Harlequin Presents--June 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Dani Collins

  Her first thought had been to flee. To put some space between her and Leo in the desperate hope that if she returned to the UK, she might be able to patch up her broken heart enough to come back stronger in time for the birth. But the rules would have to change. She would be adamant about that. She would insist that she and the baby have their own apartment. Live separate lives. Leo could have unrestricted access to their child, but that’s all. She couldn’t go back to the arrangement they had shared at Villa Magenta. It was too painful. Too degrading.

  Her head had told her this was the only way forward. But her heart refused to agree, twisting inside her now, telling her to fight for what she wanted, goading her into action. Condemning herself to such a cold, sterile existence would never make her happy. She would be existing rather than thriving, trapped in the twilight of a half-life where the sun would never shine. Living alongside the man she loved but who could never be hers. Who only ever came to her in her dreams.

  Strength and courage. Did she possess enough of those qualities to try one more time? One last attempt to get inside Leo’s head, to break through the protective wall and expose the turmoil that lay beneath. Because she was pretty sure that what was inside was broken, hurting. And despite everything, she knew she wanted to help him. To heal him. Even if it turned out to be her parting gift.

  A strange sensation fluttered in her stomach and Emma grasped the stone balustrade. She hoped she wasn’t going to feel faint again. But no. She spread her hands over her belly, waiting. There it was again. The baby. Their baby. Moving inside her, like it was trying to tell her something. Too gentle to be called a kick, yet more powerful than the mightiest blow. Emma closed her eyes against the swell of emotion. Here was the strength she needed. Now all she had to do was use it.

  * * *

  The cobbled streets of Ravenino greeted Leo like an old friend, twisting and turning their way down narrow alleys, opening up into ancient piazzas, ascending long flights of steps to white-painted churches. Leo knew every inch of the place. It was written into his DNA. As kids, he and Taddeo had treated the town like their playground, taking every opportunity to escape the walls of the Castello in search of freedom.

  With Leo the brains of the operation and Taddeo egging him on, they had often been found stripped half-naked splashing in a fountain when they should have been in lessons, riding a donkey through the town with the Castello security team in hot pursuit. There had been punishments, of course. Harsh physical punishments, largely taken by Leo, the elder brother. The one who should have known better. But he hadn’t minded. Taller and stronger than Taddeo, it was only right he’d taken the brunt of it. Besides, he’d loved his brother. He would have done anything for him.

  But as the years had gone on their relationship had changed, responsibility settling on Leo’s shoulders, seeing him start to obey the rules, take his lessons seriously, frequently travelling abroad for months at a time to further his education. Taddeo, meanwhile, had discovered women, lots of women. And partying. Frequently crashing home drunk when Leo had already been behind his desk, preparing for another day of dry instruction. Words had been exchanged. Leo informing his brother it was time he grew up, Taddeo demanding to know when Leo had turned into such a crashing bore.

  By the time their father died they had become very different people. But the shock of finding out he was to be the next Conte had hit Taddeo almost as hard as Leo. Neither of them had handled it well, and Taddeo’s arrogant assumption that Leo would take on much of the responsibility behind the scenes, effectively leaving him to carry on with his hedonistic lifestyle, had sent Leo into a storm of fury. Tempers had flared, voices had been raised. And when Taddeo had got wind that Leo had tried to honour his pledge to Cordelia and she had turned him down, he had used that to full advantage to get under Leo’s skin. To taunt him in a way that only siblings could. And that, for Leo, had been the final straw. He’d wanted nothing more to do with Ravenino. Nothing more to do with Taddeo.

  Turning the corner, he found himself in front of the town hall, the clock just starting to strike the hour. On either side of the dial, bronze figures took aim at the bell beneath, swinging their hammers with never diminishing strength.

  ‘You and me, Leo,’ Taddeo had once said, gazing up as he had linked his skinny arm through his brother’s. ‘One day we will be strong, just like them.’

  But were they? Not Taddeo, incapacitated by an accident, lying in a hospital bed. And Leo himself? Sometimes it felt as if the stronger he was determined to be, the weaker he became. Certainly as far as Emma was concerned.

  Emma. The memory of her standing there in the library, so upright, so proud, cut through him like a blade. But she shouldn’t have come here. And she certainly shouldn’t have declared her love for him.

  He turned away, retracing his steps to the Castello. Being summoned to Ravenino had been a cruel blow, but Leo had counted on there being one positive outcome. Being away from Emma would give him time to clear his head, order his thoughts. But that hadn’t happened. Emma was permanently there—no matter where he was, what he was doing. A receptor in his brain, a tug in his gut, a pulse in his groin. He carried her with him wherever he went. Sometimes it felt as if she was attacking him on all fronts, just by existing. Just by being Emma.

  Which was why his reaction had been so hostile when she had turned up this afternoon, out of the blue, talking about love. She was disobeying his orders. She was breaking the rules. She was messing with his head. She had even found out the sex of their baby without his permission.

  A boy! His son! Pride reared up inside him again, constricting his throat. A daughter would have been just as joyous, but he couldn’t help the way the thought of a son puffed out his chest, called to him on some primal level. And the fact that Emma had discovered it first no longer mattered one jot.

  Inside the Castello grounds now, Leo gazed up at the imposing fortress, the granite walls, the towering turrets. A symbol of strength and power through the centuries, it epitomised everything he’d thought he’d stood for. Everything he had thought he’d wanted. And yet now...now he realised he had been mistaken. By coming back to the principality, he had been forced to face his nemesis, only to find it was no such thing. Ravenino was his past, not his future. It was not preventing him from moving on. He alone was doing that.

  It was a shocking revelation. Leo looked around him, breathing deeply, searching for the emotion that had to be there. Testing himself. Almost willing himself to feel what he had told himself he had to feel. Loss, regret, anger, bitterness. Because to deny it was to make a mockery of the last three years of his life. Years when he had skated over the surface of his life. Never standing still enough to examine the motives behind his behaviour. Never stopping to look at what lay beneath for fear it would be too hard.

  But Emma had challenged him right from the start. From the moment she had put her slender fingers on the keyboard and composed that article. From the flash of her eyes that night in London, the shock revelation she was pregnant, the torment of trying to live alongside her at Villa Magenta.

  And now this. By declaring her love for him. Always inside his head. Always Emma.

  He started walking again, his feet taking him around the side of the Castello, towards the family chapel and the graveyard that was the final resting place for generations of Raveninos. He followed the grassy path that led to his mother’s grave, set against the wall, catching the quiet rays of the afternoon sun. He had been here many times over the years, Taddeo by his side, placing flowers in the vase beneath the headstone, paying their respects to their mother who had died before her time. But now there was another grave, a newer headstone.

  Alberto Leonardo Ravenino

  May he rest in peace

  A simple inscription sharply carved into the black granite.

  Leo squatted down beside the grave. He now regretted refusing to attend Alberto’s funeral. Regrette
d not having been there to pay his last respects to the man who had raised him. The man who Leo had thought to be his father for twenty-eight years. At the time he had been too consumed with rage to think straight. He had hated Alberto for being so weak—for daring to love a woman who had betrayed him in the worst possible way. For keeping the lie to himself until the very last moment. Leo had raged against the selfishness of his final act—casting him aside, just to ease his own conscience.

  Now that anger had gone, replaced with understanding, sympathy even. He truly hoped Alberto was at peace. As a ray of sunlight flickered from one grave to the other, he realised he even wished the same for his mother. That they had found eternal happiness together, if ever such a thing were to be found.

  Whatever had happened to him?

  Emma. That was what. Emma had changed his whole perspective on life. Changed his priorities. Made him come alive. Made him feel. Not the shallow emotions shown to the faceless women who had shared his bed. Not the hatred and bitterness that he had harboured for so long. Nurtured even. Afraid that if he let go of it there would be nothing left of him. That his antipathy had made him the man he was.

  With a rush of adrenaline his mind cleared. His fractured thoughts finally shaped into a clear picture.

  Emma was his tormentor and his liberator. The light to his dark. She was everything to him. And yet he had sent her away...

  Rising to his feet, Leo pushed back shoulders that were locked with tension. Cowardice, denial, stupidity, he could think of a host of reasons for his behaviour. But none that excused it. Because the truth was he had panicked.

  Emma’s brave, beautiful, astonishing words had shaken the world beneath his feet. She had forced him to face the unthinkable. Not the knowledge she had fallen in love with him. That truth he held against his heart like the most precious jewel, warm and safe. Nothing and no one would take that away from him.

  But the way her confession had flayed him, laying him bare, ripping him open for all to see. Showing him he was not the man he had told himself he was—clinical, unemotional, controlled. Making him feel what he told himself he could not feel. Did not want to feel. And yet he did. More deeply, more passionately than he could ever have imagined. Love. So powerful it hurt. So strong it burned. He loved Emma. That was an absolute, indisputable fact. One that he had realised the second Emma had made her confession. One that he had most probably always known but had stubbornly refused to acknowledge.

  And so he had gone on the attack. Fought back. Because when you were exposed, that’s what you did. When the outer layers had been stripped away, leaving you nowhere to hide, what other choice did you have?

  But of course there were other choices. Honesty, for example. Sincerity, truth. Things that he had prided himself on. Things he would have said he stood for, until now. Until Emma had exposed him as a charlatan.

  He had to explain—right away! He had to take her in his arms, hold her, feel her, inhale her. Make her a part of him. Never let her go. But first he had to find her.

  Furiously cursing himself for ever sending her away, he set off between the gravestones at a rapid pace, small birds taking flight as he disturbed their peace. But then reality kicked in and he stopped. Emma had gone. She would be in Milan by now, maybe back at Villa Magenta, packing her bags. He glared at his watch as if he could halt time. He needed to get the jet back here as fast as possible to take him to Emma before she instructed the pilot to fly her to London.

  He tugged his phone out of his pocket, frantically making the call, holding the phone to his ear, scuffing the earth at his feet. Come on, come on.

  ‘Leo.’

  Emma. His Emma.

  It took a second for him to realise the voice—her voice—had not come over the phone.

  His head jerked up, his heart thudding in his ears. Standing about ten feet away she was framed between two gravestones, motionless, but so very alive amongst his sleeping relatives. Warm flesh and soft lips and a heart bigger than any he had ever known. And if that wasn’t enough, if that wasn’t far more than he ever deserved, she was carrying his child. His son. The next generation. Not the next Conte di Ravenino, he didn’t give a damn about that any more, but something far more precious. His own family. His own future. Dio, what a fool he had been. A huge surge of emotion flooded through him, a tidal wave more powerful than anything he had ever felt before.

  ‘Emma.’ He couldn’t keep the tremor from his voice. ‘You...you came back.’

  ‘I never left, Leo.’ She twisted her hands in front of her. ‘I couldn’t.’

  ‘Emma... I...’

  ‘No, let me speak.’ Determination lifted her chin, fixing her gaze on his. Dio, he loved her so much. ‘I know you don’t want me here, that you thought I had gone...’

  ‘No... I...’ He started towards her, but she took a step back, holding her hands out before her as if to ward him off.

  ‘But I couldn’t leave before trying one last time...’

  ‘No, you don’t understand. You don’t need to try anything. You don’t need to do anything.’

  ‘Oh, but I do, Leo.’ She gave a small shake of the head. ‘Because I will never forgive myself, never find peace if I don’t give you the opportunity, one last time, to tell me what you feel in your heart. About me. About us.’

  ‘Oh, Emma.’ His voice choked, Leo tried to close the space between them, but for every step he took forward, she took one back, stumbling over the long grass at the side of the pathway. ‘Attenta!’ He stretched out a hand but dared come no closer. ‘Please, be careful.’

  ‘I’m fine.’ She steadied herself, pushing back her shoulders, taking in a gasp of breath.

  But she wasn’t fine. She was fragile, sensitive, delicate. Flesh and blood. Skin and bones. And yet still she’d found the strength to confront him. Because she was also brave. The bravest person he had ever known. And for some unknown reason this perfect woman, this woman so beautiful, both inside and out, loved him.

  He wasn’t worthy. The thought struck him like a blow. He would never be worthy of such a woman. Doubts crowded in, drawing down his brows into a scowl. And Emma noticed, biting down on her lip to stop the tremble. But still she pressed on.

  ‘So I am going to ask you this, Leo. And I will accept your answer with all its implications.’ Her chest rose on a brave breath. ‘Do you think there is any chance that you could ever find it in your heart to love me?’

  Oh, Emma. Darling Emma.

  ‘More than a chance.’ He felt the swell of love crowding his chest, filling his lungs. ‘A certainty.’

  Emma stared at him, that soft mouth opening in surprise. ‘A...a certainty?’

  ‘Sì.’ Leo struggled to find the words trapped so deeply inside him. ‘Because I already love you, Emma. In fact, I think I always have.’

  They were the right words but the wrong tone, the struggle to stop his voice from cracking making them sound harsh, unfeeling.

  Uncertainty flickered in Emma’s eyes. ‘Please don’t say that if it isn’t true, Leo.’ Her hands strayed to the swell of her belly. ‘I only want the truth.’

  ‘Then hear this as the truth. Ti amo. I love you, Emma.’

  He wanted to take her in his arms, to crush her against his chest. He wanted to kiss her, fiercely, with everything he had. He wanted to show his love in a way that words could never do. But he knew he had to be cautious.

  One step at a time he stole the space between them, holding Emma still with his eyes, scared that one wrong move, one wrong word might see her bolt like a startled horse. Because she still looked totally stunned. Disbelieving.

  Finally, she was in his arms. But her posture was stiff, her arms down by her sides. Her eyes, when he caught her chin to raise them to his, wide and blue as the sky.

  ‘I love you, Emma.’ He repeated the words, a soft whisper of breath against her face. ‘With all that I hav
e, all that I am.’

  ‘Leo... I...’

  ‘Hear it in my voice. See it in my eyes. And if that’s not enough...’ He reached for her hand, so small, chilled, despite the warmth of the late afternoon, and raised it to his chest. ‘Feel it in my heart and know that it is true.’

  ‘Oh, Leo.’ Eyes shining, she raised her face to his gaze, and Leo could only stare in wonder at the woman he loved so much. The upturn of her nose, the fine cheekbones, the line of her closed lips. He loved every inch of her. Every single molecule that made her who she was. He squeezed the hand against his chest, warming it, willing her to feel the thud of his heart. But to his dismay tears had started to spill from her eyes, silently rolling down her cheeks, a flood of them.

  He had never seen her cry before. Not once. Not after everything he had put her through. As his fingertips touched the dampness of her tears his heart splintered into a thousand pieces.

  ‘Don’t cry, Emma. Please.’ He fell to his knees, down in the dirt where he belonged. Wrapping his arms around her waist he buried his face in her belly. ‘I know I have treated you very badly, that I don’t deserve you, but please don’t cry. Please find it in your heart to forgive me.’

  ‘There is nothing to forgive.’

  ‘Oh, but there is. But I will make it up to you, I promise, if you will give me the chance. If you just—’ His words were suddenly stolen by the most remarkable thing—a flutter against his cheek where it was pressed to Emma’s belly. Their baby! Leo scrambled to his feet, his hand to his face as if he could somehow keep hold of the feeling.

  ‘The baby! I felt it move!’ He stared at Emma in wide-eyed astonishment, and she smiled at him. The most beautiful smile. Taking his hand, she pressed it back down on her belly.

  ‘I know. It’s amazing, isn’t it? And before long he will be with us. A new life. A new start. That’s what I want, Leo. Not forgiveness. No looking back. Just forward towards the future.’

  ‘My darling Emma.’ He brushed his hand against her cheek. ‘When did you get to be so wise?’