“Prepare for what?” Stefan threw back at Clio, finding it unbearable to meet her eyes. How deep and sharp her words cut, how easily she had turned him into this mass of ache and love…
Her denial didn’t bring him even infinitesimal relief. His gut still ached, his breath rushed out of him unevenly.
She would have taken a few weeks to prepare herself…that he had driven her to this, it traveled through him like a missile launched specifically to torture him.
He turned, not sure what he would say, and stilled.
With her palm splayed against her stomach, her green eyes shining with tenderness and determination, she faced him. The wide curve of her mouth trembled. It was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen and it only brought home again how much he loved this woman. How fortunate that she would mother his child…
“Please answer me, Clio. Preparing for what?” he asked again, fisting his hands at his sides, stifling the urge to take her in his arms.
She shrugged, but the casualness she was going for didn’t come through. There was a wariness in her eyes that he decided he would never be the cause of again.
“I knew that if I had told you immediately, you would come armed to the teeth with clauses and contracts. That you would want this child and me and the whole family thing. That you would seduce your way into my life and convince me this was for the best. As sad as it sounds, I need to shore up my defenses against you.”
“You think I will bind you to me in the name of our child? You think me that heartless, Clio?”
Tears ran over her cheeks and she swayed. Cursing himself over and over, Stefan caught her.
“What am I supposed to think, Stefan? Two months have gone by and you didn’t call me once. Two months in which I wondered if I would ever see you again. Two months in which every minute felt like an eternity. Two months in which I battled the urge to come to you, to beg you to take me back any way you wanted.”
He grabbed her hands, willing her to understand him. “I hurt you so much that day. I couldn’t face myself in the mirror thinking of what I had ruined. The minute you had walked out, I realized what I had done, how wrong I was.
“I have been cursing myself, wondering if I could ever take back what I had done. I was terrified that I would hurt you even more after everything you have been through, Clio. I’m terrified that I might never be worthy of you, bella.”
He knelt in front of her, wrapped his arms around her. Bent his head, burrowed into her warmth, the love he felt for her unmanning him.
And even as he trembled at the thought that he might have lost her, he could feel the rightness of this, feel everything in him slide into place. Striving for control that was out of his reach, he pulled her fingers in his hand and kissed her.
“Stefan?” she whispered. There was so much pain and hope in it that he ached.
He raised his head and met her beautiful gaze, poured the emotions flowing through him into words. “I’m desperately in love with you. With every breath in my body. With every cell in my being. I come to you today with nothing but my heart in my hands, Clio.
“All I want is to be part of your life, a chance to show you how much I adore you. Every moment of my life, every decision I have ever taken, it…it has made me into this. But it also brought me to you, bella.
“The bastard that I am today, I’m still all yours to do with, Clio.”
Sinking to her knees, she clutched him. “Oh, Stefan…”
And just when Stefan thought he couldn’t fragment anymore, that he could feel no more, the sound of her pain pierced him again.
Wrapping his arms around her gingerly, he pulled her onto his lap. Buried his face in her hair and breathed in a lungful of her scent. Pushed himself to be the man that was worthy of the generous, brave woman that his beautiful wife was.
“Please, Clio. Do not cry, cara. I will not challenge you over our child. I will walk out, I will sign any paper you want me to sign. All I want is your happiness, even if it will kill me to be away from you.”
Meeting his gaze, she rested her forehead against his. “You really want me? Me and not just the mother of your child?”
Hating that she doubted him, hating that he had given her cause to, he hugged her to him.
“I came today because I couldn’t bear to be apart from you anymore, Clio. I couldn’t breathe for the thought of never seeing you smile again.” His hand moved over her stomach, and his breath caught in his throat. “That you…that you carry a part of me inside you…it’s more than I wished for in my wildest dreams, bella. Will you truly be my wife, Clio? Will you help me be the man you deserve again?”
“You’re already everything I could have ever hoped for, Stefan. You know me better than anyone else in the world. And you take care of me, you enable me, you…you love me more than anyone else ever has, even as you shred me to pieces. Loving you—” tears pooled in her eyes and overflowed “—somehow, it has only made me stronger.”
His heart thudded fast in his chest, the back of his eyes prickling with warmth. “I love you so much, bella…I have missed you so much…it felt like a part of me was forever gone. Promise you will never walk away from me, Clio. Even if I make a mistake, promise me you will fight for me.”
Shaking her head, she covered his mouth with her hand. Sank her hands into his hair and tugged him up. Pressed her mouth to his and kissed him so hard and for so long that he came undone.
“All I want is my friend, my lover, my husband back, Stefan. All I want is the man who made me the best I could be. And if we make a mistake, we’ll rail and rage at other, but we will always find our way to each other again.”
Reaching for her mouth, Stefan breathed in her scent, clutched her to him. With Clio by his side, there would be nothing but happiness and joy in the coming days.
Combing his fingers through her hair, he kissed her forehead, a smile curving his mouth. “I want a little girl with hair the color of fire.”
Turning around, Clio tucked her face under his chin, her arms tightly vined around his midriff. “Do you think we will be good parents?”
The thread of anxiety in her tone, that she would show him her fears, made his chest fill up. “We will be the best parents in the world, bella. If we do make any mistakes, he or she will have grandparents and a host of aunts and uncles to complain to,” he said, thinking of Rocco and Christian and Zayed and the wonderful women they had married.
His heart seemed as if it was bursting to the full. Their friends would be over the moon for him, would find so much happiness in his.
“New York or Sicily?” he said, his hands roving restlessly over her lithe curves. With a moan that curled around his senses, she pushed herself into his touch.
Found his mouth with hers and demanded everything. Nipped his lower lip with her teeth until he was rock-hard under her. Splaying her legs wide around him, she rubbed herself over his erection, and let out another long moan.
“New York and Sicily, with regular stops at Milan, Athens and Gazbiyaa,” she breathed, her fingers busy over his belt buckle.
The moment her fingers danced over his rigid shift, Stefan pushed her down to the carpet and covered her with his body.
This time, they both groaned, and joy filled his heart. “That should work, bella,” he finished and kissed his wife’s luscious mouth.