Her New Year Baby Secret(23)

The next couple of hours passed by in a blur of music, of song, of  spectacle, of tears. Sophie was so engrossed she didn't notice the tears  rolling down her face as Violetta sang her swansong, not until Marco  pressed a handkerchief into her trembling hand. It wasn't just the  music, moving as it was, it was the setting, it was the night as a  whole, it was the realisation that these were the last innocent hours  she and Marco would spend together, that whatever happened after this  would be heavy with expectation. She wanted to freeze every second,  frame them, remember it all.

'Did you enjoy that?'

She nodded, wrapping her scarf a little tighter as they exited the  palazzo and turned into St Mark's Square. The moon was low and round,  casting an enchantment on the ancient buildings, lit up and golden by  the streetlights. 'I loved every bit of it,' she said. 'The whole  evening, Marco. Thank you.'

He caught her hand, a boyish carefree gesture, and as he did so  realisation rocketed through her, sudden and painful in its clarity. She  was in love with him. Deeply, relentlessly, irrevocably in love with  him. How had this happened? Maybe it was hormones, her version of mood  swings, an emotion that would drain away when she hit the magic  twelve-week mark. Maybe it was fear, fear of raising the baby alone in a  tiny flat on a busy main road. Maybe it was simply the novelty of being  treated as if she mattered, as if she was worth something by a man  worth everything.

Or maybe it was real, that elusive alchemy of desire and compatibility and friendship.

She rose onto her tiptoes, pressing a soft kiss to his bristled cheek in  thanks. He moved as she did so, catching her in his arms, capturing her  mouth under his so that her light embrace was turned into something  more powerful. She allowed him to take control, leaning into him, into  his warmth and strength. Allowed him to claim her as his. Because she  was, his. But that was almost irrelevant. How could she tell him when he  was already burdened by his family's heavy expectations? How could she  tell him she loved him when she still had to tell him about the baby?  Her love would be one more load for him to bear, one more expectation  for him to manage and she couldn't do it to him. She had this night,  this kiss. They had to be enough.                       
       
           



       





CHAPTER ELEVEN

BIANCA QUIVERED AS the music struck up and she clutched his arm even more tightly.

'Hold on in there,' Marco said. 'Not long to go.'

'I'm not nervous, I'm excited. I love Antonio and I can't wait to marry  him, to start our life together, I just...' She faltered, her dark eyes  tearing up, and he squeezed her hand.

'I know, you wish Papà was here. I do too.'

'He liked Antonio. I'm glad about that. Glad he got to know him, that they respected each other. He'd have liked Sophie too.'

'Bianca, Sophie and I aren't...'

She turned and looked straight at him, beautiful, glowing with her hair  caught up behind the heirloom tiara, her veil arranged in foamy folds  down her back. 'Not yet, but you could be. I see the way you look at her  when you think nobody's watching you.'

'And how's that?'

'You look the way I feel about Antonio, that's how.'

'I think you're seeing what you want to see. I like her, of course I do, I admire her...'

'Fancy the pants off her?' Bianca's mouth curved into a wide grin and she waggled her perfectly plucked eyebrows at him.

'The mouth on you. And a bride at that! Yes, I find her attractive too,  but that's not...' He stopped, unable to find the right words.

'That's not what? What falling in love is? I never had you down as the  stars and flowers type, Marco. Falling in love might be instantaneous,  strike-me-down, can't-live-without-this person, all-consuming lust when  you are sixteen, when you're twenty. It's meant to be like that when  you're young. But when you grow up, when you're an adult, then love is  something slower but stronger. You start off with like and admire and  attract and over time it grows and becomes all the more powerful for  that. But you have to let it grow, not run away the first chance you  get.'

Marco stared down into his little sister's face. 'When did you get so wise?'

She smirked. 'I always was. Now stand up straight and get ready to  support me down this aisle. These heels are ridiculous and I have no  intention of tripping and prostrating myself at Antonio's feet!'

The music swelled, their cue. He bent slightly and kissed Bianca's cheek. 'Ready, sorellina?'

She inhaled slowly, her hand shaking as she did so. 'Ready. Let's go get me married.'

Bianca had chosen to marry in the gorgeous Church of Santa Maria dei  Miracoli, partly because of the sumptuous décor and partly, Marco  suspected, because she'd liked the idea of standing at the top of the  marble staircase to make her vows. There weren't quite enough seats for  all the guests and people were standing at the back and along the sides,  all three hundred pairs of eyes staring right at Marco and Bianca.  Marco barely noticed them; he was searching for the one person he wanted  to see, Bianca's words hammering through his brain with every step they  took.

Like, admire, attract.

Was she right? Was it that simple? If so, why did the very thought of it  feel so terrifying? So insurmountable? And yet...he inhaled, his heart  hammering fast, louder than the organ music filling the great church.  And yet in some ways it made perfect sense.

As they neared the front of the church he caught sight of Sophie,  elegant and poised, standing next to his mother. If he hadn't known that  she had whipped her dress up in just two days, he would never have  believed it; she looked as if she were wearing the most exclusive  designer fashion. She'd opted for a silvery grey damask material, which  shimmered faintly under the chandelier lights. It was a seemingly  conservative design, wide straps at her neck with the neckline cut high,  almost to her throat-a stark contrast to the deep vee at her back,  exposing creamy skin down to the midpoint of her spine. The bodice  fitted tightly right to her waist and then the material flared out into a  full knee-length skirt. The look was deceptively demure-but the dress  fitted the contours of her body perfectly, the material lovingly  caressing every slight curve. She'd twisted her hair up into a loose  chignon confined by a silver band showing off the graceful lines of her  neck. She was elegant and sophisticated, easily outshining the more  elaborate and colourful dresses crowding the pews of the ornate church.

She looked right at him and smiled, a soft intimate smile, and his chest  tightened. Two days ago he had promised her a perfect day. It hadn't  been altogether altruistic; payment for all the work she had put in on  the wedding, work that had ended up going way beyond altering one dress;  distraction for him as he mulled over the momentous decision to step  back into the family business, to spend more time at home; seduction,  he'd wanted the kind of day that would make her boneless with desire  because sex with her was out of this world and they had so little time  left. No, his reasons hadn't been altogether altruistic.                       
       
           



       

But she hadn't demanded fine wines and five-star restaurants, she'd  asked him to show her his world. He hadn't realised it at the time, but  the price of her day was far higher than the most expensive restaurant  in Italy. He'd paid her in intimacy, in revealing parts of his soul he  kept hidden from the whole world.

Like, admire, attract.

Surely, despite the short amount of time he'd known her they had gone  way beyond those three words and he'd no idea how it had happened, how  he'd let his guard down. He'd kept himself so safe, most of the women  he'd met over the last decade or so had as little interest in his inner  life as he had in theirs. They cared about his name, his family, his  prospects, his money. They made superficiality all too easy, all too  attractive.

But Sophie wasn't like that. She was visibly shocked by his wealth,  unimpressed by his name. And still he hid. Because if she found him  wanting, it would matter; this time it could hurt.

Marco escorted Bianca up the stairs towards the altar and her waiting  groom. She'd forgotten about him, about the church full of people  waiting to see her get married, all her attention on Antonio, her eyes  shining and luminous. He crossed himself as they neared the altar and,  as if in a dream, waited to play his small part, before descending the  steps to join Sophie and his mother, leaving Bianca making her vows,  readying herself for a life in the family she chose, not the one she was  born to.

The church hushed, the only sound the voices of the priest, Bianca and  her new husband as they repeated vows with heartbreaking sincerity and  emotion. All his sister's usual theatrics had disappeared as she gazed  at the man she was promising to love in sickness and in health.