by Various
Remembering Eleni’s fleeting suspicions of that possibility four weeks ago, after Dani and Niccolo had spent the evening together, Dani had the dreadful feeling that he just might….
But there was no reason why Niccolo should ever know about that clause in her grandfather’s will. And even if he did learn of it, it wasn’t as if she was asking him for anything, was it?
Except the Bell heir…
No!
One thing at a time, she reminded herself. One problem at a time. And she had enough of those already without thinking of ones that hadn’t even arisen yet!
‘Daniella, what is it?’ Niccolo queried urgently as he watched her cheeks pale. ‘Daniella, you will tell me what is wrong!’ he demanded forcefully, totally frustrated with her complete intractability concerning the idea of a marriage between them.
Could she not see that it was the only solution? That he would settle for nothing less?
And what of Daniella’s wants and needs? came the unbidden thought….
He thrust it aside. Daniella was pregnant—a time during which a woman’s hormones and emotions reputedly made logical thought and decisions virtually impossible. The fact that she was pregnant with his child, that he wanted to marry her, surely made her decision never to marry again totally illogical?
Dani firmly closed her mind to thoughts of what Niccolo might or might not come to think of her pregnancy if he learnt of that clause in her grandfather’s will. At the moment her main difficulty was getting it through to Niccolo that she was not, under any circumstances, going to marry him. Although she would be lying if she said that she hadn’t felt a slight thrill, a frisson of excitement, when Niccolo had announced his intention of marrying her.
It hadn’t been her immediate reaction, of course. Initially she had been absolutely horrified just at the mention of a marriage between the two of them—had never even considered that Niccolo would make such an offer.
Although perhaps she should have done…
Niccolo was Italian, and more than that he was a D’Alessandro—a member of a Venetian family steeped in honour and tradition; the idea that the D’Alessandro heir might be born out of wedlock, so to speak, was probably enough to send Niccolo’s ancestors spinning in their graves!
She gave a rueful shake of her head. ‘What is wrong, Niccolo, is that I don’t want to marry you,’ she stated baldly, grimacing as she saw the angry glitter of his eyes and the way his mouth tightened inflexibly. ‘Be totally honest—it isn’t what you really want, either, now, is it?’ she added reasonably.
This was all too new to Niccolo for him to know what he wanted. Admittedly, for the last three and a half weeks he had been quietly contemplating—relishing!—the idea of the two of them beginning a relationship, but he could not in all honesty say that marriage had ever entered into any of those fantasies.
But now that it had…
The prospect of having Daniella as his wife was not an unpleasant one. And the thought of having her permanently in his bed, of the two of them making love whenever and wherever they pleased, was extremely exciting.
Besides, there was no question as to whether or not it was what either of them really wanted—their child needed two parents, and parents who lived together, so that the child did not become some sort of human ping-pong ball.
‘It is what I want, Daniella,’ he insisted.
‘But it can’t be!’ Dani protested fiercely. ‘Until a few weeks ago the two of us couldn’t even be in the same room without arguing—so nothing new there, then.’ She sighed ruefully as she realised that was exactly what they were doing now. ‘Niccolo.’ She reached out and placed her hand on his, instantly regretting the action as she felt an electrical charge of physical awareness tingle up her hand and along her arm. She snatched her hand away. ‘I promise you I will not make it difficult for you to see your son or daughter whenever you wish—’
‘That would be every day, then,’ he cut in harshly. ‘A promise you could not possibly keep if you reside in England and my own home is here in Venice.’
Impasse.
Coming here and telling Niccolo about the baby couldn’t solve that particular problem. But Dani would not allow herself to be browbeaten into marrying him.
Oh, she knew he was nothing like Philip—that Niccolo possessed none of the insecurity or mental imbalance that had become manifest in Philip so soon after their wedding. But the thought of being any man’s wife again, of placing herself in that position of vulnerability, was complete anathema to her.
She doubted she would be able to make Niccolo understand any of that without totally explaining the nightmare of her first marriage to him. Unfortunately, that was something she did not intend doing.
‘I’m sorry, Niccolo, but the whole idea of the two of us marrying is unthinkable to me.’
Why? Niccolo was puzzled, completely aware that only minutes ago, when Daniella had touched his arm so impulsively, she had been as physically aware of him as he had been of her since the night of Eleni’s masquerade party.
Probably before that night, he allowed ruefully, having had plenty of time to think in the three and a half weeks since he had last seen her. One thing he had come to understand was that he had already been aware of Daniella Bell and how she had grown into a beautiful young woman since he had helped Eleni move to England six years ago.
It had been the fact that Daniella had been only eighteen, while Niccolo was already thirty-one, and that she was also Eleni’s best friend, that had put up a barrier so that Niccolo had felt he could never pursue that attraction.
And so had begun the verbal battles between them that had punctuated every one of their meetings during the last six years.
Until the night of Eleni’s masquerade party….
That night of anonymity had wiped away all those barriers, had allowed him to appreciate her even if he hadn’t recognised her as Daniella. He had simply seen her as a beautiful and mature woman.
Damn it, she was his woman.
Carrying his child.
He would not allow her to walk away from him!
His mouth firmed with resolution. ‘I too am sorry, Daniella—because the idea of the two of us not marrying is unthinkable to me.’
Dani sighed, but was saved from making any immediate answer by the arrival of their food. Not that she had any appetite for it, but the interruption was welcome.
What were they going to do?
She lived and worked in London. Niccolo lived and worked here in Venice. Niccolo was insisting that they get married. And she was insisting that they wouldn’t.
Maybe she should have just followed her first instinct and started running—and kept on going….
‘Does Eleni know about the baby?’ Niccolo asked as soon as the two of them were alone again.
Daniella froze in the action of sprinkling parmesan over her pasta.
‘No, of course she doesn’t,’ she denied. ‘No one else knows but the two of us. I—It didn’t seem…right that I should tell anyone else before I had talked to you.’
He gave an abrupt inclination of his head. ‘That is something, I suppose.’
She looked pained. ‘Niccolo, I am trying to be fair.’
‘Fair, perhaps,’ he grated. ‘I would prefer reasonable.’
‘I’m trying to be reasonable, too—’
‘You call refusing to marry your baby’s father reasonable?’ Niccolo accused harshly.
Tears swam in her beautiful green eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’ She hastily wiped away the tears before they could fall onto the paleness of her cheeks. ‘I believe pregnant woman tend to be a little—over-emotional,’ she whispered.
Niccolo felt like a complete heel now. He hadn’t intended to make Daniella cry—hadn’t intended to upset her at all—but she was just being so damned stubborn by continuing to refuse to marry him!
He closed his eyes briefly, but could still inwardly see her woebegone face and tear-wet lashes.
He appreciated that
this couldn’t have been easy for Daniella. That it had taken great courage for her to come here like this today and tell him of the baby. She could have had no idea how he would react to the news.
He was just so frustrated with her refusal to marry him!
It was pretty obvious she wasn’t going to change her mind without a fight, either. A fight Niccolo didn’t believe she was emotionally or physically equipped to deal with right now.
He raised his lids, his eyes widening as he saw that her face had a slightly green tinge to it. ‘What is it?’ he asked with immediate concern.
Dani swallowed hard. ‘I don’t think I should have put this much parmesan on my pasta….’ The pungent odour of the cheese on the hot food was making her feel extremely nauseous.
Niccolo reached across the table to remove her plate and replace it with his own ungarnished pasta.
‘Oh, but—’
‘Just eat, Daniella,’ he told her wearily. ‘Eat, and then we will continue our conversation.’
Dani wasn’t sure that the delay was going to make any difference to the situation, but once her stomach had stopped churning from the smell of the melting cheese she realised that she was actually quite hungry. Not surprising, really, when she had been too nervous earlier this morning at the thought of seeing Niccolo again—at what she had to tell him—to even think about eating any breakfast.
She did feel slightly better once she had eaten Niccolo’s pasta, and a rather delicious dessert something like an English trifle. But if their conversation was going to continue along the same impossible lines Dani knew she was just as likely to lose it all again!
She ran her tongue nervously over her bottom lip. ‘Niccolo—’
‘Not here, Daniella,’ he said, before turning to ask for the bill. ‘We will continue our conversation at my home.’
Considering that home to Niccolo was the D’Alessandro palace, Dani didn’t think she was going to find talking there any more comfortable than she had here.
Eleni had once shown Dani photographs of her family home: a tall, five-storeyed building with a boathouse below, slightly Arabian in style, with an extensive garden on the roof. A home fit for the princes the D’Alessandro men had once been.
Her child—her son or daughter—was descended from princes!
From priests and pirates too, of course, she remembered wryly, but she doubted if members of either of those professions had actually lived in the D’Alessandro palace.
‘Will you be comfortable travelling by boat, or would you rather walk?’ Niccolo asked once they were outside.
Eleni had once gone into raptures about the thrill of approaching the D’Alessandro palace by boat, waxing lyrical about how beautiful it was viewed from the water.
‘Boat will be fine,’ Dani accepted huskily.
This really was a completely different way of life, she thought as she sat in the back of the small motorboat Niccolo piloted out into the busy Grand Canal, where dozens of boats similar to this one, as well as water-taxis and the much more romantic gondolas, glided smoothly through the water.
But it was Niccolo himself who held her attention as he sat behind the wheel, the slight breeze ruffling the darkness of his overlong hair, those beautiful brown eyes narrowed in concentration as he easily manoeuvred the boat through the slightly choppy water created by the passing of other crafts.
It was the first time Dani had had a chance to really look at him without the nerve-racking barrier of telling him of her pregnancy between them. She felt her heart actually skipping a beat as she gazed hungrily at the rugged handsomeness of his face.
She had been infatuated with him at the age of fourteen. Had remained fascinated by him and then, after her marriage, had shied away from his raw sexuality. Well, her fascination had been ecstatically satisfied just a few weeks ago!
She couldn’t help wondering what her answer would have been if she hadn’t been pregnant. If Niccolo had come to London on the weekend, as promised, to ask if she had changed her mind about entering into a relationship with him.
Would she have continued to say no?
Or would she have said yes, and happily grabbed the days, weeks, possibly months of having Niccolo as her lover?
Sadly, she would never know the answer to that now.
‘Why the sigh?’
Dani shook off her mood of despondency and looked up to find Niccolo glancing back at her. ‘I was just thinking how lucky you are to live somewhere so beautiful,’ she said mendaciously.
It took great effort for Niccolo not to point out that Venice could become her home too, if she would only say yes to his marriage proposal; however, a motorboat in the middle of a Venetian canal was not the ideal place in which to begin yet another argument between them.
‘Yes, it is,’ he agreed casually. ‘And here is the D’Alessandro palace.’ He kept one hand on the wheel as he pointed with the other to the pale terracotta-coloured building that had been his family home for generations. He couldn’t help but be inwardly pleased by the look of pleasure that instantly lit Daniella’s features as she turned to look at it, her eyes glowing, an excited flush to her cheeks, her beautiful, kissable mouth curved into a rapt smile.
‘Oh, Niccolo, it’s wonderful!’ she breathed.
Niccolo slowed the boat to manoeuvre it into its mooring beneath the house, before turning to help Daniella step onto the paved walkway that led to a staircase up into the main part of the palace.
‘Could you bring tea up to the drawing-room, Edoardo?’ he asked his manservant as the other man came into the spacious hallway to greet them. Niccolo kept his amusement contained as the elderly man showed none of the surprise he was probably feeling at the return of his employer in the middle of the afternoon, with a beautiful redhead secured firmly at his side, and he kept a light hold on Daniella’s arm.
Dani, accompanying Niccolo up the wide staircase to the first floor, had never seen such a beautiful house. The decorations were ornately gold, the lavish furniture obviously genuinely antique. Huge paintings hung on the walls, and a crystal chandelier was suspended from the high ceiling above them.
She followed Niccolo as he threw open tall doors that led into what was obviously the drawing room. The domed ceiling of this room held Dani’s attention, painted with cherubs and maidens, with more ornate gold filigree work and yet another crystal chandelier also suspended above them.
Having grown up in Wiverley Hall she was, of course, used to big houses, but the D’Alessandro palace was in a class completely on its own; it was unbelievably magnificent in its opulence.
She gave a choked laugh. ‘Eleni told me it was beautiful, but I had no idea…’
‘Come and look at the view,’ Niccolo encouraged huskily as he opened the doors out onto the balcony before turning to hold out his hand to her in invitation.
Dani stared at that hand, feeling suddenly shy with him, never having quite appreciated before how in other circumstances Niccolo might have been Prince D’Alessandro. But it was all too easy, in these grand surroundings, to imagine him as such—to recognise his innate air of command, to acknowledge him as the powerful and much-respected head of the D’Alessandro family.
Niccolo was offering to share all of this with her, to make her his wife, the mother of his child—children…? For she didn’t doubt that Niccolo would want more than one child to continue the D’Alessandro line. Any other woman would have grabbed the offer with both hands, Dani knew. Was she being rash in refusing to marry Niccolo? Was she being fair to their son or daughter by denying its birthright?
She was no longer as sure about that as she had been…
But maybe that had been Niccolo’s intent in bringing her here?
Perhaps it was, but being here with him like this, with the magic of Venice and the D’Alessandro palace surrounding them, Dani was finding it more and more difficult to resist the allure…
‘Daniella…?’ Niccolo prompted again, his expression gently enquiring as he continued to h
old his hand out to her.
She gave him a brief smile before stepping forward to take his hand and letting him guide her out onto the balcony. She released herself to step forward and rest both her hands on the railing as she gazed out across the water.
All of Venice lay before her, it seemed. The beautiful Grand Canal was hazily lovely in the still-warm autumn sunlight as the boats moved continuously along its length, boatmen cheerily greeting each other as they passed. There was an elderly couple in one gondola floating majestically by, their rapt faces telling of their complete enthrallment with their surroundings. Another gondola accommodated a young couple, their arms wrapped about each other and with eyes only for each other.
Dani could see a small child sitting on the balcony of one of the buildings farther down the wide canal. A little girl with dark hair curling silkily onto her shoulders. Her whole attention was on the piece of fruit she was eating with relish, and the sound of her giggle sounded clearly across the water as a young woman, probably her mother, came laughingly out to join her.
And there were so many aromas to assault the senses too. The smell of fresh bread baking. The garlic that was added to most Italian dishes. The juices of many fruits mixed together, adding a freshness to the air that was intoxicating.
Niccolo stood slightly to one side, watching Daniella indulgently as she fell in love with the magic that was Venice.
He had been born here, had lived here all his life, but to him Venice was still a city like no other. A city that twined its tentacles into your heart and never let go. It was easy to see from the glowing fascination on Daniella’s face that Venice had already started to take its hold on her heart too; her eyes were glowing mistily, her cheeks were tinged a delicate rose, and her lips slightly parted in wonder.
She shook her head slightly. ‘How could Eleni possibly have chosen to leave all this?’ she breathed.
‘I do not know,’ Niccolo murmured as he moved to stand behind her. ‘Stay here with me tonight, Daniella,’ he said, his hands sliding about her waist as he pulled her gently back to lean against him. ‘Please spend the night here with me.’ He groaned, lowering his head as he placed lingering kisses against the exposed column of her throat. ‘Our child permitting,’ he added achingly, ‘I would very much like to make love with you in the Venetian moonlight.’