Serena giggled at the comic look of shock and pure fear on Luca’s face. He’d been on high alert for weeks now, overreacting to every twinge Serena felt. And then it hit her—along with a very definite cramping of pain.
Her hand tightened on his. ‘Oh, my God, we’re in labour.’
Luca went into overdrive, instructing the driver to go to the nearest hospital.
Their police escort was already peeling away from the rest of the convoy and the driver reassured him in Italian, ‘I’m on it—we’ll be there in ten minutes.’
Luca sat back, heart pumping with adrenalin, a huge ball of love and emotion making his chest full. He drank in his beloved wife, her beautiful face, and those eyes that never failed to suck him in and make him feel as if he were drowning.
‘I love you,’ he whispered huskily, the words flowing easily from his heart.
‘I love you too.’
Serena smiled, but it was wobbly. He could see the emotion in her eyes mirrored his own. He spread his hand over her distended belly, hard with their child who was now starting the journey to meet them.
His wife, his family...his life. He was enriched beyond anything he might have believed possible.
And eight hours later, when he held his newborn baby daughter in his arms, her tiny face scrunched up and more beautiful than anything he’d ever seen in his life—after his wife—Luca knew that trusting in love was the most amazing revelation of all.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from INHERITED BY HER ENEMY by Sara Craven.
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CHAPTER ONE
GINNY MASON SENT a wave and grateful smile to the last of the departing well-wishers, then closed the heavy front door against the raw chill of the late January afternoon with a deep sigh of relief.
That, she thought wryly, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe as she listened to the car draw away, was the worst part of the day over. At least she hoped so.
The crematorium chapel had been full, because her stepfather Andrew Charlton was popular in the locality and well respected as an employer too, being the recently retired head of his own successful light engineering company. But only a handful of those present had accepted Rosina Charlton’s invitation to return to the house for the lavish buffet she’d arranged and few had stayed for very long.
They still think of us as interlopers, Ginny told herself, pulling a face, and they probably feel that Andrew should have been buried next to his first wife after a church service.
Or, maybe, word of Mother’s plans has probably got around. Today Rosina had been the wistful, gracious chatelaine, fragile in black. Last night she’d declared peevishly that she couldn’t wait to sell Barrowdean House and get away from all these stuffed shirts, to somewhere with a bit of life.
‘The South of France, I think.’ She nodded. ‘One of those really pretty villas in the hills, with a pool. So nice for the grandchildren when they come to visit,’ she’d added with an arch look at her younger daughter.
‘For God’s sake, Ma,’ Lucilla had said impatiently. ‘Jonathan and I have only just got engaged. We won’t be thinking of a family for absolutely ages. I want some fun too.’
Nothing new there, then, Ginny had thought to herself. Although she supposed Cilla could hardly be blamed. She was ‘the pretty one’, whereas Ginny, as her mother often pointed out, took after her father. Her creamy skin and neat figure did not compensate for the fact that her hair was light brown instead of blonde, and her eyes were not blue but grey. And her face could best be described as unremarkable.
Cilla on the other hand was a true golden girl, spoiled since birth by everyone.
Even Andrew had not been immune, because, when she’d returned from completing her education at an expensive establishment in Switzerland, while he might have muttered about her doing some proper training and getting a job, he’d never insisted that she become gainfully employed.
And when she’d caught the eye of Sir Malcolm and Lady Welburn’s only son, and courtship had proceeded rapidly to engagement, he’d nodded in a resigned way, as if weighing up the probable cost of the wedding.