Pain and guilt washed over him as his eyes continued to scan the rows of cars and hope withered away inside him. And then he saw her on the other side of the car park in the ridiculously modest vehicle she’d insisted she wanted, in that stubborn way which often infuriated him but more often made his blood sing. He weaved his way through the cars, seeing her white face looking up at him as he placed the palm of his hand against the glass of the windscreen.
‘I’m sorry,’ he mouthed, but she shook her head.
‘Let me in,’ he said, but she shook her head again and began putting the key in the ignition with shaking fingers.
He didn’t move, but placed his face closer to the window, barely noticing that someone from the IT department had just got out of the lift and was staring at him in open-mouthed disbelief. ‘Open the door,’ he said loudly. ‘Or I’ll rip the damned thing off its hinges.’
She must have believed him because the lock clicked and he opened the door and sat in the passenger seat before she could change her mind. ‘Darcy,’ he said.
‘Whatever it is you want to say,’ she declared fiercely, ‘I don’t want to hear it. Not right now.’
She’d been crying. Her face was blotchy and her eyes red-rimmed and he realised that he’d never seen her cry—not once—she, who probably had more reason to cry than any other woman he’d known.
He wanted to take her in his arms. To feel her warmth and her connection. To kiss away those drying tears as their flesh melted against each other as it had done so many times in the past. But touching was cheating—it was avoiding the main issue and he needed to address that. To face up to what else was wrong. Not in her, but in him. Because how could she have ever trusted him completely when he kept so much of himself locked away?
‘Just hear me out,’ he said, in a low voice. ‘And let me tell you what I should have told you a long time ago. Which is that you’ve transformed my life in every which way. You’ve made me feel stuff I never thought I’d feel. Stuff I didn’t want to feel, because I was scared of what it might do to me, because I’d seen hurt and I’d seen pain in relationships and I didn’t want any part of that. Only I’ve just realised...’ He drew in a deep breath and maybe she thought he wasn’t going to continue, because her eyes had narrowed.
‘Realised what?’ she questioned cautiously.
‘That the worst pain of all is the pain of not having you in my life. When you walked out of my office just now I got a glimpse of just what that could be like—and it felt like the sun had been blotted from the sky.’
‘Very poetic,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Maybe your next girlfriend will hear it before it’s too late.’
She wasn’t budging an inch but he respected her for that, too. If it had been anyone else he wouldn’t have stayed or persisted or cared. But he was fighting for something here. Something he’d never really thought about in concrete terms before.
His future.
‘And there’s something else you need to know,’ he said softly. ‘And before you look at me in that stubborn way, just listen. All those things I did for you, things I’ve never done for anyone else—why do you think they happened? Because those thunderbolt feelings never left me either, no matter how much I sometimes wished they would. Because I wanted our baby and I wanted you. I like being with you. Being married to you. Waking up to you each morning and kissing you to sleep every night. And I love you,’ he finished simply. ‘I love you so much, Darcy. Choose what you do or don’t believe, but please believe that.’
As she listened to his low declaration of love, Darcy started to cry. At first it was the trickle of a solitary tear which streaked down her cheek and ended up in a salty drip at the corner of her mouth. She licked it away but then more came, until suddenly they were streaming her face but the crazy thing was that she didn’t care.
In the close confines of the car she stared at him through blurry vision and as that vision cleared the dark beauty of his face no longer seemed shuttered. It seemed open and alight with a look she’d always longed to see there, but never thought she would. It was shining from his eyes as a lighthouse shone out to all the nearby ships on the darkest of nights. ‘Yes, I believe you,’ she whispered. ‘And now you need to hold me very tightly—just to convince me I’m not dreaming.’
With a soft and exultant laugh Renzo pulled her into his arms, smoothing away the tangle of curls before bending his head to kiss away the tears which had made her cheeks so wet. She clung to him as their mouths groped blindly together and kissed as they’d never really kissed before. It was passionate and it was emotional—but it was superseded by a feeling so powerful that Darcy’s heart felt as if it were going to spill over with joy, until she suddenly jerked away—tossing her head back like a startled horse.
‘Oh, I love you, my beautiful little firecracker,’ he murmured as she dug her fingers into his arms.
‘The feeling is mutual,’ she said urgently. ‘Only we have to get out of here.’
He frowned. ‘You want to go back to Sussex?’
She flinched and closed her eyes as another fierce contraction gripped her and she shook her head. ‘I don’t think we’re going to make it as far as Sussex. I know it’s another two weeks away, but I think I’m going into labour.’
* * *
It was a quick and easy birth—well, that was what the cooing midwives told her, though Darcy would never have described such a seismic experience as easy. But she had Renzo beside her every step along the way. Renzo holding her hand and mopping her brow and whispering things to her in Italian which—in her more lucid moments—she knew she shouldn’t understand, but somehow she did. Because the words of love were universal. People could say them and not mean them. But they could also say them in a foreign language and you knew—you just knew—what they meant and that they were true.
It was an emotional moment when they put Luca Lorenzo Sabatini to her breast and he began to suckle eagerly, gazing up at her with black eyes so like his daddy’s. And when the midwives and the doctor had all left them, she glanced up into Renzo’s face and saw that his own eyes were unusually bright. She lifted her hand to the dark shadow of growth at his unshaven jaw and he met her wondering gaze with a shrug of his powerful shoulders. Was he crying?
‘Scusi,’ he murmured, bending down to drop a kiss on his son’s downy black head before briefly brushing his lips over Darcy’s. ‘I’m not going to be a lot of use to you, am I—if I start letting emotion get the better of me?’
And Darcy smiled as she shook her head. ‘Bring it on,’ she said softly. ‘I like seeing my strong and powerful man reduced to putty by the sight of his newborn baby.’
‘It seems as if my son has the same power over me as his mother,’ Renzo responded drily. He smoothed back her wild red curls. ‘Now. Do you want me to leave and let you get some rest?’
‘No way,’ she said firmly, shifting across to make space for him, her heart thudding as he manoeuvred his powerful frame onto the narrow hospital bed. And Darcy felt as if she’d never known such joy as when Renzo put his arm around her and hugged her and Luca close. As if she’d spent her life walking along a path—much of the time in darkness—only to emerge into a place full of beautiful light.
‘It’s not the most comfortable bed in the world, but there’s room on it for the three of us. And I want you beside me, Renzo. Here with me and here with Luca.’ And that was when her voice cracked with the emotion which had been building up inside her since he’d told her he loved her. ‘In fact, we’re never going to let you go.’
EPILOGUE
KICKING OFF HER shoes and flopping onto the sofa with a grateful sigh, Darcy frowned as Renzo handed her a slim leather box. ‘What’s this?’ she questioned.
He raised his brows. ‘Isn’t the whole point of presents that they’re supposed to be a surprise?’
‘But it isn’t my birthday.’
‘No,’ he said steadily. ‘But it’s Luca’s.’
‘Yes.’ The box momentari
ly forgotten, Darcy looked into her husband’s ebony eyes and beamed. Hard to believe that their beautiful son had just celebrated his first birthday. A year during which he’d captivated everyone around him with his bright and inquisitive nature, which at times showed more than a glimpse of his mother’s natural stubbornness.
Today, with streamers and balloons and a bit too much cake, they’d held a party for all his little friends in Sussex—while the mothers had each sipped a glass of pink champagne. Confident in her husband’s love, and freed from the shame of the past, Darcy had started to get to know people—both here in Sussex and in their London house, as well as the beautiful Tuscan villa where they spent as many holidays as they could. Invitations had started to arrive as, for the first time in her life, she’d begun to make friends. Real friends—though her best friend was and always would be her husband. She looked at him now with bemusement.
‘Open it,’ he said softly.
She unclipped the clasp and stared down at the necklace. A triple row of square-cut emeralds gleamed greenly against the dark velvet and there was a moment of confusion before she lifted her eyes to his. She remembered how, just after Luca’s birth, he’d gone to see Drake Bradley and persuaded the blackmailer to tell him where he’d pawned the diamond necklace. He’d got Drake’s confession on tape of course and, with the threat of prosecution and prison very real, Renzo had surprised everyone by refusing to turn him in to the police. Instead, he’d given Drake a chance—offering him a job working on the site clearance of one of his new projects in England. Employment Drake had eagerly accepted—possibly his first ever legitimate job and one which, against all the odds, he excelled at. For ever after, he treated Renzo with the dedication and loyalty a badly beaten dog might display towards the man who had rescued him.
Keep your friends close... Renzo had whispered to her on the night when the diamond necklace was back in his possession, after she’d finished remonstrating with him for putting himself in possible danger. But his expression had been rueful as she had held the dazzling diamond neckpiece as if it were an unexploded bomb.
‘I guess you wouldn’t get a lot of pleasure out of wearing this now?’
Darcy had shaken her head. ‘Nope. Too much bad history. And I’m no big fan of diamonds, you know that.’
The next day Renzo had returned the piece to the charity, telling them to auction it again. And he hadn’t mentioned jewellery since.
Until now.
‘Renzo,’ Darcy whispered, her gaze dazzled by the vivid green fire of the emeralds. ‘This is too much.’
‘No,’ he said fiercely. ‘It isn’t. Not nearly enough. If I bought up the contents of every jewellery shop in the world, it still wouldn’t be enough. Because I love you, Darcy. I love what you’ve given and shown me. How you’ve made me the man I am today, and I like that man much better than the one I was before.’ His voice dipped, his gaze dark as the night as it blazed over her. ‘And didn’t I always say you should have emeralds to match your eyes?’
Very wet eyes now, she thought, but she nodded as he kissed away her tears. And the jewels were suddenly forgotten because, when it boiled down to it, they were just pretty pieces of stone. The most precious thing Darcy had was her love—for her son and for her husband. And the chance to live her life without shame and without secrets.
‘Come here, mia caro,’ she whispered, practising her ever-increasing Italian vocabulary as she pulled him down onto the sofa next to her.
‘What did you have in mind?’
‘I just want to show you...’ she smiled as her fingertip stroked his cheek until she reached the outline of his sensual mouth, which softened as she edged her own lips towards it ‘...how very much I love you.’
* * * * *
EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT
Claimed for the De Carrillo Twins
by Abby Green
PROLOGUE
CRUZ DE CARRILLO SURVEYED the thronged reception room in his London home, filled with a veritable who’s who of London’s most powerful players and beautiful people, all there to celebrate his return to Europe.
He felt no sense of accomplishment, though, to be riding high on the crest of his stratospheric success in North America, having tripled his eponymous bank’s fortunes in less than a year, because he knew his zealous focus on work had more to do with avoiding this than the burning ambition he’d harboured for years to turn his family bank’s fortune and reputation around.
And it killed him to admit it.
This was standing just feet away from him now—tall and slender, yet with generous curves. Pale skin. Too much pale skin. Exposed in a dress that left far too little to the imagination. Cruz’s mouth compressed with distaste even as his blood ran hot, mocking him for the desire which time hadn’t diminished—much to his intense irritation. It was unwelcome and completely inappropriate. Now more than ever. She was his sister-in-law.
Her blonde hair was up in a sleek chignon and a chain of glittering gold trailed tantalisingly down her naked back, bared in a daring royal blue backless dress. She turned slightly in Cruz’s direction and he had to tense every muscle to stave off the surge of fresh desire when he saw the provocative curves of her high full breasts, barely disguised by the thin draped satin.
She looked almost vulnerable, set apart from the crowd slightly, but he knew that was just a mirage.
He cursed her. And he cursed himself. If he hadn’t been so weak he wouldn’t know how incendiary it felt to have those curves pressed against his body. He wouldn’t remember the way her eyes had turned a stormy dark blue as he’d plundered the sweetness she’d offered up to him that fateful night almost eighteen months ago, in this very house, when she’d worked for him as a housemaid.
He wouldn’t still hear her soft, breathy moans in his dreams, forcing him awake, sweating, with his hand wrapped around himself and every part of him straining for release...aching to know the intimate clasp of her body, milking him into sweet oblivion.
Sweet. That was just it. There was nothing sweet about this woman. He might have thought so at one time—she’d used to blush if he so much as glanced at her—but it had all been an elaborate artifice. Because his younger half-brother, Rio, had told him the truth about what she really was, and she was no innocent.
Her seduction of Cruz had obviously been far more calculated than he’d believed, and when that hadn’t worked she’d diverted her sights onto Rio, his illegitimate half-brother, with whom Cruz had a complicated relationship—to put it mildly.
A chasm had been forged between the brothers when they were children—when Cruz had been afforded every privilege as the legitimate heir to the De Carrillo fortune, and Rio, who had been born to a housemaid of the family castillo, had been afforded nothing. Not even the De Carrillo name.
But Cruz had never felt that Rio should be punished for their charismatic and far too handsome father’s inability to control his base appetites. So he had done everything in his power after their father had died some ten years previously to make amends—going against their father’s will, which had left Rio nothing, by becoming his guardian, giving him his rightful paternalistic name and paying for him to complete his education.
Then, when he had come of age, Cruz had given him a fair share of his inheritance and a job—first in the De Carrillo bank in Madrid, and now in London, much to the conservative board’s displeasure.
At the age of twenty-one Rio had become one of Europe’s newest millionaires, the centre of feverish media attention with his dark good looks and mysterious past. And he had lapped it up, displaying an appetite for the kind of playboy lifestyle Cruz had never indulged in, quickly marrying one of the world’s top supermodels in a lavish wedding that had gone on for days—only for it to end in tragedy nearly a year later, when she’d died in an accident shortly after giving birth to twin boys.
And yet, much as Rio’s full-throttle existence had unnerved Cruz, could he begrudge him that after being denied his heritage?
Cruz’
s conscience pricked. By giving Rio his due inheritance and his rightful name perhaps he’d made his brother a target for gold-diggers? Rio’s first wife had certainly revelled in her husband’s luxurious lifestyle, and it would appear as if nothing had changed with his second wife.
As if sensing his intense regard, his sister-in-law turned now and saw him. Her eyes widened and her cheeks flushed. Cruz’s anger spiked. She could still turn it on. Even now. When he knew her real capabilities.
She faced him in that provocative dress and her luscious body filled his vision and made his blood thrum with need. He hated her for it. She moved towards him almost hesitantly, the slippery satin material moving sinuously around her long legs.
He called on every atom of control he had and schooled his body not to respond to her proximity even as her tantalising scent tickled his nostrils, threatening to weaken him all over again. It was all at once innocent, yet seductive. As if he needed reminding that she presented one face to the world while hiding another, far more mercenary one.
‘Trinity.’ His voice sounded unbearably curt to his ears, and he tried to ignore the striking light blue eyes. To ignore how lush her mouth was, adding a distinctly sensual edge to her pale blonde innocence.
An innocence that was skin-deep.
‘Cruz...it’s nice to see you again.’
Her voice was husky, reminding him vividly of how it had sounded in his ear that night. ‘Please...’
His dry tone disguised his banked rage. ‘You’ve come up in the world since we last met.’
She swallowed, the long, delicate column of her pale throat moving. ‘Wh-what do you mean?’
Cruz’s jaw tightened at the faux innocence. ‘I’m talking about your rapid ascent from the position of nanny to wife and stepmother to my nephews.’
That brought back the unwelcome reminder that he’d only been informed about the low-key wedding in a text from Rio.
I have you to thank for sending this beautiful woman into my life. I hope you’ll be very happy for us, brother.
Secrets of a Billionaire's Mistress (Mills & Boon Modern) (One Night With Consequences, Book 29) Page 15