by Lynne Graham
Dark colour had flushed his stunning cheekbones. ‘I believed that you loved me, but I also knew that you had doubts and insecurities. Perhaps I expected too much from you.’
Sadness filled her. ‘It was a big challenge to face leaving my family and everything I knew to live in a foreign country, but I would have done it to be with you. In hospital that morning I wondered if my illness was fate intervening, and I waited too long to ask Dad to give you a message. But if you’d come back, tried to see me or speak to me even…’
Valente grimaced. ‘I’m obstinate. I’m very proud. At many times when my life has been difficult those were the strengths that carried me through,’ he explained. ‘But I should have had more faith in you. That is what finished us-my lack of faith. I was convinced you had wronged me, that your family had persuaded you to just leave me at the church. I blamed you for it all.’
Caroline wanted to cry. She wondered how she could have expected him to have faith in such circumstances, when so many people in his life had hurt him. ‘I believed you had received my message before you went to the church. Matthew lied about that. He threw the truth at me after we were married, when he was annoyed with me, and admitted that he had made no attempt to get in touch with you.’
‘As you learned too late, Matthew had a mean side,’ Valente quipped.
‘But you didn’t?’
‘No, I always had a ruthless streak,’ Valente contradicted. ‘I wouldn’t have survived or prospered in my world without it. The only person I ever allowed to see me without that armour was you.’
The tears overflowed from Caroline’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Valente came down on the side of the bed and reached for her. She slapped away his hand in rejection. ‘No, don’t you dare touch me! How could you not read even one of my letters? How could you be dumb enough to see that as a test of how tough you could be?’ she wailed at him furiously.
Valente gazed back at her with dark, strained eyes. ‘It was that macho streak you don’t like. You made me vulnerable and I didn’t like it. This time around I wanted everything to be different.’
‘And it certainly was that,’ Caroline agreed, sliding off the far side of the bed and smoothing down her crumpled linen dress. ‘You blackmailed me into bed with you.’
‘And you blackmailed me into marriage,’ Valente traded with amusement. ‘Having worked out that I wanted you at any price, you then came up with the highest price you could think of. The biter was bitten.’
Caroline shifted uncomfortably. ‘That wasn’t how I saw it. I knew that once you found out I was frigid you’d ditch me and forget all your promises.’
Valente lifted a sardonic brow. ‘Isn’t it strange that I stuck by you instead of going for an annulment on the grounds of non-consummation?’ he prompted. ‘Why do you think that was?’
Caroline wore an uncertain look. ‘Because you would have found that an embarrassing way to end our marriage?’
‘My reputation is such that it would not have caused me embarrassment. I wanted more than your body, even if I wasn’t prepared to admit that to myself at the time.’
‘Well, you did a very good job of convincing me that all you wanted was sex,’ Caroline told him, unimpressed.
Valente stood up. Lean, darkly handsome face intent, dark eyes brilliant, he strolled towards her. ‘Don’t you get the slightest vibe when a man loves you? You know I spent years plotting to get you back. You know I married you even though that wasn’t part of my plan. You know I stayed with you even though it didn’t immediately work out in the bedroom. Can’t you see what all that has to add up to?’
‘Are you trying to say that you love me-even though you rejected my love?’ Caroline shot at him in disbelief.
‘I was doing that macho thing. But I’ve taken off the armour again. Tonight I finally appreciated that I love you more than anything in my life…even business,’ Valente confided. ‘And I know that’s not a romantic comparison, but business is very important to me.’
‘And I’m even more important?’ Caroline felt out of breath, as though she had just run up a hill too fast.
‘The very centre of my world, cara mia. Without you, my life would have no true meaning.’
Valente closed his arms round her slight figure with caution, for she was tense and wide-eyed, everything about her stance suggesting indecision. ‘I held on to my memories of you long after I should have done, and unfortunately I held on to my bitterness as well. I love you very, very much,’ he breathed softly. ‘I was never able to forget you or replace you.’
Sheer excitement made her heart feel as if it was jumping for joy inside her chest. ‘And you already know how I feel about you.’
‘I didn’t believe you when you said you loved me. I didn’t believe you for a second,’ Valente hastened to explain. ‘I thought you were just using words to try and soften me up.’
As his beautiful, sensual mouth drifted downward in the direction of hers, Caroline took a hasty step back from him. ‘I may love you, but that doesn’t mean I can forgive you for setting up Bomark Logistics and blackmailing me into your bed.’
‘Even though I promise that I will never do anything like that again?’
‘Easy to say, when you know you don’t need blackmail any more in the bedroom,’ Caroline replied squarely.
‘As proof of my good intentions, we could be celibate for a while,’ Valente suggested silkily.
Caroline stiffened at that deeply unattractive prospect and, catching the raw gleam of mockery in his wicked gaze, was very nearly provoked into slapping him for his sense of humour. ‘I think you know very well that you’re in too much demand now to be required to make that sacrifice,’ she said in a starchy tone.
‘It would be a huge sacrifice,’ Valente confessed, impelling her to him and then hoisting her slight body up against him with strong, impatient hands.
‘Forget it, then.’ She revelled in the driving urgency of his kiss as though she had been waiting for it all her life. Her body came alive in his arms and hunger stirred in a hollow ache inside her pelvis. ‘But how could you have dared to demand that I give you a child as well?’
‘It gave me the best prospect of holding on to you long-term, tesoro mia,’ Valente explained. ‘I realised that if you were even half as fond of our baby as you are of your cat I would soon have you on a permanent basis, and that struck me as a very attractive option.’
Caroline studied him in dismay. ‘You can be so calculating.’
Valente nodded confirmation, while easing her down on the bed and unzipping her dress in the process.
‘It’s shocking how much I love you…’ Caroline whispered, feeling guilty at her lack of resistance.
His lean, darkly handsome features settled into a wolfish smile. ‘Shock me all you like, tesoro mia. I will never stop loving you.’
‘Nor I you.’ And that was the most wonderful moment for Caroline, for she saw in the adoration in his gaze that he truly was as deeply attached to her as she was to him. For the first time in years she felt safe and secure and exactly where she belonged. Melting into his arms, she idly wondered if their baby-for she was convinced there would be one-would be dark or fair…
When he was born, eighteen months later, Pietro Lorenzatto took after his father in terms of build and features, and inherited his mother’s pale blonde hair.
Isabel Hales peered down into the cot of her first grandson with admiring eyes, for Pietro was a very handsome baby. ‘Women will go mad for him. Your son has got it all-the looks, the money, the background-’
‘And a good healthy helping of his father’s and his great-grandfather’s lorry-driving genes!’ Joe Hales teased, ambling cheerfully into the nursery to give his daughter a quiet hug. He touched the sparkling diamond pendant round her throat with a considering finger. ‘You’re looking well, Caro. I see Valente has been to the jewellers again. He must spend money as fast as he makes it.’
‘Nonsense, Joe. He has an endless supply to spend.
’ Isabel moved closer, with the help of her walking frame, and studied her daughter with decided satisfaction. ‘Valente knows how to treat Caroline. You’ve got a wonderful husband,’ she pronounced, thoroughly impressed by her son-in-law’s generosity. ‘He loves buying you things.’
Caroline, svelte in the burgundy-coloured dress she had chosen to wear for the party about to be held in honour of her parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary, simply smiled. She wondered what her mother would say if she was to learn that her daughter’s most precious possession was not from her overflowing jewel box. It was a tiny Murano glass lucky black cat, given to her by Valente on the occasion of their son’s birth. He had also given her a beautiful eternity ring, but the little glass cat, rousing memories as it did of that all-embracing first love which they had so magically contrived to recapture, held a much deeper significance for them both.
The party was being held that evening at Winterwood. Entertaining her friends there promised to give Isabel Hales her finest hour, for the old house was now an extremely impressive luxury home after its head-to toe makeover at her son-in-law’s expense. Where once Caroline had winced at her mother’s pronouncements, she now tended to look first at Valente, to check that he was managing to restrain his laughter-for, mercifully, Valente found her mother’s airs and graces very funny.
Over the two years that had passed since their wedding, much had mellowed. Caroline still saw a lot of her parents-she flew over to England regularly for weekend visits, and flew her parents over to Tuscany for longer stays. Her father had made an excellent recovery and was a good deal fitter than he had been. Isabel Hales’s mobility was still poor, but the addition of a lift to the main house and household help in their apartment had made a real improvement to the older woman’s life and had enabled her to entertain her friends more often.
Koko had acquired a Siamese mate called Whisky, and now there were two cats in the workshop-two cats trying to sneak into the offices, and two cats to keep out of the bedroom. In an attempt to limit the invasion, Valente had said that under no circumstances was there to be any kittens, and Caroline, having won homeless Whisky his new home by telling Valente the most gigantic sob story on his behalf, had agreed. Koko, however, had begun to look a little chubby, and Caroline was now wondering how best to break the news to Valente that some very small kittens were on the way.
Hales and Bomark Logistics had merged on the Hales site, and there had been no job losses. Joe liked to drop in on Hales-Bomark Haulage, to take an unbiased look at the business operation there and report his findings back to Valente. Her husband had become part of the family in a way she had never dreamt he might, and that meant a great deal to her.
As her parents went down in the lift, to await the arrival of their first guests, Caroline dealt her a sleeping son a last loving smile. She had had an easy pregnancy and birth, and Pietro had slotted into their lives as though he had always been there. Their child had greatly added to their happiness. Shortly before her son was born Caroline’s jewellery had won a design award, and she had garnered so many new customers from that publicity that she had had to expand her business. Now she did more designing than making, and found it easier to take time off.
She returned to the master bedroom to see if Valente, who had flown in late to attend the party, was changed yet.
Raking a comb through his luxuriant hair, and cursing the curls trying to spring up, Valente, supremely elegant in his dinner jacket, swung round from the mirror to look at her. An appreciative glow lightened his dark eyes to gold.
‘You look amazing in that colour, but my favourite is still your wedding dress,’ he admitted reflectively. ‘I can’t believe that we’ll have been married two years next month, tesoro mio.’
Caroline folded into his extended arms like a homing pigeon coming back to roost. ‘Mmm,’ she sighed, loving the feel of him against her. ‘I’m looking forward to the masked ball.’
‘I hate fancy dress,’ Valente groaned.
‘You’re going to look terrifically sexy, dressed up like one of your ancestors,’ Caroline forecast-for the design of their outfits had been based on a couple of the Barbieri family portraits which she had chosen.
Valente stared down at her heart-shaped face, his gaze roving over its delicate loveliness with warm appreciation. He knew he would wreck her make-up if he succumbed to temptation and kissed her. He knew he was going to do it anyway.
Drawn by the same unbearably strong desire to feel his mouth on hers, Caroline gripped the lapels of his jacket and stretched up, and he took that encouragement with alacrity. He kissed her with passionate intensity. ‘Three days without you can feel like a month, tesora mia,’ Valente confessed.
‘I missed you too…’ Caroline locked her arms round him, their bodies straining together and taut with longing.
A faint shudder racked his lean, powerful length as she squirmed against him. ‘Enough to be late for the party?’
‘No, we couldn’t,’ she gasped, fighting the excitement rippling through her as he trailed his fingers up her thigh, lifting her skirt out of his path.
But Valente had heard that before, and he was not easily sidetracked. Persistence ensured that temptation triumphed, and when, some time later, the loving couple scrambled back into their discarded clothes, neither was quite as immaculate in appearance as before.
It was as Valente and a dreamy-eyed Caroline were descending the stairs to the party that Caroline took a deep breath and said, ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while… Koko’s pregnant-there are kittens on the way. I thought when they grow up they could live at the villa…’
Valente sent his wife a highly amused appraisal. ‘You picked the optimum moment to tell me. You have perfect timing, tesora mia.’
Caroline smiled and squeezed his hand, her heart so full of happiness she could hardly speak…
Lynne Graham
Of Irish/Scottish parentage, LYNNE GRAHAM has lived in Northern Ireland all her life. She has one brother. She grew up in a seaside village and now lives in a country house surrounded by a woodland garden, which is wonderfully private.
Lynne first met her husband when she was fourteen. They married after she completed a degree at Edinburgh University. Lynne wrote her first book at fifteen, and it was rejected everywhere. She started writing again when she was home with her first child. It took several attempts before she sold her first book, and the delight of seeing that book for sale at the local newsagents has never been forgotten.
Lynne always wanted a large family, and she now has five children. Her eldest, her only natural child, is in her twenties and is a university graduate. Her other children, who are every bit as dear to her heart, are adopted: two from Sri Lanka and two from Guatemala. In Lynne’s home there is a rich and diverse cultural mix, which adds a whole extra dimension of interest and discovery to family life.
The family has two pets. Thomas, a very large and affectionate black cat, bosses the dog and hunts rabbits. The dog is Daisy, an adorable but not very bright West Highland white terrier, who loves being chased by the cat. At night, dog and cat sleep together in front of the kitchen stove.
Lynne loves gardening and cooking, collects everything from old toys to rock specimens and is crazy about every aspect of Christmas.
***
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