Once a Ferrara Wife...

by Sarah Morgan

  Guilt, an almost familiar companion since she’d arrived back in Sicily, was sharp and painful.

  What thought had he given to any of it? He’d treated her the way he’d treated previous women in his life who had measured every gift by its monetary value. But expensive gifts from a wealthy man meant nothing to a woman like Laurel, who had been building her own business and was justifiably proud of her success. She hadn’t wanted financial security. She’d never been interested in him for his money. What she’d needed was emotional security and he, in all his arrogance, had never given her that. She’d thirsted for some demonstration of his love and he, with the same arrogance, had assumed that by marrying her he’d said all that needed to be said. And when her confidence in their relationship had faltered, it hadn’t even occurred to him that he might bear some of the blame.

  Swearing under his breath, he sprang from the bed and located her purse. Finding what he wanted, he curled it safely into his palm and prowled out onto the moonlit terrace but she wasn’t there.

  On the run again, he thought grimly.

  Except this time he would track her down to the far corners of the earth if necessary.

  In the end he didn’t need to go as far as that. He found her in his study, curled up on one of the deep sofas with a book in her hands and Rambo and Terminator lying at her feet, her own personal guard. He remembered her poignant tale about the room she’d loved, with all the books. About pretending it was a library.

  Thinking of the cold, loveless wasteland of her childhood years sickened him.

  He understood now that reading had been her way of escaping from her world. And a way of making up for everything that was lacking in her life.

  The dogs growled at his approach.

  ‘It seems I have to fight my way through my own dogs to talk to my wife.’ He clicked his fingers and Rambo immediately rose to his feet and moved but Terminator stayed firmly by Laurel’s side, his head on his paws, refusing to leave her.

  Cristiano had some sympathy for the dog because he was feeling pretty much the same way.

  He looked at the book in her hand, floored by the enormity of what she’d achieved with her life. ‘If you never had books as a child, how did you develop such an interest in reading?’

  ‘I had a wonderful teacher at school. Miss Hayes. She was very kind to me.’ Laurel dropped her hand onto the dog’s head, her fingers caressing his smooth fur. ‘Don’t send them away. I can’t bear to be parted from them after two years.’

  Deciding that it was better to tolerate canine company than upset her further, Cristiano exchanged a brief man to man warning glance with Terminator just so that the dog knew who was in charge.

  ‘Put the book down. I really need to talk to you.’

  Slowly, she lowered the book to her lap but didn’t speak.

  Cristiano wasn’t finding it easy, either. ‘I didn’t see our relationship the way you saw it. I can see now that I took a great deal for granted.’ Just when it was imperative that the words spoken were perfectly matched to the situation, his habitual fluency had deserted him. ‘It’s true that I may have been guilty of a certain level of arrogance.’

  Her gaze was steady. ‘May have been?’

  ‘All right—I was arrogant, I admit it. I made far too many assumptions.’ Trying to right a wrong, he paced from one side of the room to the other. ‘But this whole situation has emerged because I didn’t know what you were thinking. Yes, I was very much at fault, but you were also at fault in not telling me more about your past. Had you done so, I would have understood the reason you find it so hard to trust anyone and could have addressed it.’

  ‘So then you would have added reassure Laurel to your bulging to-do list? I didn’t want to be a project, Cristiano.’

  ‘I didn’t say that! Maledezione, give me a chance to explain myself!’ His sudden explosion was greeted by a low warning growl from the dog by her side and Cristiano’s mouth tightened. ‘That animal is overprotective.’

  ‘He loves me.’

  ‘And apparently you accept that love without question whereas the rest of us have to work hard for that same degree of blind faith.’ He ended that forceful declaration with a deep breath. ‘I have never felt for any woman what I felt for you.’

  ‘So you keep saying.’

  ‘Speak again before I’ve finished and I’ll find ways to silence you, dog or no dog,’ he vowed, watching as her cheeks turned pink and she closed the book. ‘I admit that I thought that by marrying you I’d demonstrated the depth of my feeling for you. I see now that I didn’t spend enough time showing you how much I loved you but part of the reason for that was that I had no idea that you were having any doubts about my commitment to you. I made a terrible decision that day, but you have to believe that I didn’t think you would lose the baby.’

  Her cheeks turned a shade paler. ‘Do we have to go over this again?’

  ‘Yes, because we are not giving up on what we have so we have to both be clear about the way we feel. I married you because I loved you and wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. I didn’t spend enough time making sure you knew that.’ Acknowledging just how much damage that attitude had caused, he let out a long breath. ‘You have to understand that that lapse on my part was to do with pressure of work, not because I felt less for you than I should have done. At worst I can be accused of complacency.’

  ‘And arrogance.’

  ‘Yes, we’ve already agreed that—’ Cristiano spoke through his teeth ‘—but you didn’t once come and tell me how you were feeling. I made mistakes, I admit it, but I made them because I believed everything to be good and strong with our marriage. You did not feel that way and yet you didn’t tell me. Every time I gave you jewellery, you thanked me. You suffered my mother’s less than subtle comments without confiding in me.’

  ‘She’s your mother and you love her.’

  And she’d never had that, he realised. She’d never had the luxury of knowing she was loved without question. Never been safely wrapped in the warmth of family. ‘You are my wife and I love you. My first responsibility was to you. Is to you. Always.’ He watched as her breathing turned shallow and discovered that he was holding his own breath as he waited for her response. ‘Say something. But no more observations on my arrogance. That lesson is well and truly learned.’

  ‘If we do this—’ she left the word hanging vaguely ‘—what about the family you dreamed of having?’

  ‘You are the family I dreamed of having and as for the rest—’ ignoring the dogs, he leaned forward, removed the book from her hands and pulled her to her feet ‘—we’ll find a way through it. But we’ll find it together, not separately. Whatever you’re thinking, you must share with me and this time I will be listening with both ears. Ti amo. I love you.’ He scooped her face into his hands, feeling the softness of her skin against his palms. ‘By the time I’ve finished proving it to you there will be no room for doubt in your head.’

  There was a long silence and he discovered the true meaning of the word suspense.

  He wondered what he was going to do if she backed off because he knew he was never going to accept no.

  Those sea-green eyes held his. ‘Hurt me again and there will be no second chances.’

  ‘If I hurt you again, Terminator will eat me,’ he drawled, opening a hand that wasn’t quite steady to produce her wedding ring. ‘This lives on your finger, not in your purse. Put it back on. And don’t ever take it off again.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘THIS is part of your plan to make me trust you? You’re going to dangle me over the mouth of a volcano?’ Laurel clutched the seat of the helicopter as she stared down at the lava fields and the mouth of the volcano with a mixture of fear and fascination. From here it was possible to see the main crater and she gave a shiver as she contemplated the raw, elemental power of nature and the potential for disaster.

  Cristiano’s pilot had flown the company helicopter from Palermo and picked them up for
an aerial tour of this part of the island.

  ‘Are we landing?’

  ‘Not today. Today we are sightseeing in comfort.’ His smile was so sinfully sexy that she couldn’t look away from his mouth and that single glance was the catalyst for a blast of attraction so powerful that her head spun.

  The days since they’d arrived had merged into one long, indulgent expression of their feeling for each other.

  ‘Maybe that’s enough sightseeing for one day,’ she murmured, hating herself for being so weak. ‘Shall we just go home?’ Her heart increased its rhythm in the anticipation of what going home would mean. They were both insatiable, she thought. No matter how long they spent in bed they just couldn’t get enough of each other. He was as hungry for her body as she was for his, which made his sudden tension all the more perplexing.

  ‘We can’t go home yet.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I’m planning a surprise back at the house. I’m making a few changes.’ More than that he wouldn’t say and Laurel was intrigued. Over the days since he’d slid her wedding ring back onto her finger, they’d rarely spent any time in the house. He’d absented himself from her a few times to make some phone calls that she’d assumed had been business-related. Now she wasn’t sure. What could he possibly be doing to an already perfect house that required her to be out of the way?

  He already had a gym and a cinema room. What else was there in a house where life was mostly lived outdoors?

  As the pilot took another sweep across the crater of the volcano she forgot about what was at home and instead just enjoyed being with Cristiano. He was a knowledgeable guide, his extensive knowledge of Etna derived from the geologists who worked with him as part of his company’s expansion programme.

  ‘We didn’t do enough of this,’ he said roughly when the helicopter finally landed back in the grounds of the house. ‘We didn’t spend enough time doing things together. Even when we were talking over dinner we were often discussing work.’

  They strolled slowly back to the sun-baked terrace and Laurel accepted a glass of chilled Sicilian lemonade from one of the staff with a grateful smile.

  ‘You don’t have to apologise for being committed to your business. I’m as much of a workaholic as you are but yes, I agree that we failed to find a balance.’ As a loud noise disturbed the peace, she turned her head towards the house. ‘What’s that banging?’

  ‘It’s part of your surprise.’ He frowned impatiently and finished his drink. ‘The noise is driving me mad. Let’s go for a stroll.’

  Laurel would have been quite happy to flop by the pool but caught the expression on his face and realised that he genuinely wanted to surprise her with whatever it was he was planning.

  Intrigued as to what could possibly be happening in the house that required major refurbishment and secrecy, Laurel allowed him to propel her up the path that led through the citrus grove and together they walked towards the ruins of the Greco-Roman amphitheatre.

  ‘Is your breathing all right?’ He reached out and adjusted her hat to give her more protection from the fierce sun.

  ‘Yes. Exercise isn’t a trigger for me.’ She paused to admire a tiny lizard, basking in the heat of the sun. ‘Which is a relief or I’d have to give up my job.’

  ‘Why did you choose fitness as a profession? Particularly with asthma.’

  ‘The asthma was the reason.’ The hot sun burned the back of her neck. ‘I was determined to be as fit as possible. After that couple decided not to adopt me I tried ignoring the fact that I had asthma. I stopped using my inhaler, a decision that landed me in hospital a few times. After that I decided that it was more sensible to take a different approach so, instead of pretending I didn’t have it, I tried to find out as much information as I could. One of the nurses in the hospital helped me. Everyone’s asthma is different, of course, but for me exercise made a difference. The fitter I was, the healthier I was. For me the biggest trigger has always been stress.’

  With a groan of remorse he pulled her against him. ‘I feel like a brute for triggering that attack the night before Dani’s wedding.’

  It felt so good to be held. To be loved. ‘If you hadn’t, we might not have started talking again.’

  ‘We would have done. There was no way I was ever letting you go again. From the moment you stepped onto the tarmac I was ready to lock you in my villa and never let you go. You felt it too.’

  ‘Yes.’ And the need to be with him had almost burned her alive. Even now she couldn’t believe she was standing here with him. That, somehow, they’d reached this point.

  She eased away from him and they walked among the ancient ruins hand in hand. ‘I never grow tired of this place.’ Oblivious to the other tourists, she sat down, admiring the amazing view of the sea with Mount Etna in the background. ‘I wish we could live here.’

  ‘You don’t miss the city?’

  ‘No. But living here isn’t practical, is it?’ Her tone regretful, she rubbed her fingers over the ancient stone and wondered about the generations of people who had sat in the same place before her. ‘You can’t run your business from here and neither can I. Maybe it isn’t just the place. It’s the fact that when we’re here, we’re not working.’

  ‘So we both need to learn to compromise. We come here more often. Base ourselves here for, let’s say, a week a month minimum?’

  ‘That’s a wonderful plan but in practice you’d be in your plane all the time, flying all over the world as usual.’

  ‘Santo is taking over more of that side of the business.’ Cristiano stretched out his long legs. ‘He’s the one scouting out potential sites for development and doing all the local negotiations with our lawyers. I’ve been spending more of my time here, overseeing things.’

  Laurel laughed. ‘The Emperor Cristiano, sitting on his throne?’

  ‘That would be King Cristiano, surely, if I’m on a throne?’

  Smiling back at her, he curved his hand behind her neck and drew her face towards him for a kiss. ‘Any time you want to prostrate yourself at my feet, just go right ahead.’

  ‘In your dreams.’ But even the mounting sizzle of sexual tension couldn’t distract her from the conversation. Hope was a small tender bud, slowly unfurling inside her because finally this felt real. ‘Do you think that could work, really? You could spend more time here in Taormina?’

  ‘We could spend more time here. Although if we were commuting, I wouldn’t drive. The helicopter is more practical.’

  Laurel raised her eyebrows in disbelief. ‘Have I ever pointed out how completely removed you are from real life? You say that as if it’s a normal mode of transport.’

  ‘It’s a great option. With the helicopter, it doesn’t really matter where I am. I can use that to fly around the island and also as a connection to the airport if I need the plane. And talking of planes—I have some good news. I didn’t say anything before because I didn’t want to raise your hopes.’ He sounded supremely pleased with himself. ‘I’ve tracked down a doctor who has agreed to talk to us about what happened before. He’ll advise on whether there is anything that can be done. All we have to do is call him and tell him when it’s convenient for us to see him.’

  The warmth drained out of her. Suddenly she felt sick. ‘I’ve already seen an expert. He told me I couldn’t have children.’

  ‘You saw a local doctor and let’s face it, angelo mia, the local health care wasn’t exactly impressive. You deserve better and I’m going to make sure you get it.’

  Her heart was pounding. ‘The team at the hospital saved my life.’

  ‘True, but this is a specialist area. Huge advances have been made in recent years. I won’t believe that there is no hope until I hear it from someone who knows what he’s talking about. Don’t argue. I want to do this for you. It’s the least I can do.’ His phone rang and she half expected him to ignore it as he had been doing but he took the call and immediately rose to his feet, otherwise he probably would have s
een the change in her.