'You...you love me?' Darcy whispered shakily.
'You told me that you fell for me, too, that night in Venice, and that gave me hope.'
'If you love me why have you been sleeping in another room?' Darcy demanded accusingly. 'Why don't you touch me any more?'
Luca gave her a sincerely pained appraisal. 'I wanted you to appreciate that I really loved you.'
'Bloody funny way of showing it,' she mumbled help¬lessly, not knowing whether she was on her head or her heels. 'I've been so miserable.'
In one stride, Luca closed the distance between them. 'I was waiting for you to give me some sign that you still wanted me...I couldn't afford to take anything for granted about this marriage!'
'If you love me,' Darcy breathed headily, 'you can take me for granted all you like.'
With a muffled groan, Luca brought his mouth down
hard on hers and set off a devastating chain reaction of lust through her entire quivering body. He crushed her so close she couldn't breathe, backed up towards the door to turn the lock and then lifted his dark head again. 'I've never, been so frustrated in my life...I ache for you, cara mia.'
She let her hand travel up over one blunt cheekbone in a caress and framed his face, her eyes full of love. 'Me too... I've been pretty stupid, putting my pride ahead of everything, closing you out when I needed you instead of showing it. I love you loads...and loads...and loads,' she told him a little tearfully, because her emotions were run¬ning so high they were right up there with the clouds. 'You should've been able to tell that a mile off!'
'You wouldn't even look at me any more!'
She gave him a flirtatious scrutiny from below curling lashes as he drew her hand down from his face and planted a kiss in the centre of her palm. 'You're a minx,' he told her huskily.
'I like the guy to do all the running. You see, the one time I did it the other way round, I ended up climbing out of a window with a burglar alarm screaming—and I also ended up pregnant,' she pointed out in her own defence.
'Zia's so precious, she could never be a source of regret,' Luca countered. 'I really fell for you in a very big way that night three years ago.'
'I find that so hard to believe—'
"That's because you don't think enough of yourself,' he scolded.
'You knocked me for six. You were so different from every other woman I had ever met. I fell asleep that night with you in my arms, and I felt pretty damned smug and self-satisfied—'
'And then it all went horribly wrong.'
'And I spent three insanely frustrating years trying to track you down... Make no mistake, I was totally ob¬sessed,' Luca confided ruefully. 'I never admitted to myself how I really felt about you, but I could hardly wait for our wedding...all I allowed myself to think about was getting you back into bed.'
'I noticed that was a fairly big issue straight off.'
Luca flushed. 'I just didn't know what was going on inside my own head, but I was incredibly happy I had you back in my bed, under my roof, trapped... Then Ilaria con¬fessed, and it was like being plunged into a big black loser's hole.'
'I know,' she sighed, sympathetically,
'And that was when I finally realised I loved you,' he groaned. 'I'd blown it every way possible. All I had to hang onto was that stupid agreement we'd made for a platonic marriage...what else did you need me for?'
'Gosh, I never thought of that...'
'So I decided you could comfortably do without being reminded of what a bastard I'd been for a couple of weeks. But it was hell without you,' Luca confessed as he bent and swept her possessively up into his arms and carried her over to the bed. 'And then Bertito handed me that magazine interview to read, I know you don't truly think that I'm that wonderful, but by the time I'd read it about ten times...'
Darcy kicked off her shoes. 'So that's why you knew it by heart.'
Luca unzipped her dress, spread the edges back and planted his mouth almost reverently on a smooth bare shoulder. 'I decided that if you really hated me, the odd sour note would've crept through. So, inspired by hope—'
'And a certain amount of ego...'
'I jumped straight on the jet,' he completed, tugging her round in his arms to give her a reproachful look, 'And when I realised that Zia was my child, I was ecstatic.it meant I had another hold on you.'
'But you jumped the gun, saying that because of Zia we should stay married. Much as I love my daughter, I need to feel wanted for myself.'
'I was clumsy. I pushed for too much too fast. I didn't dare tell you I loved you that soon because you would never, ever have believed me,' Luca informed her ruefully.
'I might've done...I'm more credulous and trusting than you are,' Darcy teased, her heart singing with love and happiness as she collided with his brilliant dark eyes and the open tenderness there.