“And did you?”
“Does it look like I did?” Jack returned with a grin and an attempt at a wink. “I told him to walk the plank himself. I grabbed his sword and held it at his back until he fell into the sea and was eaten by a shark.”
“Oh, dear.” Maddie laughed, tousling Jack’s hair.
“Jack?” Elodie’s voice carried across Villa Fortune. “Come and help light the candles.”
He pushed up from his chair, no longer Bucanneer Jack, now, just regular Jack Montebello. “Gotta go. The twins need me.”
Nico took the seat beside Maddie, stretching an arm around her shoulders. “He adores you.”
“It’s mutual.”
“I could almost be jealous, if his feelings weren’t so completely understandable.”
She blinked at him, her face a study of mock innocence. “Nico Montebello, are you saying you adore me too?”
He dropped his head closer, his nose brushing hers. “Haven’t I said it often enough for you to know by now?”
She considered that, trying to think if there was a morning in the seven months they’d been together when he hadn’t woken her with kisses and declarations of love. “I’m not sure,” she murmured, snuggling in closer to his side.
“Then I’ll just have to work even harder, Maddie Montebello.”
“Mmmm.” Two months after their wedding, she was still getting used to her new name.
“I suppose we should get over there.” He nodded towards the pool where a table had been set up for the twins’ first birthday. Yaya was sitting at a chair in the shade, comfortable and smiling surrounded by all of her family – it was a family that seemed to be growing bigger by the day, and despite the fact Gianfelice had passed away years earlier, Nico felt his presence when they were all together.
The twins were running around the table and as they watched, Fiero scooped down and picked one up, lifting him onto his shoulders.
“You’re a natural with Jack,” Nico said, reaching for Maddie’s hand.
And though she’d decided she’d wait a little longer, she found she couldn’t. The moment felt so perfect, so right, that she leaned closer and smiled at him serenely. “I’m glad you think so.”
“Anyone who sees you with him – or the twins, for that matter – would agree.”
“It’s good practice.”
“For becoming a pirate?”
Her smile grew. “That, or parenthood.”
It took him a moment to respond. He simply stared at her for several beats and then his own smile stretched, broad and irrepressible. “Are you saying we’re going to be parents?”
“It’s early,” she rushed, but nodded and laughed. “I only found out last week-,”
“Last week!”
“I wanted to wait until I knew it was safe.”
He shook his head. “It is. You are. This is the most wonderful news I’ve ever heard.”
“Then I’m glad to give it to you.”
And she was. For the rest of her life, all she wanted to focus on was the happiness they brought to each other – and the love they would give to their child.
THE END
Following is an excerpt from Book 3 in The Montebellos, LOVING THE ENEMY (Massimo and Alessia’s story). This sexy second-chance romance will be released in early 2020 and is available for 99c pre-order until then.
Dear Reader
Telling this story and doing Maddie’s journey justice is something I took very seriously. I felt a real burden to authentically communicate her experience, without dwelling on it unnecessarily in the story’s frame for fear of being seen to exploit a very real trauma. In Australia, as with much of the world, we are experiencing an epidemic of domestic violence and deaths related to this. In doing my research for this book, one thing was resoundingly clear to me: the signs aren’t easy to identify. Not for the abused, at the start of the relationship, and not for onlookers, who are friends with the abuser, the abused, and don’t see beyond the veneer that’s projected.
If themes in this book are personally triggering, or if you find yourself in a situation of domestic abuse, please know you’re not alone and there is a better tomorrow out there for you.
To learn more about this crippling epidemic, have a look at the WHO’s website. And if you’re in a domestic abuse situation and need help, please contact a local Domestic Violence support service.
In Australia: 1800 737 732
In England: 0808 2000 247
In America: 1800 799 7233
Beyond this theme, I hope you enjoyed Maddie and Nico’s story. Thank you for reading.
Love, Clare. x
Excerpt - Loving the Enemy
The Montebellos Book Three
Prologue
Six months ago, Villa Fortune.
HE WANTED TO CRUSH something in the palm of his hands. Fury zipped through his body, disbelief a taste of adrenaline in his mouth.
She was getting married.
Alessia – his ex-wife. And she hadn’t even thought to tell him. Was he really surprised by that? It wasn’t as though their marriage had ended on good terms. Her infidelity had made sure of that. It was the one thing he’d never forgive, and she must have known he’d feel that way
They were like strangers now.
Except they weren’t.
He’d known her almost all of her life. He’d watched her grow up. He’d married her.
Something shifted inside of him, like the blade of a knife, and anger exploded through him. He paced across the room, grabbing a scotch bottle from the bar as though it had personally wronged him in some way.
Alessia Amando was his.
The thought assaulted him and he rejected it immediately. One person couldn’t belong to another, it was true, and yet despite that, they had belonged to each other. For one year they’d been man and wife, and he’d married her with every intention of their marriage lasting a lifetime.
He should have known better. She was immature, young and naïve. What had he expected? That she’d had the maturity to realise what she was doing?
He ground his teeth together, moving towards the windows that overlooked the ocean. It was too dark to make out any detail now, but he knew it was there, an enormous chasm, wild and untamed.
He rarely thought of Alessia. He’d trained himself not to. He didn’t like to focus on his mistakes, and she’d been a big one. From thinking that he actually cared about her, to believing he could make her happy, to hoping to control a desire that had threatened to burn him alive.
And now? She was getting married.
He continued to stare at the ocean, those words chasing themselves around and around his head. She was getting married? She was marrying someone else? Alessia would become another man’s wife?
He stared at the ocean and another thought beat its way through the rush of his mind, demanding to be heard.
She was marrying someone else?
Over his dead body.
Chapter 1
The Four Seasons, Prague.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE you doing here?” Surely she was hallucinating? Alessia pressed a hand out behind her, surreptitiously feeling for the wall, needing some kind of hard support in the face of her ex-husband’s appearance here, on what should have been her honeymoon.
She was stupid to have come, but given the fact the hotel wouldn’t refund the booking and she felt like she needed to get away from Italy and yet another failure in her personal life, this had seemed like the best option.
But staring up into Massimo Montebello’s darkly-glittering eyes, she felt awash with a thousand and one emotions. Damn it, he was so handsome, and she hated him for that, just as she had towards the end of their marriage. It was easy to hate him, given how he’d broken her heart.
“Alessia.” Her name on his lips inspired the same reaction as always. Her stomach squeezed, her arms lifted with goosebumps, her blood began to pump faster and harder. But she refused to feel those things. She refused to feel any
thing for this man.
“What are you doing here?” She repeated, the words dripping in ice.
He lifted a brow. “Is that really how you intend to greet one of your oldest friends?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Is that what we are?”
“I’ve known you since you were five years old,” he reminded her, and her heart looped, because she remembered the first time she’d been to Villa Fortune. The noise, the happiness, the love.
Her gut twisted; she looked over his shoulder.
“Well, you don’t know me anymore.”
“Have a drink with me.”
She jerked her gaze back to his, something zipping down her spine. Temptation. Adrenaline. Anger. “No.”
His laugh was soft, and it reached out and caressed her, the husky tones reaching inside her body and stirring her to new depths of curiosity. Was it a coincidence that he was here?
She doubted that.
“How did you know I’d be in Prague?”
For a moment, he was silent, as though he were contemplating evading the question. But then he shrugged his shoulders, as though it were no big deal. “Maddie mentioned it.”
Alessia swept her eyes shut, a hint of betrayal biting at her. She’d told Maddie Montebello what she was planning because they’d become friends. It hadn’t even occurred to Alessia that the information would filter through to Max.
“I wish she hadn’t.”
Another laugh. “Would you prefer to lick your wounds in private?”
“Is that why you’re here? To lick my wounds?” She demanded hotly, and then her cheeks flushed as she heard the words and the unintentional double entendre he might choose to perceive in them.
Sure enough, he leaned closer, his mouth just an inch from her ear so his words brushed over her cheek. “I’m here to lick whatever you want me to.”
It was like being sparked with a live voltage of electricity. Years of repressed desire, of wanting, sexuality unsatisfied, burst through her. This man she’d married who’d denied her any kind of physical intimacy during their short marriage was what? Making a pass at her now?
“Yeah, well, you’re about five years too late,” she muttered, pushing a hand to his chest and pushing him away, needing distance before she did something really stupid and gave into temptation.
And she was so tempted. She’d adored Max for almost as long as she’d known him. There were six Montebellos and she loved them all but Max had always been different. He was the oldest, the leader. They were all dynamic and powerful but even then, when Max spoke, the others listened.
She dropped her head forward, needing to blot all of that out. He’d broken her heart during their marriage. Not once but again and again and again until it was in tiny little shreds, and it was broken in a way that would never be healed. He’d broken her heart when he’d refused to make love to her, though they’d come so close on their wedding night. He’d put an end to that, leaving her frustrated and confused, worried she’d done something wrong. After that, it had gone downhill. He’d treated her like a sister, kind, attentive, but oh so careful not to touch her, not to kiss her anywhere but on the cheek.
And she’d come to hate him.
She’d come to hate his cool distance, his immaculate control of his body. So she’d done what she could – sleeping naked, joining him in the shower, anything to tempt him, to remind him she was a flesh and blood woman.
To no avail.
He hadn’t wanted her. So what the hell was he doing now?
“Are you saying you want me to go away?”
She swallowed hard, the lump in her throat making that difficult.
She hated that she couldn’t answer that with an unequivocal ‘yes!’. She met his gaze fiercely though, her eyes burning with contempt. “You shouldn’t have come.”
It was the best she could do. She allowed herself to study him for one second longer and then she pushed past him, refusing to speak to the man who’d made her so miserable.
Only his hand caught her wrist, arresting her, and he pulled her towards him so they bumped into one another; her breasts crushed to his chest, his fingers on her flesh warm and engaging, circling invisible patterns over her skin.
His eyes bore into hers and she couldn’t look away now. Her breath was burning through her body, her knees felt weak, completely insufficient to support her weight. She stared up at him and with every second that passed she felt herself slipping back in time, back to when he’d been the sun and the moon to her earth. “Why did you come here?” The words emerged as a groan.
He shifted his body then, pushing her against the wall, and she was grateful for the support even when she was held up by his strong frame, his body pressed hard to hers so she felt every edge and plane of him, so she wanted to moan for how good that felt.
“Why do you think?”
She shook her head, unable to comprehend, unable to offer any answer that made sense.
“You were my wife, Alessia.”
The statement was sobering. “I was a woman you married, not your wife. There’s a difference.”
“And what is that difference?” He pushed, moving his hips so she felt the hint of his arousal and had to bite down on her lip to stop from making any kind of verbal response to that.
“You know the answer to that.”
“Sex?” he prompted, moving his hips once more.
She swept her eyes closed, unable to think clearly, unable to speak when her pulse was hammering so wildly inside of her body. She had wanted him in a way that had made her desperate and almost mad with longing. And he’d rejected her again and again.
His rejection had critically undermined her confidence and belief in her sexuality – she’d never been with a man because deep down she knew herself to be completely undesirable.
So having Max here now, proof of his desire hard against her belly, she wanted to scream at him, to claw at his chest and she wanted, almost more than anything, to go to bed with him.
And she hated that weakness.
“A lack of sex was one reason our marriage failed.”
“Actually, our marriage failed because of the presence of sex,” he reminded her, the words firm like stone. “Specifically, you having sex with another man.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to deny that – she’d let another man kiss her, in a childish, drunken attempt to make Max jealous – but that had been the end of it. She’d hated it. She’d hated the feel of another man’s lips on hers, his hands on her body. She’d pushed him away just as soon as the journalist had got their photo.
“What did you expect, Max? That I’d wait until you realised I was a flesh and blood woman?” Much better. Bringing it back to his disinterest in her was safer than discussing her alleged infidelity.
“I expected you to honour our marriage vows, at least.”
Five years ago, she’d been glad for Max to think she’d cheated. She’d relished throwing it in his face, hoping it would inspire a reaction of some kind from him. Five years ago, she’d been hurt, wounded and childish, acting out of pain and heartache. What was her excuse now?
Desire might have been burning through her, making thought almost impossible, but she had better instincts now. She was a grown woman and letting him believe her capable of that no longer sat well with her. Especially when she knew how he felt about infidelity, and why.
“I did honour them.”
His laugh was harsh, but he stayed where he was, so she was losing her grip on sense and rational thought. “Sure you did.”
“No, you don’t understand.”
His eyes were fierce though, the anger and emotion she’d desperately wanted to see five years ago deep in his expression now. Had it been there then and she’d missed it? Had her own wounds been too deep?
No. He’d been cold. Emphatic. We shouldn’t have done this. Our marriage was a mistake. I’ll find another way.
She’d never known what he meant by that.
“I understa
nd.” His breath was warm on the side of her face, his body something she craved with all her senses. “I – along with the rest of the world – saw the pictures.”
She closed her eyes a moment, those damned photographs as real now as they’d been then. It had looked like a passionate kiss, as though they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
“The pictures painted the wrong story. It was just a kiss.”
He stilled for a moment and she forced herself to look at him, saw the emotions wrestling inside of him. Surprise, disbelief, cynicism. “Sure it was.”
“It’s the truth. I didn’t sleep with Andrew. He kissed me. I let him.” Pink lifted in her cheeks. She’d known there were photographers at the A-list hotspot. She’d been glad to have her picture taken, glad to think her inattentive husband would see it.
“There’s no need to lie. Five years is a long time. There’s a lot of water under the bridge, for both of us.”
“More for you than me, I think,” she retorted, barely needing to think to remember the articles that had run about Massimo. Photo upon photo upon photo of him quickly resuming his single life, dating – sleeping with – myriad beautiful other women. For a year, she’d found it almost impossible to go through the motions of life. She’d continued her medical degree, because it was a habit and a distraction, but she’d shut everyone else out. Friends, family, she’d barely eaten, she’d stayed indoors, she’d been destroyed and distraught.
She would never let a man hurt her that way again. Even when Dom ended their engagement, she’d been surprised, and disappointed, but not hurt. Her emotions had never really been involved with him, because she knew better than that now.
“You forget, Alessia, I have first-hand experience of your libido.”
She drew in a sharp breath, her eyes unconsciously revealing her hurt at the low blow. If only he knew the truth! She was a virgin, completely inexperienced with members of the opposite sex. And that was, in large part, thanks to him. “A libido you never indulged.”
Just This One Summer: A billionaire forbidden love romance... (The Montebellos Book 2) Page 19