The Innocent's Secret Baby(28)

She lay there listening to the bells and then rolled on her back and looked at the lights. Wherever he had gone she was happy.

So happy that she fell back to sleep and then awoke to his voice.

'Happy Birthday.'

He had remembered.

Lydia had dropped no clues and given no reminders.

She hadn't met a stranger that morning. Lydia knew she had met the love  of her life. A man who had told her that there was no one in his life  whose birthday he remembered.

Now he had two.

Raul held out a cardboard box tied with a red velvet ribbon which was vaguely familiar.

And then he told her where he had been.

'Baci in gondola,' Raul told her. 'Had you not chosen to walk out that morning you would have had these.'

He handed her the box and she opened it up.

'I was coming back to ask you to stay.'

'I know that now.'

And then she asked him something that she had not before.

'Would you have told me about Bastiano then?'

'No,' he said. 'Maybe later that night, but that morning I was definitely coming home to go back to bed with you.'

'Here.' He handed her the other box he was carrying. 'Your present.'

Lydia opened it up and she was reminded of just how much she was loved.

It was an album filled with stunning photos of the castle.

Exterior shots and also interior.

And as she turned the pages it was like stepping into each room and seeing it as it had once been when she was a child.

The castle would be opened to the public today.

With Raul's help, things had been turned around.

Valerie lived in a cottage on the grounds, and this afternoon would be  taking the first visitors in a very long time through the glorious  building.

But that wasn't all of Lydia's presents.

'We fly at ten,' Raul told her. 'Then we are having afternoon tea in the garden. You'll make a gentleman of me yet.'

He was one.

A thousand times over and Lydia still cringed a bit when she thought of  the words she had said, right here in this bedroom, that awful day.

They had survived it.

Better than that, they had thrived.

Raul came into the bed and they lay there, listening to the bells and to the contented sounds of their baby.

'When are we getting married?' Raul asked.

It hadn't yet happened.

'Soon.' Lydia smiled.

'You keep saying that,' Raul grumbled.

The last six months had been wonderful, but crazy. Their love had hit  like lightning, and Lydia kept waiting to come down from the dizzy high  and get organised.

She was starting to accept that there was no come-down when Raul was close.

Their kiss was slow, and he kept telling her he loved her, and then Raul  rolled on top of her and told her that he was tired of waiting.

She felt him there and he smiled.

'I didn't mean for that.'

'I know you didn't,' Lydia said.

But it had been four weeks and she was ready now.

'You're sure?'

He was very slow and tender, and that was a side of Raul that even he was only starting to find out existed.

It was the best birthday she could have known. They made slow Sunday  love and afterwards he stayed leaning over her and told her that there  was another thing she did not know.

'Raul?'

'We get married today,' Raul said.

Lydia frowned.

They both wanted a small wedding and had thought about having it here in Venice.

Or Rome, where they had first met, perhaps?

Even Sicily, for together they had been back there.

'At the castle,' Raul said.

That had been but a dream, for it had been falling down around them when they'd first met.

It was beautiful now.

'Yes?' he checked.

'Yes!' Lydia said.

'Per favore?' Raul said, and took her right back to the day they had met.

'Yes, please!' Lydia said, and together they smiled.

She had chosen wisely, for Raul was the love of her life.

And he would be King.

* * * * *





EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT

A Debt Paid in the Marriage Bed

by Jennifer Hayward

CHAPTER ONE

"SIR."

Lorenzo Ricci pocketed his phone and lengthened his stride, pretending  he hadn't witnessed the appearance of his portly, balding, middle-aged  lawyer in the hallway behind him. Fifty minutes back on US soil, the  last thing he needed was to discuss the fine print of the complex  acquisition deal he had been negotiating, a subject bound to make his  head ache even more than it already was.         

     



 

Tomorrow, after a shot of his favorite whiskey, a steam shower and a  face-plant into the Egyptian cotton sheets his housekeeper had procured  for his very comfortable king-size bed, would be soon enough to endure  that brain-throbbing task.

"Sir!"

Dio. He pulled to a halt, turned and faced the man doing his best to  catch up to him on short, stubby legs, his outward appearance the very  antithesis of the pit bull he was in the boardroom.

"I've been traveling for sixteen hours, Cristopher, I'm tired, I'm in a  vile mood and I need sleep. Trust me when I say tomorrow is better."

"It can't wait." The edge to his lawyer's voice commanded Lorenzo's full  attention. Not once in five years of completing difficult and sometimes  downright antagonistic deals together had his legal counsel ever looked  this rattled. "I need five minutes of your time."

Expelling a long sigh, his stomach souring at the thought of attempting  to interpret the finer points of legalese when what his brain officially  needed was sleep, Lorenzo waved a hand toward his office. "Bene. Five  minutes."

Cristopher followed him into the sleek, black-and-chrome offices of the  Ricci International executive team. Gillian, Lorenzo's ultraefficient  PA, gave him an apologetic I-tried look. He waved her off. "Go home. We  can go through everything in the morning."

She murmured her thanks, got to her feet and started gathering her  things. Cristopher followed him into his office, hovering in front of  his desk while he dropped his briefcase beside it and shrugged off his  jacket. The apprehension skittering up his spine deepened. His lawyer  didn't hover. Ever.

He walked to the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows framing a magnificent  view of a dusky, indigo-lit Manhattan-one of the perks of being CEO of  his family's international Italian conglomerate, a shipping dynasty he  had evolved into a diverse empire that included hotel chains, cruise  lines and real estate arms. He loved the view, but tonight, it barely  penetrated the fatigue clouding his brain.

Turning, he leaned back against the glass and crossed his arms over his chest. "All right," he said, "give it to me."

His lawyer blinked behind gold-rimmed spectacles, flicked his tongue  over his lips and cleared his throat. "We have a...situation. A mistake  that's been made we need to rectify."

He frowned. "On the deal?"

"No. It's a personal matter."

Lorenzo narrowed his gaze. "I didn't invite you in here to play twenty questions, Cris. Spit it out."

His lawyer swallowed. "The legal firm that handled your divorce made an  error with the filing of the papers. An omission, actually..."

"What kind of an omission?"

"They forgot to file them."

A buzzing sound filled his ears. "I divorced my wife two years ago."

"Yes, well, you see..." Another long swallow. "You didn't actually. Not  in the technical tense because the papers were never filed with the  state."

The buzzing sound in his head intensified. "What are you saying?" He  asked the question slowly, deliberately, as if his brain was having  trouble keeping up. "Just so we're clear?"

"You're still married to Angelina." Cristopher blurted the words out, a  hand coming up to resettle his glasses higher on his nose. "The lawyer  who handled your divorce had an insane caseload that month. He thought  he'd asked his clerk to file the papers, was sure he had, until we went  back to look at the specifics after the conversation you and I had  recently."

When it had become clear Angie was never going to touch a penny of the alimony he gave her each month.

"My wife announced her engagement this week. To another man."

The lawyer pressed a hand to his temple. "Yes... I saw the piece in the  paper. That's why I've been trying to track you down. It's a rather  complicated situation."

"Complicated?" Lorenzo slung the word across the room with the force of a  bullet. "How much do we pay that firm an hour? Hundreds? Thousands? To  not make mistakes like this. Ever."

"It's not acceptable," Cristopher agreed quietly, "but it is the reality."

His lawyer squared his shoulders, looking ready to be verbally flogged  to within an inch of his life, but Lorenzo had lost the power of speech.  That his short-lived marriage to his wife, a disaster by its  ignominious end, had, in fact, never been legally terminated was too  much to take when heaped upon the other news his father had delivered  today.

He counted to ten in his head, harnessing the red-hot fury that engulfed  him. This he did not need as he attempted to close the biggest deal of  his life.         

     



 

"How do we fix this?" he asked icily.

Cristopher spread his hands wide. "There are no magical solutions. The  best we can do is hope to expedite the process. But it could take  months. It will still mean-I mean you'll still have to-"