Leah was utterly savaged by such a suspicion. Did he know so little about her? How could he even suspect her of such superficiality?
‘I went to see them for your benefit. I told them nothing private—’
‘How was it formybenefit when I’ve done without them all my life?’ Gio flung at her in scornful condemnation of that statement.
‘They’re your family and I think it would do you good to have family other than me and the twins,’ Leah declared clumsily, her eyes stinging with tears because that was not something he would easily hear or something that she had wished to be forced into saying. ‘I know how much Ari finding me meant to me...discovering my brother was ahugething for me and wonderful! I know you’re probably not Ari’s greatest fan, but the knowledge that he searched for me because I was his half-sister meant the world to me.’
‘Arisearchedfor you. My grandparents always knew where I was,’ Gio responded deflatingly. ‘You can’t compare the situations. But you do know me well enough to know that taking it upon yourself to seek them out and visit them without my agreement or approval was a deception and a piece of disloyalty I cannotacceptfrom someone as close to me as my wife.’
Nausea bubbled in Leah’s tummy. She felt sick. She felt threatened. The man she loved was lacerating her for sins she would never ever have considered committing against him. Love, not disloyalty, had driven her. Her optimism, sparked by her brother’s generosity, had persuaded her to go that extra mile in the hope that a solution could be found to grant Gio a connection with his grandparents.
‘Sometimes you’re so stupid, Gio. You’re clever about so many things but with emotions...or, apparently, possible motivations, you’re hopeless. Why do you think I sneaked off to see your grandparents? What was in it for me?’ Leah asked flatly. ‘In reality, there was nothing in it for me except the chance of a nasty reception from your grandparents or a humiliating rejection because I was married to you. I took a risk for your benefit, not for my own. I couldn’t care less about their social status. I gain nothing by you having a relationship with your grandparents—’
‘So, why the hell did you do it, then?’ Gio launched at her in a furious attack.
‘Because I love you, and when you love someone you want them to have everything that can make them happy. You want a sunny perfect world for them and you want no bad things to happen,’ Leah muttered while Gio stood staring at her, suddenly frozen to the floor by that astonishing declaration. ‘That’s why I did it, and I didn’t tell you about what I was doing because I knew that if it went badly, it would only increase your bitterness.’
Tears sprinkling her cheeks, Leah spun and left the room to head upstairs to take refuge in the nursery. She hadn’t intended to tell him how she felt about him, but it would have been worse to allow him to assume that she had decided to court his grandparents because they were titled, influential people. When misunderstandings occurred, honesty was the only solution, she reasoned wretchedly.
Unfortunately, she felt as though she had abandoned her dignity and humiliated herself because the last time she had told a man she loved him, Oliver had been the target. And Oliver had reacted as non-committally as if she had told him it was raining. How she had cringed from that memory after finding out about his affair with Celeste! She stared down into the cots where her children slumbered, peaceful and unaware of the world beyond their cosy cocoon. Slowly she backed out of the nursery again, reminding herself that the twins were the main reason she had married Gio. She had wanted them to have a father, and in that line Gio was amazing, she reminded herself doggedly.
Oh, stop kidding yourself, she urged herself impatiently. She had married him because she wanted him, because she loved him. She almost collided with the man himself on the landing but when he tried to catch her arm, she shook him off and headed straight into her bedroom, her bedroom which had steadily becometheirbedroom. Of course, what highly sexed male was likely to say no to the sex?
Gio stood in the doorway. ‘I overreacted—’
‘You think?’ Leah parried without looking at him, stripping off the more formal outfit she had worn to visit his grandparents and ignoring him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he breathed stiltedly.
‘Right,’ Leah said tightly.
‘I lost my head, my temper... I never do that. I watched my father do it too often, saw him lash out with abuse and his fists,’ he admitted in a tortured undertone.
Leah breathed in deep and slow, fiercely resisting the urge to move closer and wrap her arms round him. ‘You didn’t use fists and you weren’t abusive. You said how you felt and that was betrayed. I underestimated the level of your sensitivity...and, no, please don’t tell me that you’re not sensitive, because you’ve got triggers as we all have. You trusted me and I shocked you by doing something you see as unforgivable—’
‘I don’t see it that way any more,’ Gio sliced in, his dark deep voice raw and rushed. ‘I reacted badly because you mean more to me than anything in this world and I’m hopelessly in love with you and the thought that you could be disloyal simply devastated me.’
Leah stilled halfway into the sundress she was putting on. That garbled surge of confession in which he barely seemed to draw breath took her so much by surprise that her tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth. Clad in floral lingerie, she turned to focus on him with wide, disconcerted dark eyes. ‘Hopelessly in love with me?’ she echoed in a slightly strangled voice. ‘Since when?’
‘For ages. But I wasn’t going to tell you, wasn’t going to put myself in a weak position like that again.’ Gio grimaced. ‘You’re braver than I am. I sort of thought you’d guess and I wouldn’t have to say it.’
‘Idiot,’ Leah pronounced, finally donning the dress she had been holding in frozen hands at her waist.
‘Possibly,’ Gio conceded with a slow-burning smile that tugged at the corners of his tense mouth. ‘But very muchyouridiot.’
‘I wasn’t ready to tell you either,’ Leah conceded grudgingly, and the whole time there was this surging inner joy interfering with every other thought process. He loved her back. This time she had gone out on a limb and it had paid off because Gio loved her. Every insecurity fell away, every fear was vanquished. ‘But you are pretty special...in some ways,’ she added, not wanting to flatter him too much.
Gio gave her a wide slanting grin. ‘I suppose I could say the same thing about you. You’re not quite so special when I’m tripping over the shoes you leave lying around or when you leave make-up cluttering the bathroom—’
‘Don’t be soliteral!’ Leah shot at him. ‘You’re not supposed to tell me that you love me in one breath and then in the next tell me what I do that irritates you.’
Gio’s grin grew even wider as he crossed the distance separating them and tugged her into his arms. ‘Clearly, I need training—’
‘You do,’ Leah agreed, rather covertly leaning into the heat and strength of him, still not quite accustomed to the idea of actually being loved back, accepting that she needed a little time to luxuriate in that security before she could overcome her defensiveness. Her hands slid up from his shoulders into his black hair, flirting with the tips of the silky strands. ‘But you’re very sexy. That comes naturally.’
Engaged in unbuttoning the straps on her shoulders, Gio glanced up with his stunning eyes semi-screened by lush ebony lashes. It was a look that made her heart skip a beat and butterflies go crazy in her tummy. ‘Well, you did once give me the feeling that all you wanted from me was sex...’
Leah flushed to the roots of her hair. ‘But...er—’