‘Do you know how I managed without you? I told myself that I hadn’t really loved you and that it was an infatuation. Back then, I didn’t think I had it in me to fall in love as deeply and as fast as I did with you. So, naturally, it had to be an illusion.’
‘I thought stuff like that too,’ Lara confessed reluctantly.
‘But I was wrong,’ Gaetano declared. ‘I really do wish you’d heard that whole conversation I had with Dario.’
Lara grimaced. ‘I didn’t want to listen to you laughing at me.’
‘No, the laugh was entirely on me. I was finally admitting that I was as much in love with you as ever and Dario was the one laughing. He pointed out that everyone else in the palace had guessed how I felt about youweeksago,’ he confided.
Her aquamarine eyes had widened. ‘In love with me?’ she echoed blankly.
‘You didn’t guess?’ Gaetano asked in surprise. ‘I mean, Dario said I was about as subtle as a thunderstorm. He said I changed so fast from wanting a divorce to announcing our reconciliation that his head was left spinning. He worked out what was happening to me ages before I understood my own feelings.’
‘Did he?’ Lara whispered, still up in the air without a parachute and barely able to credit what Gaetano was telling her.
‘I used Freddy and my desire not to engage in a court battle over him as an excuse to get you back. That approach was a sop to my pride. I wasn’t ready to admit how I still felt about you.’ Gaetano winced. ‘I think I was even a bit scared to put myself out there with you again—’
Tears erupted from Lara’s eyes, and she dashed them away with a trembling hand. Could she have been so stupid that she didn’t recognise how he felt about her? She remembered Morocco, which had been one long, wonderful, magical honeymoon full of romance and tenderness and passion. She was in shock and yet when she looked back at the amount of daily attention and support he gave her, she was rocked by her own inability to acknowledge the love that he had shown her.
‘And I’m still absolutely terrified of losing you again,’ Gaetano breathed grimly.
‘I need to apologise to you for not having faith in you and for not trusting my own judgement,’ Lara whispered unevenly. ‘I’ve suffered a lot of rejection in life from people I cared about, and I think I was much too quick to assume that you were rejecting me two years ago. That’s sad because it means we lost out on each other, and you lost out on knowing Freddy from the beginning. But whether you find it hard to believe or not, I have always loved you...practically from the first moment I saw you and right up until now when you’ve got the courage to share howyoufeel.’
‘And make you cry,’ Gaetano pointed out ruefully. ‘You’re not just saying that you love me because you think that’s what I need to hear?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Lara urged as she unbuttoned his shirt, and he took the hint and toed off his shoes. ‘I love you to death and back.’
‘And even last night when you thought I had deceived you, youstill—’
Lara turned beet red. ‘A good memory on that score is not always appreciated. I’m not very good at saying no to you.’
‘Long may it last,’ Gaetano husked with fervent appreciation and he lifted her to lay her down on the bed.
‘You said you don’t believe in it, but it was kind of love at first sight, wasn’t it?’ Lara prompted on the back of a blissful sigh and then she sat up with a start. ‘The party! We can’t do this now!’
Gaetano’s lips claimed hers with scorching hunger and her spine liquefied, heat arrowing down into her pelvis. He followed her down onto the bed. He told her that he loved her again and she reciprocated with enthusiasm as he made her his again. It was fast and wildly passionate. In the aftermath of immense pleasure, her body feeling pleasantly floaty, she belatedly recalled the party and almost fell out of bed in her haste to get dressed. Gaetano was already out of the shower, and she raced in.
Arrayed in a fresh set of lacy lingerie, she lifted her ball gown. It ranged from a purple shade at the neck and slowly deepened down into the richest violet. Crystals were scattered across the full skirt and narrow diamanté straps crossed her shoulders catching the light. It was a dream of a dress, she thought happily as she eased her feet into her high heels.
‘Let me help you with the jewellery,’ Gaetano urged, flipping open the boxes stacked in readiness on the dresser and extracting a sapphire necklace to clasp it around her slender throat. ‘You look utterly amazing,bambola mia.’
Lara donned the sapphire and diamond drop earrings and smiled at him, exhilaration brightening her eyes and lifting the curve of her lips. ‘For the first time ever I feel amazing,’ she told him honestly. ‘I’m afraid we’re late.’
‘The main guests should make an entrance,’ Gaetano teased.
‘I love you,’ she told him in the lift, a new confidence in her upright carriage.
‘I love you even more,’ he whispered as they stepped out into the glittering gathering of guests in the palace foyer, smiles on their faces, immense warmth in their hearts and contentment in their eyes.
EPILOGUE
Seven years later
LARATHOUGHTBACKto that wonderful party with Leah and Ari by her side, her brother and sister, who had been so proud to acknowledge their relationship, and she smiled. There had been many parties since then. Christmases, birthdays, christenings and holidays in the UK, Italy, Greece, Morocco and Mosvakia. Internationally based family members made for a lot of travel. And then there were the shopping trips she enjoyed with Leah and Cleo. The Christmas shopping trips were especially enjoyable.
‘Why did you once tell me that you didn’t like Christmas?’ she had asked Gaetano a couple of years earlier as he’d helped her decorate one of the many festive trees in their wing of the palace.
‘When I was a child, Vittorio only attended official celebrations and they were boring. By the time I got to eighteen, Christmas was just an endless string of exhausting parties. Andthen,’ he had stressed, turning to look down at her possessively, ‘I saw you in front of a Christmas tree and fell madly in love and that sort of jolted me out of my dislike of the season. It made Christmas a whole new occasion to appreciate. And then you gave me Freddy and the rest of our little tribe, and I realised Christmas is all about children having fun. I never had that, but I want our children to have it.’