by Lynne Graham
Back at the airport, she tried and failed to get an earlier flight back to Ballybawn. Having booked herself into a hotel for the night, she attempted to call Luciano on his mobile. When there was no answer, her heart sank.
He wasn’t answering her calls. He was very angry with her and he had every right to be, she told herself wretchedly. What had she been planning to say in any case? It would be easier to grovel face to face than it would be on the phone. She had got everything wrong but at least some good was about to come out of all the bad news: Steven Linwood had gone to the police to tell all and Luciano would at last be able to get his own name cleared. Wouldn’t that put any male into a better mood? A more forgiving frame of mind?
After a rather sleepless night, Kerry resisted the urge to try and phone Luciano again and attempted to cheer herself up by buying a pregnancy-testing kit instead. When the little blue line formed and confirmed that she was, indeed, carrying Luciano’s baby she was ecstatic, even more ecstatic than she would have been twenty-four hours earlier, for she was certain that that information would take the edge off his fury with her. And no, she wasn’t too proud to use any advantage she had to achieve that objective.
When she arrived back at Ballybawn, she could not initially credit that Luciano was no longer in residence. She walked through every room before she finally spoke to the housekeeper and tried not to take fright at the information that her husband had left the castle only an hour later than she had the day before. But Luciano was still not taking her calls or answering her messages. She decided that possibly she ought to give him a few more hours to cool down with her.
Only by that stage Kerry was beginning to fall victim to panic. Not once had she believed Luciano when he had said that he was finished with her if she went to Miles’ assistance. She adored Luciano. She was willing to make a big bet that Luciano also knew that she adored him. But Luciano had still walked out on her just as he had sworn he would. Presumably that also meant that he had returned to Italy.
At that point of grudging acceptance, Kerry went into shock. Had Luciano already got bored with her? Had he been looking for an excuse to dump her? Was her support of Miles so unforgivable? Slowly and painfully she came to the conclusion that it had been unforgivable on Luciano’s terms. She was married to a guy who was never, ever going to forget or fully forgive the fact that she had not been there for him when he had been imprisoned. She had gone out on a limb over the worst possible issue.
I need you to understand and believe in me, Luciano had told her. But she had still not had sufficient faith. When Luciano had demanded that she choose between him and her stepbrother, he must already have been suspicious of Miles. It seemed that she had stayed loyal to Miles at the cost of her marriage. Miles was, after all, the rat for whom Luciano had served five years in prison. Bearing that cruel fact in mind, how could she expect Luciano to forgive her?
On the third day after her return to Ballybawn, Kerry flew out to Tuscany. It was a very warm afternoon when her taxi dropped her off at the Villa Contarini. Her blue cotton dress sticking to her damp back, she walked into the cool, shaded interior. Nobody greeted her. Either everybody was out and had forgotten to lock the doors or Luciano had read her text message forewarning him of her arrival and had sent the staff home.
‘Why did you come here?’
The effect of Luciano’s dark, deep drawl coming out of nowhere at her almost made Kerry leap out of her skin. She jerked round. Luciano was watching her from the sunlit drawing-room. Proud dark head high, sheathed in a light grey business suit worn with a shadow-stripe shirt and a pale blue silk tie, he had the stunning impact of a very good-looking guy. As she walked towards him her mouth ran dry and her heart hammered.
‘Kerry…?’ he prompted drily.
‘You’re here, so I’ve come here…it’s pretty simple,’ she pointed out tautly.
‘Even if I don’t want you here?’
Her feverish colour ebbed. ‘I’m afraid you’re stuck with me. I’m going to sit on your doorstep and make a nuisance of myself until you listen to me.’
Brooding dark golden eyes rested on her without any perceptible emotion. ‘There is nothing left to say.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I think you need to think about that some more and I’m not going any place, so you’ll have plenty of time to do it in,’ Kerry told him doggedly. ‘Miles is the lowest of the low and I never once suspected he was. OK! So I wasn’t able to see through him…but I love you!’
His lean, darkly handsome features clenched. ‘But not enough—’
‘Now, just you hold on there!’ Kerry studied him with angry bright blue eyes. ‘How does a guy who has never once told me that he loved me define ‘‘not enough’’? I’m not perfect and I make mistakes, but you do too. You can’t throw away our marriage just because I went to see Miles in London!’
‘Can’t I?’ Luciano regarded her with chilling cool. ‘I can do whatever I want to do.’
She knew she could not say what she longed to say. There was a little boy inside him who had never been loved enough and she knew that, but she had underestimated just how much it meant to him that he should believe that he was more important than anybody else in her world. That was, after all, what Luciano wanted and needed from her: unconditional love.
‘You can but you won’t shake me off easily. I’m staying,’ Kerry declared.
‘I’ll just leave—’
‘And I’ll follow and it’ll get embarrassing…’ Kerry studied him, chin at a stubborn angle. ‘I mean it. Everywhere you go, I’ll go, and you’ll have to go to court to make me stay away from you!’
Involuntarily, Luciano almost laughed out loud. It was the threat of a fearless extrovert and exhibitionist and she was the shyest and quietest woman he had ever known. But there she was, looking at him with positive fierceness and an amount of possessiveness that warmed him like the flames of a fire on a cold day.
‘I also feel I ought to warn you that if you were to take me to court you’d just end up looking really bad.’ Kerry hoped that she wasn’t imagining that rueful gleam lightening his beautiful gaze.
‘And why would that be?’
Her gaze veiled. ‘I’m not telling you that yet…’
Luciano wondered how long it would have taken him to break through the barrier of his own pride and he strode forward then without hesitation. ‘Santo cielo! You hurt me a great deal!’ he said, startling himself as much as her with that frank admission.
Kerry grabbed him with both hands before he could back off again. ‘I know and I swear I’ll never do it again. I was so set on not being a doormat and I thought you were being unreasonable because I never once suspected that Miles might have been the real thief—’
‘I know. You’re not very good at reading people, cara mia.’ Luciano framed her face with gentle fingers. ‘And I’m not very good at talking about love—’
‘Let’s not push our luck by talking about it, then—’
‘I love you so much it terrifies me,’ Luciano confided gruffly.
‘Truly?’ Kerry blinked.
‘It was always that way and I couldn’t let you see it and I couldn’t even admit it to myself, bella mia,’ Luciano groaned. ‘It placed a barrier between us that should never have been there. I fought needing you, and four days ago I did the exact same thing. I was very bitter that you could put Miles before me…but it was complete madness for me to walk out over that.’
‘Just as well I love you to death,’ Kerry soothed, tugging him in the direction of the stairs with intent.
‘Next time we quarrel I’ll come to you,’ Luciano intoned guiltily.
‘There had better not be a next time…and I don’t think my nerves would stand the wait. Just as well you succumbed before I wheeled out the big guns,’ she teased.
‘What big guns?’
‘I’m pregnant,’ Kerry told him cheerfully.
Luciano looke
d stunned. ‘And you know…already?’
Kerry linked her arms round his neck and smiled sunnily up at him, feeling like a very high achiever and in love with the mystery of her own female body. ‘You remember that very first time that you forgot—?’
‘That far back?’
She could have drowned in his blazing smile of satisfaction. But then he frowned, guilty discomfiture darkening his troubled appraisal. ‘You’re carrying my baby and I’ve put you through hell—’
‘Absolute hell,’ Kerry sighed with dancing eyes of amusement. ‘You will have to be so perfect to keep me happy the next few months—’
‘Stop teasing me…I’m crazy about you and I will be perfect—’
‘Promises…promises—’
Luciano closed both arms round her tight and kissed her breathless.
‘That was…that was definitely perfect,’ Kerry confided with enthusiasm. ‘Do you think you could do it again?’
Luciano laughed and proved that he could. In between bouts of kissing he carried her upstairs into their bedroom, where sheer, bubbling happiness lent an extra dimension to their loving. A long time later they lay in each other’s arms, and that was when she finally told him about what she had learned from Harold Linwood when she had visited his home.
‘So, you’re not a Linwood born and bred, after all.’ His golden eyes connected with hers and he hugged her close in silent acknowledgement of the distress that that revelation about her paternity must have caused her. ‘I’ve got to admit it, though…Even years ago, I wondered if it was possible that you weren’t his daughter. You don’t resemble Harold in any way but it was his vindictiveness that first made me suspicious—’
‘You never said…’
‘I didn’t want to hurt you. Lousy as he was in the parent stakes, you valued the relationship—’
‘Not as much as I once did.’ Kerry pulled a rueful face. ‘After the shock had worn off, I realised that I was grateful that a man who’s never shown me any affection wasn’t my father—’
‘Did Linwood give you any idea who your real father might be?’
‘I don’t think he has a clue.’
‘I could have enquiries made,’ Luciano suggested quietly.
‘I don’t think I want anyone to go digging into Carrie’s past. It’s really not important enough to me now.’ But, touched by his thoughtfulness, Kerry tightened her arms round him in appreciation.
A long time later, Luciano uncorked a dusty bottle of wine with a flourish and poured a single glass of wine. ‘The day that my conviction was squashed in court and I got my freedom back I said I wanted two things…a glass of 1925 Brunello Riserva and a woman. But I knew I wouldn’t drink the wine until I had got justice and my name was cleared.’
‘I’d better be the woman…’ Kerry told him.
‘Who else?’ Lean, darkly handsome face amused, Luciano savoured a mouthful of the brilliant ruby-coloured liquid and stared down at her with teasing appreciation. ‘You’re also a complete philistine, incapable of appreciating a superb vintage wine, but there is one way of ensuring that you share the experience, cara mia…’
‘Is there?’
Kerry’s eyes widened in surprise as he tipped his glass and let a couple of drops of wine spill down onto her breast. But as he laved the precious liquid from her creamy skin with his expert mouth his intentions became very clear, and she lay back with a wondering sigh of encouragement.
‘I’m no good at resisting you,’ he told her huskily.
Kerry wove happily possessive hands into his luxuriant black hair. ‘You’re not supposed to be,’ she told him with gentle oneupmanship.
With Luciano looking on, Kerry put their baby, Pietro, down to sleep.
‘Our son has a look of intelligence,’ her husband commented with quiet satisfaction.
Kerry tried not to smile, for even to her fond eyes their baby looked much the same as usual. Pietro was three months old, a laid-back, cheerful baby who ate whenever he was offered sustenance and slept at the same times every day. He was also very tolerant of a father given to lifting him from his cot at odd hours and equally at ease with foreign travel.
Ten very busy and challenging months had passed since the night she had told Luciano that their first baby was on the way. She had had an easy pregnancy and Luciano had been wonderfully supportive throughout those months. For others, it had been a more testing time. Miles had stood trial twice, first for his drugs offences, the second time for theft and other charges dating back five years. Her stepbrother would be in prison for a long time. Steven Linwood had received a shorter sentence and his family were standing by their son.
The legal system had finally acknowledged that in Luciano’s case a miscarriage of justice had taken place. Luciano had finally had the satisfaction of being publicly acknowledged an innocent man. From that day on, it had been as though a dark shadow had retreated from Luciano, enabling him to leave the unhappy past behind him.
On a lighter and more startling note, the first book in her grandfather’s series had been published to rave reviews and had become a runaway best-seller. All those years while Hunt O’Brien had hidden behind the pretence that he was writing history of the type found in textbooks, he had in fact been engaged in creating a work of fantasy based on Celtic myth and legend. Seven more books were still to be issued and her grandfather’s accountant had confidently forecast that his client would be a millionaire long before he reached his next birthday. Autograph hunters were now occasionally to be found loitering in the grounds but the famous author was rarely to be found at the castle, since he and his wife had rediscovered their love of foreign travel.
Apart from those excitements, however, life at Ballybawn and the Villa Contarini had gone on much as usual, although since the family circle had grown there were many more visitors.
As Luciano and Kerry dimmed the lights and left the nursery, he pulled her close and claimed a long, lingering kiss of undeniable passion that made her quiver. ‘I have a surprise planned,’ he breathed.
‘I’m listening…’ Kerry was also struggling to get her breath back because her gorgeous husband had lost none of his ability to make her go weak at the knees.
‘This week we leave Pietro in the charge of his efficient nanny and head for the island…just you and me…and the sand, bella mia,’ he growled sexily.
Kerry leant into his lithe, muscular frame. ‘I don’t know about the sand…but you and me sounds good!’
‘I love you,’ Luciano breathed, and she was still smiling when he kissed her again.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-5400-8
DARK ANGEL
First North American Publication 2003
Copyright © 2003 by Lynne Graham
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All 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 incidents are pure invention.
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