‘Bonjour, Marietta.’
His deep voice washed over her and just like that, with a few velvety syllables, all the heartache of the last month was swept away by a surge of heat and longing she was helpless to prevent.
‘Buongiorno, Nico,’ she managed, her voice cool. Composed. Silently she congratulated herself. No need for him to see how he affected her.
He gestured to the seat Helena had vacated. ‘May I?’
She nodded, and he moved the chair closer to her before he sat. His proximity made her skin tingle. Her pulse race.
‘I’ve missed you.’
Her insides clenched on another surge of longing. I’ve missed you too, she wanted to say.
‘Did you come all the way to Tuscany to tell me you missed me, Nico?’
The corners of his mouth tilted, as though he were amused, and she wished he wouldn’t smile. It weakened her.
‘I did,’ he said simply.
And that made her eyes sting, because she wanted so very badly to believe him.
Suddenly he moved, reaching towards her, and before she could stop him he’d pulled her sunglasses off her face.
His gaze narrowed. ‘You don’t believe me, ma petite sirène?’
‘Please don’t call me that.’
‘Why not?’
Did he really need to ask?
‘Nico, please...just tell me why you’re here.’
He hesitated. ‘I’d like to take you somewhere.’
‘Where?’
‘It’s a surprise.’
Her stomach fluttered. ‘I don’t like surprises.’
‘Please,’ he said, and she heard the distinct note of uncertainty, of vulnerability, in his voice.
It weakened her.
Still, she made him wait a few seconds more. ‘Okay,’ she said at last, and his features relaxed a fraction.
He stood. ‘Do you trust me, chérie?’
She nodded, because she did. She had always trusted him and she always would. All the same, she wasn’t expecting him to do what he did next—which was to lean down and scoop her out of her chair.
‘Nico!’ she exclaimed.
He carried her through the garden and round the side of the villa to the courtyard out front. A large black vehicle was waiting, a man dressed in black standing beside it. He opened the rear passenger door and Nico slid her into the back seat, closed the door, and a few seconds later climbed in beside her from the opposite side. He rapped on the dark glass partition that separated them from the driver and the vehicle started to move.
Nico reached across her—to strap the seatbelt over her, she assumed. But he hauled her into his lap.
‘Nico—’
He kissed her, and shamefully, wantonly, she made no effort to resist. Instead she surrendered, snaking her arms around his neck and kissing him back.
It was a hot, hungry meeting of lips, and when they finally broke apart he was breathing hard. His large hands cradled her face, his blue eyes heated and glittering. ‘Mon Dieu, I missed you.’
Marietta trembled. ‘Nico,’ she pleaded. ‘Tell me what’s going on.’
He pressed his forehead to hers, the gesture so sweet that her chest flooded with tenderness and something else. Something she was too afraid to acknowledge.
‘I don’t know where to start,’ he said.
‘Start at the beginning,’ she said softly.
He nodded, and took a deep breath. ‘The morning after the storm, when I got back to the house and found the shattered window and you nowhere in sight, it was like Julia all over again—arriving home, finding her gone... I couldn’t breathe...couldn’t think...’
Marietta’s throat ached. She laid her hand along the side of his face. ‘I’m so sorry for putting you through that,’ she whispered.
He placed his hand over hers, turned his head and kissed her palm, then tucked her hand against his chest and held it there.
‘Losing her inflicted wounds I thought would never heal, and I was determined to never feel that pain again. To never feel that sense of loss and devastation.’
He fell silent. Marietta waited.
‘You were right, chérie. I was afraid. Afraid to care for someone. Afraid to love again. But then...’ He gave her a crooked smile. ‘You came along.’
A jolt of warmth, of hope, went through her.
‘And you were right about something else,’ he said. ‘I needed to deal with my guilt—confront the past.’ He paused. ‘I went to see Jack.’
Her eyes widened. ‘And...?’
He grimaced. ‘It wasn’t easy, but we talked. Laid some demons to rest.’
‘Oh, Nico... I’m so proud of you.’
‘Don’t be.’ His mouth flattened. ‘I pushed you away, and that’s nothing to be proud of. I told myself it was the logical thing to do but it was logic driven by fear—a weak man’s excuse.’
She frowned. ‘You’re not weak,’ she declared. ‘And you’re not the only one who’s been driven by fear.’
Nico shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t have said—’
She pressed her fingers to his lips. ‘But you were right. I isolated myself, just like you did—but in a different way and for different reasons. I was afraid, too. Afraid of wanting what I couldn’t have.’
Nico took hold of her slender fingers and kissed their tips one by one. He loved this woman. When he’d walked down that garden path and caught his first glimpse of her—beautiful in a simple white top and long skirt, her glorious hair flowing loose over her shoulders—he’d thought his chest might implode.
‘And what do you want, ma belle?’
‘You,’ she said, a fierce light shining in her eyes.
He cupped her face in his hands. ‘Marietta Vincenti, will you do me the honour of letting me love you?’
Tears welled in her eyes. She placed her hands over his. ‘If you’ll do me the honour of letting me love you.’
The car stopped and he kissed her, briefly, but with enough intensity to let her know there’d be more to come.
‘I love you,’ he said.
Then he lowered the window and pointed towards the middle of the large meadow by which they’d stopped. She blinked, and her eyes widened as she saw a fully inflated, brightly coloured hot air balloon.
‘Will you come fly with me, chérie?’
Her mouth stretched into a grin. ‘I thought you said hot air balloons are dangerous.’
He’d also said it would be a frosty day in hell when he flew in one. Well...today hell was having a cold snap.
A short while later the ‘oversized picnic basket’—as Nico was fond of calling it—lifted off the ground. Marietta felt like a child. Breathless, giddy, excited. Or maybe like a woman in love. She sat on a special stool, high enough to enjoy the stunning view of the Tuscan countryside, with Nico’s arms circling her from behind, his chest solid and warm against her back.
She jumped at the sudden loud whoosh as the pilot fired the burner, and Nico’s hold tightened.
‘I’ve got you, chérie.’
She smiled up at him. ‘I know. I’ve got you, too.’
For ever.
EPILOGUE
‘PAPÀ! PAPÀ!’
A flash of pink and lime-green hurtled through the doorway of the study.
Nico swivelled his chair around. ‘Amélie, don’t run in the—oomph!’
His six-year-old daughter catapulted herself into his lap, and the moment she grinned up at him he forgot to finish scolding her. He closed his arms around her wriggling body and grinned back.
Amélie was a brown-eyed, dark-haired mini-version of her mother, and too damned adorable to stay cross with for very long—even when she pushed his patience to its limits. Which she did—frequently—because she’d inherited not only Marietta’s beauty but a good deal of her stubbornness as well.
‘Can we go to the beach now, Papa?’
And, like her mother, she loved to swim in the sea.
‘In a bit, ma petite sirène.’
/>
Her little lips formed a pout that was no doubt designed to weaken her papà. ‘But I want to go now. Enzo’s already there, with Remy. Why can’t I go down the steps by myself like they can?’
‘Because they are older and bigger.’
The tiny scowl on her face looked a lot like the one her mother occasionally wore when Nico earned her disapproval. Fortunately for him, those occasions were rare—and he always enjoyed it when they made up afterwards.
He scooted his daughter off his lap. ‘Go and help Maman prepare the picnic hamper.’
He watched his daughter fly out of the room. Her energy was boundless, and these days it seemed she was incapable of walking anywhere. Enzo, his ten-year-old son, had gone through a similar stage, which had included climbing anything in sight that looked remotely scaleable.
Nico had been convinced he was destined for heart failure—especially in those first few years of parenting. On the day his son had been born he’d known fierce pride and elation, but also a sort of quiet terror. A fear that he would somehow fail to protect this tiny life in a world increasingly fraught with danger and risk.
Marietta had known. Whether she’d seen something in his face or simply sensed his inner turmoil, she had understood. And she had talked him down. Helped him to wrestle his fear into something less daunting, more controllable. And as their son had grown, she had insisted they did not wrap him in cotton wool. Had insisted that their son be allowed to experience the world. To grow up as safely as possible, yet with an understanding of risk and consequence.
It was Marietta, too, who had convinced him they should have a second child. Nico had been hesitant after her first pregnancy. Blood pressure problems and other issues related to her paralysis had dogged her from the second trimester onwards. He had watched her struggle with long months of enforced bed rest and vowed he wouldn’t see her suffer like that again.
But she was resilient, and strong, and she’d set her heart on a little sister or brother for Enzo. And his wife had, of course, proved very persuasive in bed...
Nico closed his laptop. He had cleared enough emails and reports for today. Marietta growled if he spent too much time working during their family vacations on Île de Lavande.
He stood and his gaze caught, as it sometimes did, on the antique rolltop desk in the corner of the study.
Julia’s ghost had been laid to rest many years before. Very occasionally the darkness and the guilt would stir in some deep corner of his soul, but the emotions never lasted for long—not in the face of the light and the laughter that his children and his wife brought to his world. He’d considered at one point getting rid of the desk, but Marietta had convinced him not to and he was glad she had.
He found his girls in the kitchen. Amélie launched herself into his arms again and he lifted her up.
‘Now, Papa? Can we go now?’
He looked to Marietta and felt the familiar jolt in his blood. Her hair, still long and lustrous, was pulled into a ponytail and she wore a sarong and a crimson bikini top, ready for the beach. Into her forties now, she was as beautiful as ever—and she still made his body hum with desire.
‘Are you finished with your little helper?’
She wheeled back from one of the low marble benches they’d had specially installed for her and smiled. ‘Si. And the hamper’s ready. Take Amélie and the basket down—and don’t forget to come back for your wife.’
He slid a hand around the back of her head and dropped a quick kiss on her teasing mouth. ‘Funny, Mrs César.’
She grinned and his heart expanded—and he wondered, not for the first time over the years, how his chest could feel so full and yet so incredibly, amazingly light.
* * *
Marietta lay on a towel on the sand with her eyes closed, enjoying the sun on her face and the sound of her husband and children playing in the ocean. Nico had already taken her in for a swim and she was content now to relax and let the kids frolic under his watchful eye.
This was her reality now. The one that in the early years of her marriage she had secretly feared wasn’t reality at all, but a fantastical dream of some sort. A great big bubble of joy that would sooner or later burst and send her crashing back to her real life.
But the bubble hadn’t burst. It had only grown bigger and stronger—like her love for her husband—and eventually she’d stopped waiting on tenterhooks for the fairy tale to end and allowed herself to truly enjoy the life she’d never thought she’d have.
She smiled at the sound of Amélie’s high-pitched squeal and guessed her papà was throwing her into the air. She could hear the boys too. Her son and Remy Bouchard—Luc’s son—were firm friends, and Remy usually stayed with them for a few nights when they vacationed here.
She could not believe she and Nico had been married for almost thirteen years. They had finally settled in Paris, and they lived there in a beautiful home they’d renovated and fully modified for her wheelchair. They’d sold her apartment in Rome, but retained Nico’s apartments in London, New York and Singapore, all of which he used when travelling for work.
Marietta happily divided her time between motherhood and her art career, which had flourished in the early years of their marriage and continued to keep her busy now, with several lucrative commissions each year.
She heard Nico’s deep voice telling Enzo to watch his sister and then her son’s obedient response. She smiled again. Enzo was becoming more like his father every day—serious and intense—but he also had a strong streak of curiosity about the world which showed he had something of his mother in him.
‘What are you smiling about, chérie?’
She looked up through her sunglasses at her husband and her stomach clenched, because he was still the most magnificent man she knew. Dripping wet, he stretched out on a towel beside her and she marvelled at how hard and toned his body had remained over the years. Physically, he really hadn’t changed. A few distinguished-looking grey hairs at his temples and some deeper lines on his face due to his secretly worrying about his wife and children, but otherwise he looked the same.
And he still loved her—as fiercely and passionately as he had in the beginning.
‘I was just thinking,’ she said, tracing her index finger along the strong line of his jaw, ‘that Enzo is very much like his papà.’
Nico grinned—and she melted. She always did when her husband smiled at her.
His chest puffed out. ‘But of course. He is good-looking, intelligent, irresistible—’
She slapped her hand over his mouth. ‘And lacking in modesty!’
Her took her hand and pressed a kiss into her palm. ‘And our daughter is very much like her maman.’
‘Si. Beautiful, talented—’
‘Stubborn, wilful—and her wish list is already longer than her mother’s was!’
She laughed. ‘A girl needs to dream.’
And yet her own wish list was practically non-existent now, because she had everything she could possibly want—and more.
All the things that had originally been on her list had been ticked off early in their marriage, before they’d started trying for children. Nico had taken her to Egypt to see the pyramids and the Valley of the Kings, and the trip had been magical—despite a team of his security men shadowing them everywhere they went. They’d gone up in a hot air balloon again—on their honeymoon—and eventually, after much persistence on her part, he’d agreed to her doing a tandem skydive. But not before he’d vetted the skydiving company and warned the operator that if anything happened to his wife he would personally throw the man out of a plane without his parachute.
The only things she wished for now were health and happiness for her family.
She looked at Nico, propped on his elbow, staring down at her. ‘And why are you smiling, tesoro mio?’
He trailed a fingertip over her bare belly, inciting a flurry of goosebumps on her skin. ‘Because I’ve arranged for Luc to collect the children in an hour’s time and take
them to his place for the night.’
A hot spark of anticipation ignited in her belly. She arched an eyebrow. ‘And what will you do then?’
‘Then, ma belle,’ he said, his blue eyes smouldering, ‘I will spend the night showing my wife how much I love her.’
* * * * *
Read on for an extract from A DEAL FOR THE DI SIONE RING by Jennifer Hayward.
EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT
Even unsentimental Alessandro Di Sione can’t deny his grandfather’s dream of retrieving a scandalous painting. Yet its return depends on outspoken Princess Gabriella. Travelling together to locate the painting, Gabby is drawn to this guilt-ridden man. Could their passion be his salvation?
Read on for a sneak preview of
THE LAST DI SIONE CLAIMS HIS PRIZE
the final part in the unmissable new eight book Presents series
THE BILLIONAIRE’S LEGACY
Alessandro was so different than she was. Gabby had never truly fully appreciated just how different men and women were. In a million ways, big and small.
Yes, there was the obvious, but it was more than that. And it was those differences that suddenly caused her to glory in who she was, what she was. To feel, if only for a moment, that she completely understood herself both body and soul, and that they were united in one desire.
“Kiss me, Princess,” he said, his voice low, strained.
He was affected.
So she had won.
She had been the one to make him burn.
But she’d made a mistake if she’d thought this game had one winner and one loser. She was right down there with him. And she didn’t care about winning anymore.
She couldn’t deny him, not now. Not when he was looking at her like she was a woman and not a girl, or an owl. Not when he was looking at her like she was the sun, moon and all the stars combined. Bright, brilliant and something that held the power to hold him transfixed.
Something more than what she was. Because Gabriella D’Oro had never transfixed anyone. Not her parents. Not a man.
Defying Her Billionaire Protector Page 15