‘Silly girl,’ her mother said, but Eloise could hear a difference in her voice from her usual briskness. She patted Eloise’s hand and then drew her own back, glancing at her slim gold watch. ‘I must go,’ she said. ‘My car will be waiting.’
The briskness was back in her voice, and in her manner. She held up a hand in farewell and was gone.
Vito turned to Eloise. ‘Did I just dream that?’ he asked.
Then his eyes went to the documentation on the coffee table. The papers that had restored to him at a stroke what Marlene’s machinations had wrenched from his family. He shook his head slowly in wonder. Then another thought occurred to him.
‘Your mother talked about a wedding—but...’ there was hesitancy in his voice ‘...is that something you want, cara mia?’
She wrapped her arms around his neck. ‘Only if you do,’ she replied.
His face lit. ‘It is my dearest wish!’
His mouth swooped to hers, kissing her tenderly. Then less tenderly. More sensually. At once within Eloise desire quickened, answering his.
Vito paused, though his arms were tight around her. ‘If your mother and mine insist on a fancy wedding, it could take a while to organise. So I was thinking...in the meantime perhaps we might pre-empt our honeymoon.’
He smiled wickedly.
‘How about testing out the new Viscari Hotel on Ste Cecile?’ He grazed her lips with his persuasively. ‘Do you think the Carldons would let you disappear for a long weekend?’
Eloise laughed. ‘Considering Laura Carldon has been desperate to get us together, I’m sure they will! And if she balks—well, her mother and mine are good friends. That’s how I got the job as Johnny’s nanny and it might help.’
‘Great.’ Vito grinned. ‘And, speaking of the Carldons, what about if I offer Maria and Giuseppe the pick of the Viscari Hotels collection for an extended holiday? I need to say thank you to them—after all, had it not been for them I would never have found you.’
Eloise’s grip on him tightened. The very thought of Vito never finding her...
‘Tell me,’ Vito was continuing, ‘how long do you think the Carldons will need to replace you? That will set the timing of our wedding.’
‘A few weeks, I should think. Laura has already mentioned it to me as a possibility. Vito, they must come to the wedding—and Johnny too! Maybe,’ she mused, ‘he’d like to be our page boy?’
‘More likely our chauffeur!’ Vito laughed. He swooped another kiss on her mouth. ‘Any more wedding details to be finalised right now? Or can we get on with what I’ve been longing to do for so long?’
She lifted limpid eyes to him. ‘What might that be, Vito?’
A wicked smile quivered at her lips. And was answered by his.
‘This,’ he said.
With a single scoop she was in his arms and he was striding with her into the bedroom, lowering her gently down upon the bed’s surface.
‘This,’ he repeated, and came down beside her. ‘This,’ he confirmed, and started to make love to her.
Eloise was the woman he loved, the woman who carried the son he already loved, who melded them into the family they would always be.
Always.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CARIBBEAN MOONLIGHT SHAFTED through the slats of the louvred windows of their room, and the slow beating of the ceiling fan high in the vaulted roof echoed the beating of her heart. Vito led her towards the bed, his fingers entwined with hers, his naked body outl
ined in all its masculine perfection by the silver light of the slanting moon.
With a little sigh Eloise folded herself down onto the cool surface of the sheets, letting her thighs splay loosely, her moon-silvered hair flow out across the pillows. Displaying herself to Vito.
For a long, timeless moment he gazed down on her.
‘How beautiful you are—how entirely beautiful to me...’ His voice was a soft, heartfelt murmur.