‘So now we can be a real family and save rug-rolling for any spare moments we might have.’
‘I doubt we’ll have many.’
‘Are you saying yes to my proposal?’ Suddenly he wasn’t sure of anything, and Cassandra’s reply mattered more to him than anything else on earth.
‘Luca has to know that love is for ever, and that his parents are for ever, and if you can promise me that...’
‘For ever doesn’t sound long enough to me.’ Grabbing Cassandra close, he kissed her slowly and then with increasing passion until Luca got jealous of his parents’ distraction and started to wail.
‘Hold that thought,’ Cassandra instructed as she headed for the bedroom. ‘We have a little man who’s hungry.’
‘Shall I warm a bottle and bring it up?’
‘No, thank you. I’ll feed him myself. As soon as you arrived bottles became redundant.’
‘So, I do have my uses,’ he teased as he followed her upstairs.
‘Luca thinks so,’ Cass agreed wryly, making space for Marco on the bed.
EPILOGUE
Three years have passed...
‘WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?’ Marco murmured, looping his arms around Cass’s waist.
‘Right now? Or a few minutes ago? You have to be more specific,’ she teased him, arching a brow as she stared into the face of a man who had only grown more ruggedly good looking in the time she’d known him.
‘Right now?’ Marco’s powerful shoulders eased in a shrug in response to this part of her query. ‘I know what you’re thinking right now.’
‘How?’ Cass demanded, though she knew the answer. She just wanted to hear him say it.
‘I can feel you softening in my arms.’
‘Interesting that I soften,’ she exclaimed, shivering with desire, ‘when the opposite happens to you. You make me so hungry for you. How do you do that?’ she groaned, pressing against him.
‘Consistent results?’ he suggested.
She smiled and rolled her head back, inviting more kisses.
‘So, tell me,’ Marco coaxed. ‘What were you thinking just now to put that dreamy look on your face?’
‘I was thinking that this was inevitable,’ she admitted, pressing closer.
‘You and me?’ Marco rocked his body into hers.
‘Our family, living here on your Tuscan estate. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it right away.’ She glanced up. ‘And Quentin and Paolo visiting on a regular basis. That crazy makeover you insisted I have for the party has certainly produced unexpected results.’
‘Quentin and Paolo are good friends?’
‘More than that, I think,’ she said, smiling.
‘Are they with the baby now?’
‘My godmother and our two fairy godmothers are with our baby daughter and Luca now.’ Cass laughed. ‘Last time I looked all five of them were taking a nap before the gardens open at two o’clock.’
‘That gives us plenty of time.’
‘No, Marco—there’s no time! Where are you taking me?’ Marco had her firmly by the wrist and was leading her through the rose arbour she had designed in the gardens they had started opening to the public the previous year. ‘Marco, I have to look respectable,’ she protested when he pulled her down on the grass.
‘It won’t hurt for my gardener to have a little grass in her hair,’ he said, looming over her. ‘I just want to tell you how much I love you. And I want to tell you how much my family means to me, and that I owe all this to you.’
‘I think you had some part to play in the creation of our family—an equal part, I do believe.’
‘If you insist,’ he murmured, slanting a grin.
‘I do insist.’
‘I never pictured myself with any of this—happiness, and a family.’
‘And I never imagined I’d find someone like you. When I was up to my elbows in mud and you arrived in that flashy helicopter, my first thought was to grab my pitchfork and run you through.’
Marco laughed. ‘Such a waste of a warm afternoon and a firm, grassy bank,’ he murmured, dragging her close. ‘But you’re right—it is time to get ready to greet our guests...’
She followed his glance to the main gates and the road beyond, where, in the far distance, she could just see a haze of dust heralding the first visitors to the estate. With a cry of alarm she shot up. ‘They’re here! You’ve got to stop them—I forgot the time. I’m not properly dressed!’