‘I imagine the excitement and the challenge went out of it once she was freely available. Nor would being associated with the estranged wife of his superior have done him any favours,’ Gio pointed out with innate practicality.
‘You think strategically like Oliver,’ Leah registered.
‘But I would never have done what he did to you. It was callous to deceive you like that.’
It was strange how talking out loud about Oliver had made the entire episode seem infinitely less important and had lessened the sting of humiliation that had been inflicted. The insecurity of her childhood had made her crave love and stability. She had been all too willing to believe in Oliver. ‘I was too young and inexperienced to realise that something was seriously lacking in his supposed attraction to me... I mean, he jumped back from me when I tried to touch him—’
‘You’re a beautiful woman. I imagine he was scared he wouldn’t be able to withstand the temptation,’ Gio countered with amusement. ‘Dio mio, I’m grateful that he didn’t get to touch you...you’ve only ever been mine and I value that.’
Strong on equality, Leah lifted her chin. ‘I would’ve valued you more if you’d been a virgin too,’ she told him.
‘Little chance of that after the home I grew up in. I was never innocent in that way because I witnessed sex from an early age,’ he admitted in disgust, closing his hand over hers as she mounted the shallow steps of a stone-pillared folly. ‘I’ll tell you about my marriage some other time. I still don’t understand why you’re so ashamed of Oliver’s deception because it doesn’t reflect badly on you at all. You’re very straightforward. You wouldn’t recognise double-dealing and insincerity until you’d first experienced it. Don’t blame yourself for his lack of decency. Sooner or later, he’ll get his just reward in life—’
Leah laughed. ‘Do you really believe that?’
Gio grinned. ‘I like to believe in natural justice.’
She shifted closer and stretched up to taste his mouth with her own. He tasted so good she leant into him, her breath catching in her throat, her heart hammering again on that surge of sexual hunger that only he awakened in her. ‘So do I,’ she murmured.
‘But I imagine Oliver will be most grieved of all that he allowed the Stefanos heiress to slip through his clumsy hands,’ Gio derided with satisfaction as he lowered his head and toyed with her lower lip, his words slurring a little. ‘His face was a study as you walked away.’
‘Do you want to go indoors?’
‘Not particularly,’ Gio confided, sinking down on a stone bench and tugging her down onto his lap, a lean hand travelling up a slender thigh to tug at her knickers. ‘I’m very, very adaptable to new experiences with my wife.’
‘I’ll draw up a bucket list,’ Leah parried with a breathy little giggle and a shiver of appreciation that lit her body up as though she were on fire. ‘How long have we got in Italy before you start travelling again?’
‘Three weeks and then there’s a board meeting I need to put in an appearance at.’
A heady mixture of love and lust shimmied through Leah at the prospect of having Gio all to herself for that long. ‘I hope you don’t get bored with us.’
‘The one thing you never do is bore me,bella mia,’ he swore as he unzipped his chinos and rearranged her, bringing her down on his engorged shaft and making her moan with startled pleasure.
Afterwards, she lay in his arms, relieved that they were able to confide in each other and feeling a sense of peace spreading through her. In time, she was convinced, she would know everything there was to know about Gio Zanetti.
Almost three weeks later, Gio flopped back on the picnic rug under the tree. ‘I was a student and I fell like a ton of bricks for Gabriella. I’d had a lot of sex, but I hadn’t been in love before. I’d just created my first app, Virgo, and it had gone viral. Money was pouring in and, to be honest, at first, I didn’t know what to do with it—’
Leah was thrilled that he was finally willing to talk about his first marriage to her. ‘It must have been an exciting time.’
His lean dark features tensed. ‘When Gabriella told me that she was pregnant, it never occurred to me to ask her to prove it. It never crossed my mind that a woman would lie about such a thing.’
‘I can’t imagine you being that trusting.’ Leah sighed, running a hand slowly down over a muscled forearm.
Gio grimaced. ‘I was twenty-one. I thought I knew it all and I married her the same week she told me she had conceived because all I could think about was that my father had never cared enough for my mother to marry her. I wanted to be there in every way for her and my child,’ he confessed ruefully. ‘Gabriella assumed she’d be able to fall pregnantafterthe wedding, but it didn’t happen and eventually she got tired of the pretence and started drinking and going out again when I was working. There were rows. Some time after that she brought another man home and banged him and I walked in on it...’
‘That was some wake-up call. I’m sorry,’ Leah murmured, belatedly realising why he had wanted her to prove that her child was his to allay the fears and doubts that Gabriella’s lies had bred in him. Belatedly, now that she understood the man she had married a little better, she appreciated that he hadn’t told her about his marriage in any detail before because he was ashamed of how trusting he had been at twenty-one, and that saddened her.
‘She came clean then. I’ll give her that,’ Gio told her grudgingly. ‘She admitted that she’d thought I was a great financial bet for the future and that she had never been pregnant. The divorce took for ever and cost me a fortune because there had been no prenuptial contract. It left me bitter and distrustful and determined not to get seriously involved with a woman for a long time. Do you realise you’re the first person I have ever told that story to?’
Leah rubbed her brow tenderly against his shoulder. ‘I’m touched. But no wonder when I told youIwas pregnant it pushed all your panic buttons.’
‘Ididn’tpanic,’ Gio asserted, sitting up and pouring a fresh glass of wine.
Leah grinned. ‘As far as you are capable youpanicked,’ she contradicted, sipping at her wine while Gio’s wolfhounds tried to sniff out and chase Spike, who was hiding under a shrub.
As Spike emerged, he made a run for a stone bench and jumped on it to start madly barking. The wolfhounds careened back at speed and, accustomed to the terrier’s excitable nature, flopped down on the ground beside the bench. Spike joined them, scrambling up onto Lupo to lie down on his big shaggy back. Gio’s dogs treated Spike like a puppy and let him take all sorts of liberties.
The past three weeks had been full of new experiences for Leah and her dog. She had explored picturesque San Gimignano, lunched in Pisa and toured the gothic cathedral in Siena. Gio had very kindly encouraged her to play the tourist. She had enjoyed a picnic in the Chianti hills and toured the highly successful organic vineyard there, which Gio owned, and she had got sunburned on a charming boat trip along the beautiful coastline of the Cinque Terre. She had seen museums, old buildings, fabulous craft galleries and had revelled in incredible meals in wonderful restaurants. He had taken her around Florence on a motorbike, showing her the places he had favoured as a student, and she had been silently, ridiculously jealous that Gabriella had shared his life back then.