him roared its approval at that notion. He, who had always prided himself on how civilized he was, did not dislike the idea that here, with her, he was as much a man as any other.
Surely that had to be a good sign for their marriage.
Whether it was or wasn’t, he stopped when he reached her. Then he stood before her and took her hand in his. loz!
And the contact, skin on skin, floored him.
It was so…tactile.
It made him remember the images that had been dancing in his head ever since he’d brought up sex in her presence. It made him imagine it all in intricate detail.
It made him hard and needy, but better yet, it made her tremble.
Very solemnly, he took the ring—the glorious ring that in many ways was Idylla’s standard to wave proudly before the world—and slid it onto one of her slender fingers.
And because he was a gentleman and a king, did not point out that she was shaking while he did it.
“And now,” he said, in a low voice that should have been smooth, or less harshly possessive, but wasn’t, “you are truly my betrothed. The woman who will be my bride. My queen. Your name will be bound to mine for eternity.”
Continue reading
CHRISTMAS IN THE KING’S BED
Caitlin Crews
Available next month
Copyright ©2020 by Caitlin Crews
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