‘You’re right about one thing: it does turn me on.’
Rose felt her nerves sizzling.
‘But the real reason is because I want to start again. I want us to recreate that night—except this time without any malevolent manipulation dictating events. We’re just two people who’ve never met before. No agenda.’
Hardly daring to breathe or to hope, Rose whispered, ‘Why? If all you want is an affair—’
‘Your words,’ he cut in. ‘Not mine.’ He shook his head. ‘You still don’t get it, do you? I haven’t brought you here just to sleep with you, or to continue some temporary affair. You’re here because you’ve brought me to my knees. Because everything that I ever believed was important means nothing unless you’re with me.’
He wasn’t finished.
‘I don’t just want one night...or a few weeks or months. I want every night and day. I want you and me and our baby—together. And I want that forever.’
Rose shook her head incredulously. Her heart was pounding wildly. ‘You didn’t believe me when I told you how I felt... How do I know you believe me now?’
Zac was intense. ‘Because I trust in that girl I met who was so conflicted...who just wanted to do the right thing but was falling, just like I was. I trust in the purity of what we felt for each other, regardless of how we came to meet.’
It was too much. The hope was too much... She had too far to fall, and Zac had distrusted her for so long.
She broke away and turned her back to him, standing at the railing, holding on with both hands, knuckles white. Her throat ached...her eyes burned. And then she closed her eyes helplessly when she felt him behind her, wrapping his arms around her. His hands spread across her swollen belly with a possessiveness that made her blood sing.
He said over her head, ‘I love you, Rose, and I’m not letting you go. Not until you believe me.’
She was crying now in earnest, silently. But he could feel her sobs and he just held her until they stopped. The baby kicked under his hands.
She felt Zac go still behind her, and then he said with a choked voice, ‘See? It’s two against one.’
As he held her and she looked out over the view, she felt something wild and soaring take root inside her. The past and the present...and the future? Could it really start here again?
She gathered all her courage and turned in his arms and looked up. Her face had to be ravaged from her tears, but she didn’t care. She looked, deep into those blue eyes, and saw nothing but a blazing truth, as if he could burn it into her with sheer will. And a question. Could she give them another chance? Could she trust him?
Rose tugged free of Zac’s hold and stepped back. The stark pain she saw in his eyes when she broke free told her everything. And that she never wanted to see it again.
She took a deep, not entirely stable breath and held out her hand. ‘I’m Rose O’Malley—nice to meet you.’
Zac’s eyes flashed with something fierce. Relief. Joy. And love. He smiled and took her hand. ‘Zac Valenti—nice to meet you too.’ Then he cocked his head on one side. ‘With a name and colouring like that you must be Irish?’
Her heart felt as if it would explode in her chest, but she answered, ‘My parents emigrated here before I was born.’
Zac kept hold of her hand and slowly started pulling her towards him. ‘Why haven’t I seen you around before?’
Rose smiled tremulously and let herself be pulled. ‘I’m from Queens, and I’m afraid I’m just a humble maid.’
Zac pulled her right into his body and said, in a suspiciously choked-sounding voice, ‘As it happens, just humble maids are some of my favourite people.’ He threaded a hand through Rose’s hair, ‘Would you think it very forward of me if I kissed you, even though we’ve only just met?’
Rose’s voice wobbled even more as she said emotionally, ‘Only as long as you promise never to stop.’
‘That,’ Zac said reverently as he bent his head towards hers, ‘I can promise.’
And so that night, on a beautiful rooftop, in the middle of a magical garden high in the dark velvet sky, they started again.
EPILOGUE
A year later
ZAC VALENTI LOOKED around the massive glittering ballroom from his antisocial location, leaning against a pillar at the back of the room. Women passed him, dripping in jewels. He held in a scowl. And then something caught his peripheral vision and he looked to his right to see a bright flame of gold and green approaching him. Something swelled in his chest. His wife, his love, his world.
She emerged from the crowd, smiling at him. Her hair was swept up and she wore a shimmering strapless column of emerald-green that made her eyes pop out like two jewels. The only jewels she needed. Apart from her wedding rings.
When she reached his side Zac pulled her in close and it felt as it always did—as if a part of him was slotting back into place. He automatically breathed easier.
Rose looked up at him, eyes sparkling. ‘The gossip in the powder room tonight is about the sudden decision of a certain Jocelyn Lyndon-Holt to go on a long worldwide cruise.’
A familiar tension came into Zac’s muscles at the mention of that woman, but also a sense of release. He’d given a recent exclusive interview to a financial magazine, finally revealing the truth of his parentage and details of his hitherto less well-known Italian business concerns.
This cruise was his grandmother’s attempt to escape her fall from grace. The fact that she would be hounded by reporters at every stop along her route was inordinately satisfying. As was the legal agreement he’d made her sign before she’d left, which had been her only chance of ensuring the Lyndon-Holt name would live forever.
The Lyndon-Holt fortune was to become a philanthropic foundation, with one of its main recipients being a new charity—set up by him and Rose—which allocated funds for expensive medical operations to those who couldn’t afford it.
Rose’s father had recovered fully from his operation, and they’d taken an emotional trip back to Ireland with her mother’s ashes shortly after their daughter’s birth. Needless to say, Simona May Valenti—named for her paternal grandmother with the Italian spelling, and maternal grandmother—was the apple of her doting grandfather’s eye.
They’d christened her three months previously, in the church near the graveyard where Zac’s ancestors were buried. It was also where they’d been married, before Simona’s birth. Italy was their second home now, and they retreated there as much as possible.
Zac said now, with faux gravity, ‘Quite frankly, I’m less interested in idle gossip and far more interested in seeing how quickly I can get you out of that dress, Mrs Valenti.’
Rose slipped her arms around his waist, pressing so close that he could feel the thrust of her breasts against this side. Lust shot through his system with predictable force, making his body respond.
‘Witch...’ he growled, and she smiled, well aware of her effect on him.
He pulled her around in front of him, as much to disguise his body’s reaction as to torture her a little too.
He smiled when he saw her cheeks flush and her eyes dilate. ‘What do you say to going somewhere a little less...stuffy?’
She smiled. ‘I say yes.’
And then they both became aware of a moment of déjà vu at the same time—recalling that first night when he’d said those same words,
Rose said more huskily, ‘Take me home, Zac.’
So he did.
They went home to their new Greenwich Village townhouse and, after sending their nanny home, checked on their peacefully sleeping baby daughter, legs and arms spread wide in abandon.
Zac stood looking down at her for a long time. It scared him sometimes, recognising how easily his life might have remained an arid wasteland, only feeling a desire for retribution for his parents and wanting to accumulate more wealth and power. He’d arrogantly assumed when he’d walked away from his family that he had it all figured out, when in fact he’d really been no better off.
It had taken meeting Rose and falling in love to show him the true meaning of wealth. And now his daughter had compounded that a thousandfold.
Rose’s hand slipped into his and he looked at her, too overcome to say anything for a moment. She smiled, and he could see everything he was feeling mirrored in those green eyes.
‘I know,’ she said softly. ‘Me, too.’
And then she started backing out of the room, pulling him with her, with a knowing and very feminine smile on her face as they made their way to their bedroom.
And in that private space Zac let her take him apart—because he knew that she was the only one who could put him back together again. For ever.
* * * * *