Surrendering to the Italian's Command

by Kim Lawrence

Danilo might hate her, but if she had learnt anything over the past few hellish weeks it was that, regardless of what he thought of her, she would always love him. She would never have him but she would have his baby. She glanced down, a wondering smile flickering across her mouth as she pressed a hand to her stomach as the reality finally penetrated the blank fog of panic and denial that had been her initial reaction.

  She felt oddly calm, which was not rational. Her life was about to change and there was the task of telling Danilo. She had literally no idea what his reaction would be.

  She wasn’t even sure she would see him when he came for his sister—she had included her mum’s number in the message—but if she did was now the right time to tell him? Or should she get used to the idea herself first?

  Was there ever a right time?

  Pushing the question away, she went back into the café, stifling a stab of guilt when she saw Nat deep in conversation with her mum.

  She doubted it would matter to Natalia that Tess had not actually made any promises, but even if she had Tess had no intention of repeating her mistake. Not that doing the right thing on this occasion would mitigate what she had done in Danilo’s eyes previously, but just as Tess felt she had acted in Nat’s best interests last time, she felt she was doing so this time too—but then right, she thought sadly, was very much a subjective thing.

  ‘Did you know that your mum knows Dame Eva Black?’ Natalia said the name of the famous visually impaired athlete with awe.

  ‘Name-dropping again, Mum?’

  ‘Don’t be rude, and ungrateful. Eva sent you those tickets for your school auction.’

  ‘That’s great. Please thank my godmother for me.’

  ‘Godmother? Wow!’

  ‘Right, we are sorted. Nat and I are getting a taxi back to my place. Give her time to settle in and then you can join us for supper.’ Beth leaned in a little closer and, under cover of kissing her daughter’s cheek, whispered, ‘Have you contacted her brother?’

  Tess gave an imperceptible nod and her mother mouthed good before turning back to her house guest.

  Once she’d seen them safely into a cab, Tess walked the short distance to her flat where for the second time that day she found a Raphael waiting for her on her doorstep.

  Her heart stopped beating for a second and then compensated by climbing into her throat, beating so hard she could barely breathe.

  He looked so familiar. Tall, sleek, unbelievably elegant and yet there were differences too. He was thinner, the body fat had burned off him—not that he had ever carried much—making him look harder and more...hungry. It showed in his face, the skin stretched tighter emphasising the angle and prominence of his cheekbones. She stood there absorbing the details with the hunger of an addict deprived of her drug of choice for too long.

  * * *

  He read the note that Marco had brought him for the second time and laughed.

  There was a dark irony to it. He had told himself that he was doing the right thing, the noble thing. He had put his life on hold for his sister. He had walked away from love, and did she appreciate this noble sacrifice? No! She wrote a note, in which he was labelled as a control freak, and ran away.

  He inhaled, closing his eyes as he screwed up the paper in his hand. The situation forced his hand...he’d wanted everything to be perfect, but then life was not perfect.

  Noble. Who was he kidding? Not himself any longer at any rate. He wasn’t taking the noble route, he was taking the easy route. Pride had stopped him calling her back and cowardice had made him push her away.

  Tess had been right when she’d accused him of using her as a scapegoat, whereas in reality she had brought only good into their lives. Deep inside he’d always known that; he had struggled not to love her because he didn’t think he deserved to be happy while Nat sat in a wheelchair. Tess had said it was always about him and she was right... Had he ever once asked her what she wanted?

  It was time he did.

  * * *

  He levered himself off the wall, the speech he had practised on the flight vanishing when he saw her. ‘Hello, cara mia.’

  Was he trying to be deliberately cruel?

  Before he could say anything she rushed headlong into an explanatory speech. ‘She is safe with my mum. I tried to contact you. I left messages. This was not my doing, and I didn’t put her up to this, Danilo, and I’m not in the mood for one of your rants so please just go away!’

  ‘I never thought you did...’ But he had known where Nat would run. ‘With your mother?’

  She nodded, not quite sure what to make of this Danilo, who wasn’t shouting or flinging accusations. The stillness about him confused her. ‘The stairs.’

  ‘Of course. I remember.’ He remembered everything.

  ‘How,’ she puzzled, ‘are you here now?’

  ‘She left Marco a note, and to his credit he brought it to me as soon as he found it. He... We were pretty sure if she was going to run it would be to you.’

  It was a compulsion that he understood well.

  ‘It seems that I might—’ He broke off, his heart contracting painfully as he took in the dark shadows smudged beneath her spectacular eyes. Her skin was so pale it seemed almost transparent. He fought down the urge to run his fingers over it, knowing it would be smooth and satiny to the touch. She looked fragile, breakable; he struggled past the need to wrap her in his arms.

  ‘Might?’ she prompted.

  ‘I might have misjudged him. But everyone deserves a second chance, don’t you think?’

  The intensity of his stare made her nervous. His being here at all made her nervous! Thinking about how to tell him, when to tell him...the words, the tone to take...made her nervous. ‘I...yes, I suppose. You must be anxious to see Nat. I can give you the address. I have a piece of paper here somewhere.’ She began to search the deep pockets of the light belted trench coat she was wearing over her skirt and blouse.

  ‘She is safe?’

  Tess nodded. ‘She might be wielding a protest banner when you see her next but she is fine.’

  ‘Then no, I am not anxious to see her.’

  She searched his face, seeking a clue that would explain the way he was behaving. ‘You’re not angry with her, are you?’ Her jaw set. ‘Because if you plan to yell at her the way—’

  ‘No, I am not angry with her.’ Only himself for being an utter imbecile. He had had paradise within his grasp and he’d walked in the opposite direction.

  She heard the emphasis and thought, So he’s angry with me. Pulling her hands from her pockets, she crossed them in front of her in an unconsciously self-protective gesture. No change there, then!

  ‘Oh, hell, does it even matter?’

  ‘Does what even matter?’

  What’s the point? It doesn’t matter how you say it, or when, he’s going to be furious.

  ‘Danilo, I’m pregnant.’

  His reaction to the blunt pronouncement was slow but when the look of shock appeared it was total. ‘Pregnant?’

  Her chin lifted to a challenging angle. ‘Yes, and before you ask it’s yours.’

  ‘I never thought otherwise.’

  ‘I suppose there hasn’t been much time for it to be anyone else’s.’

  ‘Were you looking?’ he growled out, the image of Tess falling into bed with another man seriously testing his determination to let her see that he was a changed man capable of calm control, the sort of man she deserved.

  His comment released a fresh burst of anger inside her as the many, many low lights of the past few hellish weeks passed before her eyes. ‘Sure, Danilo, it’s been party, party all the way, what between throwing up and fainting in work. What the hell do you think I’ve been doing for the last few weeks, Danilo?’ she demanded, as, hands on hips, she advanced until she was standing a foot away from him. ‘Well?’ she charged in a furious growl.

  ‘I appreciate that it must have been hard for you, discovering you’re pregnant...’

  ‘I
didn’t even know I was until a few hours ago and that is the one good thing that has happened to me.’

  ‘Good?’ Freed from the self-imposed restraints—the effort of containing his delight and noisily expressing it had been a strain—he released a long sigh. He no longer had to hide his feelings in an effort to be sensitive to the anger and bitterness she might have been feeling, had every right to be feeling. An unplanned pregnancy was not every woman’s idea of good.

  A baby. He closed his eyes and let the warmth flow through him.

  He couldn’t even look at her! Tess ignored the hurt and embraced her anger as she lifted her chin and stood there in an attitude of angry defiance. ‘Yes, I am, and—’

  When Danilo opened his eyes he could see how paper thin her attitude was. In a way it emphasised how fragile she was. ‘I will look after you...both.’

  ‘Look after? I don’t want looking after,’ she choked out while the voice inside her head screamed, I don’t want looking after, I want loving!

  Danilo did not let the rejection deter him. ‘Nonetheless, it is going to happen.’

  She lifted both hands to her head, grabbing a handful of hair. ‘Do you ever listen to anyone? I don’t need you!’ The lie emerged as a plaintive wail of despair.

  ‘Fine, but I need you and, as you know, I am a selfish man.’

  She stopped, the tears she struggled to blink away trembling on her eyelashes as she stared up at him, suspicion warring with hope in her face. ‘You need me?’

  He tipped his head. ‘Yes, in a need oxygen, need water sort of way. You are one of the essentials to life for me.’ He spoke with the total certainty of someone who had imagined a life without Tess in it and knew that breathing was not the same as being alive.

  The journey to self-awareness had been slow and painful, speeded by the truths jolted free when he’d discovered Nat’s disappearance, but before he had reached this point it had taken Danilo a week of raging against the fate that had brought Tess into his life, alternating between anger and self-pity while he congratulated himself on being rid of her.

  He hadn’t asked to fall in love, he’d wanted to be punished, so when it had happened to him he had rejected it. He had rejected her and at the first excuse that had come he had pushed her away. But not the feelings she had awoken in him; they, he realised, would stay for ever. Love was as permanent as his fingerprints.

  He had had everything a man could want and he had turned his back on it. Yes, he was an idiot and a coward!

  His first instinct had been to get on a plane, but at the last moment he had paused. Tess had given him everything and in return... Self-disgust churned in his belly when he thought of the way he had treated her. He had never given her a word of tenderness, no romance, but he would!

  He’d planned the proposal down to the smallest detail. The restaurant was booked, the singer he knew was her favourite was performing just for them and the chef he’d shipped in from New York. The only thing he was waiting for was the ring, which was still in the jeweller’s—the one he had finally settled on had been far too big for her tiny fingers.

  He had thought of everything except the unexpected, so here he was no ring, no romantic music, not even a straggly bunch of flowers...and definitely no script. That had gone out of the window the moment she had made her stunning revelation.

  ‘What did you say?’

  He couldn’t think of any prettier way to say it so he just said what was in his heart. ‘I love you.’

  She tried to react with her head to the declaration, but she struggled to tune out the contribution of her hopeful heart, which was thudding like a wild thing in her chest. ‘Is this about the baby?’

  ‘I suppose everything from now on will be about the baby, but, no, irrespective of a baby or ten babies, I love you. I have loved you, and I would have been there to ask you—look, this isn’t the way I planned it but, please, will you marry me, Tess? I don’t know if you can ever forgive me for being such a total fool, because I am, but I’m a fool that loves you and I can change—’

  ‘Oh, Danilo!’ The cry came directly from her heart as she hit him like a heat-seeking missile, forcing the breath out of his lungs in a soft hiss.

  ‘So does this mean you do forgive me?’

  ‘I’ll be your lover, your mistress, your wife. I’ll be anything if I can be with you and I don’t want you to change. I fell in love with you the way you are.’

  Danilo swallowed, emotion thickening his voice as he responded to her emotional declaration. ‘You are the most all-or-nothing person I have ever met and I’ll settle for all: lover, mistress and wife.’

  Oblivious to the stares of several passers-by and the honking of a few horns the couple kissed and carried on kissing until a remark from someone in a car brought Danilo’s head up.

  ‘Get a room,’ he repeated. ‘He has a point.’

  ‘I have a room,’ she pointed out. ‘I can walk now,’ she protested as he swept her up.

  ‘Just let me pretend I’m boss, at least in public, cara mia, for the sake of my fragile male ego. In private I will be whatever you want.’

  EPILOGUE

  Three years later

  EVERY EYE IN the place was on the bride, all except one pair. Danilo’s eyes were trained on his wife’s face. Tears were running down her cheeks as she stood there in the silliest hat he had ever seen, looking more beautiful than any woman who had ever breathed. That she loved him still filled him with wonder, pride was mingled with that wonder as his gaze slid down her body. Her outfit had not been designed to hide the swelling of her belly that made him so proud.

  The baby due in three months had been planned this time. A little brother or sister for their son, who walked proudly, bearing the bride’s train in his chubby hands, the determination not to trip over it as he had done in the rehearsal clear in his face.

  He heard Tess release a relieved sigh as the bride reached the altar where the groom, Marco, who had finally accepted Danilo’s offer to join their legal team after being persuaded nepotism had nothing to do with it, was standing.

  ‘She made it,’ Tess whispered, tears in her eyes.

  ‘Of course she did,’ Danilo said as he rested the crutches he had held just in case the bride, who had been determined to walk down the aisle unaided, had needed them.

  It had been Nat’s decision in the end to go through with the experimental surgery, two more had followed and the physical therapy that had followed would have tested the resilience of a hardened soldier, but Nat had come through. The day she took her first step had been the day the young couple had announced their engagement.

  There wasn’t a dry eye in the house as the bride made her responses in a clear, confident voice. There were tears in Tess’s eyes when she turned to look at Danilo. He knew what she was thinking about because so was he: the moment that they had stood in that very spot and exchanged the same vows.

  He had told her, later that night, that it had been the first day of the rest of his life. His new life, he thought as her fingers tightened in understanding around his, was very, very good!

  * * * * *

  EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT

  Dante Di Sione can’t believe the beautiful blonde who ‘accidentally’ stole his family’s tiara is blackmailing him – for a date to her sister’s wedding! If Willow wants to be his fake fiancée, she’ll have to play the part to the full. Only Willow’s confidence is fake…and she’s a virgin!

  Read on for a sneak preview of

  DI SIONE’S VIRGIN MISTRESS

  the fifth in the unmissable new eight book Modern series

  THE BILLIONAIRE’S LEGACY

  “I’m sorry. I’m out of here.”

  “Dante…”

  “No. Listen to me, Willow.” There was a pause while he seemed to be composing himself, and when he started speaking, his words sounded very controlled. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re lovely. Very lovely. A beautiful butterfly of a woman. But I’m not going to have sex with you.”<
br />
  She swallowed. “Because you don’t want me?”

  His voice grew rough. “You know damned well I want you.”

  She lifted her eyes to his. “Then why?”

  He seemed to hesitate and Willow got the distinct feeling that he was going to say something dismissive, or tell her that he didn’t owe her any kind of explanation. But to her surprise, he didn’t. His expression took on that almost gentle look again and she found herself wanting to hurl something at him…preferably herself. To tell him not to wrap her up in cotton wool the way everyone else did. To treat her like she was made of flesh and blood instead of something fragile and breakable. To make her feel like that passionate woman he’d brought to life in his arms.

  “Because I’m the kind of man who brings women pain, and you’ve probably had enough of that in your life. Don’t make yourself the willing recipient of anymore.” He met the question in her eyes. “I’m incapable of giving women what they want and I’m not talking about sex. I don’t do emotion, or love, or commitment, because I don’t really know how those things work. When people tell me that I’m cold and unfeeling, I don’t get offended—because I know it’s true. There’s nothing deep about me, Willow—and there never will be.”

  DI SIONE’S VIRGIN MISTRESS by Sharon Kendrick

  Available November 2016

  PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY

  www.millsandboon.co.uk

  Copyright ©2016 Mills & Boon

  ISBN: 978-1-474-04433-2

  SURRENDERING TO THE ITALIAN’S COMMAND

  © 2016 Kim Lawrence

  Published in Great Britain 2016

  by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

  All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.