Leah squeezed his hand and withdrew her own. ‘That’s absolutely fine as well...whatever you’re comfortable with,’ she muttered nervously, but feeling rejected that he couldn’t talk openly in the way she needed him to, for no difference could ever be resolved without communication and, clearly, he wasn’t willing to do it. That did not bode well for the future. ‘So...er...us? But we aren’t anus—’
And that fast they were back on track and Gio breathed easier again. ‘I want there to be—’
‘But how? I don’t think you’re much interested in the babies inside me,’ Leah fielded with regret.
‘I am.’ Gio breathed in deep and slow. ‘I got it wrong before. I kept on giving forth about the DNA test when you were probably hoping I’d say something about what I saw on the screen in that surgery—’
‘How did you work that out?’
‘By your reaction, your disappearance,’ Gio parried stiffly, faint colour larding his spectacular cheekbones, his uneasiness pronounced. ‘Obviously, I’d screwed up. I’m not good at the emotional things—’
‘Let’s not exaggerate. You don’t do emotion at all,’ Leah countered flatly.
‘No, I felt it and I suppressed it because the whole experience with you reminded me of the last time I let emotion carry me away.’ Gio gritted his teeth because discussing private matters was for him like stripping his skin off. ‘And that sent my life off its rails for a couple of years...and it washell—’
Leah was gripped by that confession. ‘Oh?’ she said encouragingly.
Gio didn’t want to open up but some facts he knew he couldn’t hide and had to share. There was no reason to share any more detail, he consoled himself. He sucked in another sustaining breath before forcing himself to continue. ‘I fell in love with a woman and married her. Step by painful step I learned that everything she told me was a lie. I divorced her.’
And give Leah her due, meeting those lethal icy eyes of his and reading the shadows and pain still lingering there, she knew that he was sharing to the very best of his ability, every bitten-out word falling from his lips like a bullet. ‘I can understand the harm that would do,’ she admitted quietly just as the refreshments arrived.
Leah grasped her chilled fruit juice while Gio tackled coffee, as indifferent as her brother was to the intense heat of mid-afternoon in Greece. ‘Sally was a therapist before she retired and started the animal sanctuary. She helped me adjust to my past. That’s one of the reasons why I said that I was very lucky to have her as a foster mum.’
Gio groaned out loud. ‘Maybe you should send her my way... That was a joke!’
‘I think for you it would be like tearing teeth out,’ Leah said perceptively.
Gio sent her an amused and appreciative smile. ‘You get me.’
‘Probably for the first time,’ she acknowledged truthfully, conceding that she had never considered that he too might have a troubled background, which continued to influence him far into adulthood.
Months after the event, she condemned him less for the lie he had utilised to conceal his true identity when they first met. He had come clean without being forced to do so. He had apologised. He had explained his behaviour. But Leah had refused to forgive because of her sensitive past history with Oliver, who had hurt her so badly. Regrettably, she had let that experience adversely influence her relationship with Gio. Who could tell what might have happened between them had she simply agreed to see him again and to allow their attraction to progress?
‘I’m here on a mission,’ Gio explained. ‘I want you in my life and I want my children in my life as well. What do I have to do to achieve that?’
Leah stared back at him wide-eyed. ‘My goodness, you get straight to the point—’
‘Sì...that’s who I am. Right now...’ Gio swept a hand in the direction of the sprawling luxury beach house ‘...you’re the fairy-tale princess in the Stefanos tower and I had to sail a yacht here to reach you because I wasn’t sure a helicopter would get permission to land—’
‘Fairy-tale princess?’Leah gasped.
‘You know, the one with all the hair she had to let down for the prince to get her,’ Gio extended in impatient explanation. ‘I want you to bemyprincess...’
Leah was aghast at the wash of reactions within her that responded to those words. Excitement, hope, desire. Indeed, a great wave of emotions engulfed her. ‘And what would that entail?’
Gio set down his coffee in haste, the cup rattling noisily on the saucer. To her astonishment he dropped down on one knee right there in front of her with a ring he set almost clumsily into her loose-fingered grasp. ‘Marrying me. Becoming my wife and the mother of our son and daughter andsharingthat with me, so that I can be the father my own father and your father refused to be.’
In shocked incomprehension at a development she had not once envisaged, Leah stared down at the magnificent ruby and diamond ring clutched between her fingers. ‘But you don’t love me,’ she mumbled in weak rebuttal.
Gio studied her with intense pale blue eyes that glittered. He had never looked more handsome, with the clean-cut lines of his darkly handsome face enhanced by the sunshine. ‘I don’t think weneedlove to do this...’
And with that one revealing statement, Gio sent Leah from the height of anticipation and delight down into the dark drowning shallows again, where she felt more for a man than she felt she should.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘LETMETHINKthis over,’ Leah murmured tautly. ‘I wasn’t expecting this... I’m in shock, I think.’
‘This can work. I canmakeit work,’ Gio swore vehemently as she curled her fingers tightly round the beautiful ring, her clear gaze intent on him. ‘We can create a loving home for our children together.’