Watched his wife become a mother to his daughter.
The midwife tidied up around them then opened the curtains on the beginning of a glorious new day, pinks and oranges and pretty lemons filling the window as if the sky had known it was giving her a girl.
‘What a beautiful morning to become a mum!’ the midwife said, and left the new family to it. Emma wanted to call her back, worried almost that she’d been left with her baby, that she should know what to do. What if she stopped feeding, or what if she suddenly cried?
But she was still feeding, making little snuffly noises as Emma stared down.
Girls were different.
Politically correct or not, scientifically based or whatever, in a hormonal haze Emma knew that they just were.
They needed cuddles and blankets and something else—something Emma had been denied and something she swore her daughter would never be without.
‘If something were to happen to me…’ Seeing her cradling their daughter, hearing the wobble in her voice, it would have been so easy to wave her fears away, but Luca wouldn’t do that to her.
‘There would be Daniela, my mother, Evelyn and her twin girls when they come…She’d be surrounded.’ Luca stared at his daughter. ‘But more than that, she would know about you and know how much I loved you and how much I love her.’
He left no room for doubt.
‘What happened to my playboy?’ she teased.
‘He stopped playing.’
‘What happens now?’ Emma asked, because she had it all, here in this room. Here in her arms she had it all, and she didn’t know quite what to do with it.
‘We name her?’ Luca smiled. ‘Do you want to call her after your mother?’
She had thought about it long and hard and she thought about it again.
‘No,’ Emma admitted, because sometimes it still hurt. ‘Do you want to name her after yours?’
‘No,’ Luca said. He had forgiven Mia, and he was happy to see her with Leo, but, well, it was all too new and too much just yet. He didn’t even know what to do with his own surname, let alone pass on his mother’s first name too!
‘Aurora,’ Emma said.
‘Aurora?’ Luca played with the word in his mind and liked it. ‘It means dawn…’
‘And new beginnings,’ Emma said, gazing from her infant to her husband. They would follow their own course now. This precious clean slate they had been given deserved the very best they could give her, and that’s what she would get.
A new beginning.
The Salvatore
Marriage Deal
Natalie
Rivers
About the Author
NATALIE RIVERS grew up in the Sussex countryside. As a child, she always loved to lose herself in a good book, or in games that gave free rein to her imagination. She went to Sheffield University, where she met her husband in the first week of term. It was love at first sight and they have been together ever since, moving to London after graduating, getting married and having two wonderful children.
After university Natalie worked in a lab at a medical research charity and later retrained to be a primary school teacher. Now she is lucky enough to be able to combine her two favourite occupations—being a full-time mum and writing passionate romances.
For my editor, Sally Williamson
CHAPTER ONE
LILY shivered in the back of the water taxi as it travelled carefully along the foggy Venetian canal. The cold and damp seeped through her suede jacket, chilling her to the bone, but she was grateful for the fresh air. It was warmer inside the polished wooden cabin of the taxi, but it was stuffy, and the movement of the boat made her feel queasy. These days everything made her feel queasy, but at least now she knew why.
She was pregnant.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Pregnant.
How was she going to tell Vito?
She’d been living with him for five months, and during that time he’d been the most amazing, attentive lover she could have imagined. But she’d always known that as far as he was concerned it was only a temporary arrangement.
From the start Vito had promised her complete exclusivity— and, in return for his fidelity, he’d demanded the same from her. But he’d always made it plain that there was no future for the relationship. There would be no long-term commitment, and categorically no children.
But now she was eight weeks pregnant. The stomach bug that she’d thought was taking a long time to clear up was actually morning sickness. And presumably the same stomach bug was responsible for the failure of the Pill.
She shivered again and looked at her watch. Vito would be waiting at the palazzo for her, wanting to know what the doctor had said. She glanced up as the taxi passed under a familiar arched bridge. In only a few minutes she’d be home.