‘I like working. I like feeling useful,’ Belle confessed truthfully, green eyes sparkling, generous mouth warming into an unrestrained smile because simply sitting there in her beautiful dress with her even more beautiful husband opposite made her feel ridiculously spoilt and contented.
Hungry desire flaming through him afresh and coalescing in an ache of raw need so eager to stir at his groin, Cristo studied his wife, marvelling at the explosive effect she had on his libido. Although he didn’t consider himself to be either an emotional or sentimental man, he found her natural warmth and liveliness amazingly attractive.
The waiter brought the menu and the chef came out to greet them and offer recommendations. By then dusk was falling and the candles were lit. Belle cradled her wine and sipped, rejoicing in the fact that she could at last relax in Cristo’s company.
‘You still haven’t explained why Bruno and Donetta were sent to boarding school,’ Cristo drawled lazily.
Her fingers tightened round the glass in her hand. ‘Bruno was never an athletic boy and he finally admitted to Gaetano that he was only interested in art. Your father asked him if he was gay…he was only thirteen at the time,’ she completed in a tone of disgust.
Cristo swore under his breath.
‘Then Gaetano decided to make that a running joke and whenever he saw Bruno after that he called him “gay boy”. Eventually someone else overheard and talked and Bruno started getting bullied at school but he didn’t tell us what was happening,’ Belle explained heavily, having to pause to breathe in deep
before she could continue to tell the distressing truth. ‘Bruno tried to kill himself but, very fortunately for us and him, we found him in time and he recovered.’
Cristo was honestly appalled by the confession while he recalled that skinny-wristed boy with the anxious eyes who had cornered him on the day of the wedding. ‘I was remarkably lucky, it seems, to escape Gaetano’s concept of how to be a good father.’
‘Well, after that Donetta finally picked up the courage to tell us what had been going on at school and that’s why they both went into boarding,’ Belle advanced. ‘Bruno’s experience with Gaetano is the main reason why I hated your father. And my brother, by the way, is not gay.’
‘It wouldn’t have made any difference to me if he was,’ Cristo remarked as the first course was deferentially laid before them. ‘The poor kid.’
‘He’s a very talented artist and the change of environment was exactly what he needed, even if it does mean he and Donetta are separated from the family.’
‘When they move to London, they won’t be separated any longer,’ Cristo reminded her. ‘They can attend a day school or even board and come home at weekends—whichever they would prefer… It’s up to them.’
‘I know. I wanted us all to be together again,’ she confided ruefully. ‘But you might find it a little crowded with all of us around.’
Cristo dealt her a wicked look teeming with all the passion that simmered so close to the surface of his apparently controlled exterior. ‘I think I will enjoy being crowded by you.’
CHAPTER NINE
WITH A GROWING sense of awe, Belle studied the laptop pictures of the latest London property details sent for their perusal by the consultant hired by Cristo. Cristo had told Belle simply to pick a house, as his penthouse apartment was too small to house her family. He had very little interest in what his new home would be like, having merely specified a room to house an office and sufficient space in which to entertain. Belle was staggered, not only by the sheer meteoric cost and superb appointments of the elite properties tendered to them, but also by the level of responsibility Cristo had entrusted her with.
At the same time, she would have been the first to admit that during the past weeks in Italy their relationship had changed out of all recognition. Most mornings she helped Cristo catch up in the office. After that they would spend the rest of the day exploring, eating out, swimming, generally just relaxing and often with Franco in tow. And equally often they would sit out until very late talking over guttering candles on the terrace where they usually dined. A dreamy expression clouded Belle’s eyes in tune with the increasing sense of security that she was feeling in her new life. Nothing seemed that daunting with Cristo by her side. No, not even his mother, Princess Giulia, who had arrived with his stepfather, Henri Montaldo, with very little warning only the day before. Belle’s mother-in-law had literally shrieked in infuriated horror once she finally grasped the identity of the woman whom her one and only child had married.
‘What are the children of this unscrupulous Irish woman to do with you?’ the princess, an imperious, ageless little brunette dressed in the latest fashion, had demanded in outrage of her son.
‘They are my family,’ Cristo had responded quietly and Belle’s chest had swelled with pride, for she knew what an achievement it was that he had now moved beyond his original feelings to regard her siblings in that just and unselfish light.
And the battle between mother and son had then switched to incomprehensible volleys of furious Italian while Belle offered Cristo’s stepfather, Henri, a mild-mannered man, coffee and tried to pretend that she wasn’t aware that his wife was undoubtedly engaged in attacking Belle’s late parent, Mary, for the reckless choices she had made in life.
‘Gaetano is Giulia’s one blind spot,’ Henri had remarked ruefully under cover of the argument raging back and forth between mother and son. ‘He was the love of her life.’
‘Yet you’ve been together…?’ Belle had begun awkwardly.
‘Since Cristo was a toddler,’ Henri had confirmed in the same even, accepting manner. ‘Don’t worry about this. Cristo will settle it. He knows how to handle his mother.’
By the time the coffee was being served, the argument had become a much less tense discussion laced with Henri’s soothing comments, and Belle swiftly recognised that Cristo both liked and respected his stepfather. Indeed by the time the volatile princess had departed, the older woman had recovered her mood to the extent of ruffling Franco’s black curly hair, remarking what a very handsome little boy he was and kissing Belle on both cheeks and welcoming her to the family. The threat of lingering bad feelings that Belle had feared might result from such an encounter had been successfully averted.
‘So, as you witnessed this afternoon, everybody gets embarrassed when it comes to family members,’ Cristo had remarked in bed the night before while she still lay boneless and weak with drowning contentment in the circle of his arms. ‘My mother has a very short fuse. She loses her head and throws scenes.’
‘But she calms back down again and she doesn’t hold spite,’ Belle pointed out lightly. ‘That’s a plus.’
‘I didn’t want her to upset you, bellezza mia,’ Cristo admitted. ‘It’s more than a quarter of a century since she divorced Gaetano and, let’s face it, what he did after that and who he did it with is none of her business.’
‘But at one time she obviously cared a lot for him,’ Belle mused, drowsily settling her head down on his smooth bronzed shoulder, breathing in the scent of him in a state of sublime relaxation. ‘And his infidelity and his lies must have hurt her enormously. A woman would’ve needed to be hard as a rock or wilfully blind like my mother to handle Gaetano without getting chewed up into little pieces.’
‘I’ll always be honest with you,’ Cristo declared, long tanned fingers skimming her tousled curls back from her brow as he looked down at her, dark eyes sexy gold below the stunning black of his luxuriant lashes. ‘I can promise you that much.’