The Italian's Pregnancy Proposal (Bought For Her Baby Series Book 3)

by Maggie Cox

  ‘Oh, yes, Dante. Of course I meant it! I love you. I think I will always love you…always!’

  She let him pull her close then, her cheek resting against his heart as he stroked her hair and held her tight. ‘And you don’t prefer my cousin Alessandro?’ Dante teased with a twinkle in his eye. Shocked that he would even jest about such an unbelievable thing, Bliss lifted her head and playfully thumped his shoulder.

  ‘As if! There is only one man in this world that interests me, Dante di Andrea, and you know exactly whom I’m talking about. He’s arrogant and gorgeous with a heart of gold, and I love him more than I love my own life.’ She threw her arms around his lean, hard middle just because she could.

  As he grinned with unashamed satisfaction at her possessive stance Dante’s lips hovered just bare inches from Bliss’s own.

  ‘That is good. A man needs to know how his woman feels about him. Ti amo, Bliss. With all my heart…’ No longer needing words to express how he felt, Dante kissed the woman in his arms as if his very life depended upon it, and, going by the whispers of need that she breathed against his skin between kisses, he wasn’t being at all arrogant in believing she felt the same.

  EPILOGUE

  Eighteen months later

  HE searched for her the moment he stepped out of the car, his senses led by the sound of laughter drifting on the air from the back of the house, on the terrazzo. Leaving his suitcase on the gravel drive, Dante resisted the urge to run and increased his already lengthy stride by conspicuous speed instead. He had been away on business in Lake Como for a week, helping Tatiana oversee the new extension that was being built on the now-thriving hotel she had taken over, and Bliss had been staying with his parents at their villa because Dante didn’t want her to be alone. Now, he couldn’t wait to see her again, to share the good news he had brought with his beautiful young wife and family.

  ‘Dante!’

  Standing beside his father, with little Roberto happily preoccupied on his grandfather’s knee, Bliss glanced up almost as soon as Dante appeared round the corner of the house, her lovely face animated by unconstrained joy at his homecoming. Six months pregnant with their new baby, she was nevertheless shapely and fit in her white drawstring trousers and sleeveless blouse, her delicately tanned skin giving her a sultry, contented glow of well-being that made Dante want to steal her away from his parents and son there and then and show her in explicit detail just how much he had missed her.

  He knew his parents wouldn’t mind that he embraced his wife first. But when their eager kiss lingered on into almost embarrassingly long seconds—his heart beating wildly at the fierce pleasure of holding Bliss in his arms—he wasn’t surprised when Antonio had something to say about it.

  ‘Ay ay ay! Let the poor woman draw breath, my son! Anyone would think that you had been gone six months instead of just one week!’ Winking at his wife, who sat calmly beside him knitting for the new baby, he happily patted her knee. His own delight in his eldest son’s happiness was clearly overflowing. ‘And we are eager to hear your news. How is my darling Ana?’

  ‘In love.’ His lips parting in a helpless grin, Dante slid his arm possessively around Bliss’s thickening waist and met her questioning gaze with a conspiratorial twinkle in his eyes. ‘She has fallen in love with a young man named Raphael who is in charge of building the extension on the hotel. She spends most of her time gazing at him out of the window instead of working!’

  ‘He must be very gorgeous, then.’ Bliss smiled back into his eyes.

  ‘I will ignore that remark until we are alone together…then you will pay.’

  Secretly thrilling at the deeply hungry and possessive tone in her husband’s voice, Bliss playfully punched his arm and watched him go to little Roberto and swing him off his grandfather’s knee, high into the air. Her heart did a triple somersault at the wondrous sight. She’d always believed that Dante would be the best father and in the past few months since their son’s birth she had had ample evidence to support the fact. There truly could not be a more thoughtful, loving, patient, wonderful father on the planet. Except perhaps for Antonio, who day by day became more and more of a father to Bliss than her own troubled parent had been. And now they were going to have another baby to set the seal on their abundance of happiness. Bliss had been pronounced one hundred per cent fit and healthy by her new doctor at the maternity clinic in Milan, and so the concerns she had had when she’d carried little Roberto had been thankfully absent for the most part. She had a lot to be thankful for.

  ‘Go and change out of the clothes you have travelled in and rest for a little while,’ Isabella told Dante, rising to her feet. Nodding her head lightly in Bliss’s direction, she smiled lovingly at her tall, handsome son. ‘Take your wife with you. If I am not mistaken, she could do with a rest as well. Don’t worry about little Roberto. Papà and I will take care of him until you come back.’

  ‘Grazie.’ Kissing his mother on the side of her cheek, Dante couldn’t deny the leap of anticipation that shot through him at the idea of being alone with Bliss for a while. Returning his son to Antonio’s willing arms, Dante caught his wife by the hand and led her into the house. Pausing outside the bedroom door, he cupped her face between his hands and as his dancing green eyes blazed back at her with love and adoration in equal measures he silently thanked God for bringing this priceless treasure into his life.

  ‘You are not too tired?’ he enquired a little anxiously, glancing down at the perfect little bump beneath her clothes. For answer, Bliss boldly reached behind her and opened the door with ill-concealed impatience in her hungry gaze. ‘The journey from Lake Como must have addled your wits, Dante di Andrea! The day I don’t leap at the chance of welcoming my husband into my bed will be the day the world comes to an end!’

  More than gratified with such a reply, Dante gave her a playful little shove into the room and closed the door behind them.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-2037-3

  THE ITALIAN’S PREGNANCY PROPOSAL

  First North American Publication 2008.

  Copyright © 2008 by Maggie Cox.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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