Holly was fascinated by what she was learning about Vito’s background, although she really wasn’t sure why he was choosing to tell her so much. ‘I think very few people have an ideal childhood,’ she said ruefully.
‘But wouldn’t it be wonderful to give Angelo that ideal?’ Vito pressed, black velvet lashes lifting on glittering gold as he studied her.
Her heart raced and her mouth ran dry. Hurriedly she dropped her gaze from his, only for her attention to fall to the tight inner seam of his jeans stretched along a powerful muscular thigh. Guilty heat surged through her and she shifted uneasily. ‘And how could we give Angelo an ideal childhood?’ she asked abstractedly.
‘By getting married and giving our son a conventional start in life,’ Vito spelt out with measured assurance. ‘I’m not only here to meet Angelo, Holly...I’m here to ask you to be my wife.’
Disbelief roared through Holly. She blinked rapidly, doubting the evidence of her ears. He was proposing? He was actually proposing marriage to her because she had had his child?
Holly loosed an uneasy laugh and Vito frowned, because that was hardly the response he had envisaged. ‘I think your grandfather’s Victorian outlook is showing, Vito. We don’t need to get married to give Angelo a decent upbringing.’
‘How else can I be a proper father when I live in a different country?’ Vito demanded with harsh bite. ‘I really don’t want to be only an occasional visitor in my son’s life or the home he visits for a few weeks in summer when he’s off school. That is not enough for me.’
Holly watched Vito lean down to lift Angelo, who was tugging at his shoelaces. He closed his arms tentatively round Angelo’s small restive body and settled him down on a lean thigh. There was something incredibly sexy about his newly learned assurance with their son and her cheeks coloured at that seemingly tasteless reflection, but the smouldering edge of Vito’s sexuality seemed to be assailing her every thought. ‘Well, I can see that it would be difficult for you and far from ideal, but marriage...well, that’s a whole different ball game,’ she told him regretfully. ‘I want to marry a man who loves me, not a man who accidentally got me pregnant and wants to do what he feels is the right thing by me.’
‘I can’t change how we conceived Angelo but with a little vision you should be able to see that where we started isn’t where we have to end up,’ Vito responded smoothly. ‘I may not love you but I’m insanely attracted to you. I’m also ready to settle down.’
‘Yes, you were engaged, weren’t you?’ Holly slotted in rather unkindly.
‘That’s not relevant here,’ Vito informed her drily. ‘Stay focused on what really matters.’
‘Angelo,’ Holly replied, with hot cheeks, while her brain trooped off in wild, unproductive circles.
He was asking her to marry him... He was actually asking her to marry him! How was she supposed to react to that when she had been astonished by his proposal?
‘You should also consider the reality that eventually Angelo will be very rich, and growing up outside my world isn’t the best preparation for that day,’ Vito pointed out. ‘I want to be his father. A father who is there for him when he needs me. A benefit neither you nor I enjoyed.’
He was making very valid points but Holly felt harassed and intimidated rather than grateful for his honesty. ‘But marriage?’ she reasoned. ‘That’s such a huge decision.’
‘And a decision only you can make. But there would be other benefits for you,’ Vito told her quietly. ‘You could set up as an interior designer and live your dream with me.’
‘You’re starting to sound like a trained negotiator,’ Holly cut in.
‘I am a trained negotiator,’ Vito conceded. ‘But I want to give our son the very best start in life he can have, with a genuine family.’
And that was the real moment that Holly veered from consternation and fell deep into his honeytrap. Those emotive words, ‘a genuine family’, spoke to her on the deepest possible level and filled her head with happy images. That was a goal that she, and surprisingly Vito in spite of his privileged background, both shared, and that touched her. As she studied her son sitting peacefully in his father’s arms her heart melted. She had felt ashamed of the lack of caution that had led to her pregnancy. She had been mortified that she had failed her own life goals and could not give her son the family security and the opportunities he deserved. But if she married Vito she would be able to put all her regrets behind her and give Angelo two parents and a stable home with every advantage.
‘Even people in love find it hard to make marriage work,’ Holly reminded him, fighting to resist the tempting images flooding her imagination, and to be sensible and cautious.
‘We’re not in love. Our odds of success may well be better because we have less exalted expectations,’ Vito contended silkily. ‘And our arrangement need not be viewed as a permanent trap either. In a few years, should one or both of us be unhappy, we can divorce. All I’m asking you to do at this moment in time, Holly...is give marriage a chance.’
He made it sound so reasonable, so very reasonable. He was inviting her to try being married to him and see if they could make it work. It was a very realistic approach, guaranteed to make her feel that by trying she would have nothing to lose. And she looked back at him in silence with her heart hammering while he raked an impatient hand through his cropped black hair.
‘I’ll think it over.’ Holly fibbed, because she had already thought it over and really there was no contest between what Vito was offering Angelo and what she could hope to offer her son as a lone parent.
‘Be more decisive, bellezza mia,’ Vito urged. ‘If you marry me I will do everything within my power to make you happy.’
Holly had known true happiness only a few times in her life. One of those moments had been waking at dawn enfolded in Vito’s arms. Another had been the first time she had seen her infant son. But just being with Vito also made her happy and that worried her, implying as it did that she was craving something more than a very practical marriage based on their son’s needs. Should she listen to that voice of reason and warning now? Stay on the sidelines where it was safe rather than risk dipping her toes into the much more complex demands of a marriage?
But at the baseline of her responses there was no denying that she wanted Vito Zaffari with a bone-deep, almost frighteningly strong yearning. How could she possibly walk away from that? How could she stand back and watch him take up with other women, as he would, and know that she had given him that freedom? And the answer was that she couldn’t face that, would sooner take a risk on a marriage that might not work than surrender any hope of a deeper relationship with him.
Holly breathed in slow and deep and lifted her head high. ‘All right. We’ll get married...and see how it goes...’
And Vito smiled, that heart-stopping smile that always froze her in her tracks, and nothing he said after that point registered with her because she was washed away by sheer excitement and hope for the future.
Vito registered the stars in her eyes with satisfaction. Having been driven by the need to secure the best possible arrangement for his son’s benefit, he had expended little thought on the actual reality of becoming a married man or a father. He wanted Holly and he wanted his son: that was all that mattered. And Holly would soon learn to fit into his world, he thought airily.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘SMILE!’ PIXIE TOLD HOLLY. ‘You look totally stupendous!’
Holly smiled to order and gripped her hands together tightly on her lap. The past four weeks had passed in a whirlwind of unfamiliar activity and changes. Now it was her wedding day and hopefully she would finally have time to draw a breath and start to relax. Only not when it was a wedding about to be attended by a lot of rich, important people, she reasoned nervously.
‘How are you feeling?’ she asked her best friend and bridesmaid, ruefully surveying Pixie’s legs, which were both encased in plaster casts.
Her housemate had returned from a visit to her brother badly battered and bruised from a fall down the stairs, which had also broken both her legs. The extent of her injuries had appalled Holly and, although the bruising had faded, she couldn’t help feeling that there was more amiss with her friend than she was letting on because Pixie’s usual chirpiness and zest for life seemed to have faded away as well. And although she had gently questioned Pixie on several occasions, she could not work out if it was her own imagination in overdrive or if indeed there was some secret concern that Pixie wasn’t yet willing to share with her.
Predictably, Pixie rolled her eyes. ‘I keep on telling you I’m fine. I’ll get these casts off in a couple of weeks and I’ll get back to work and it’ll be as if this never happened.’
‘Hopefully you’ll be able to come out to visit us in Italy in a few weeks’ time.’
‘That’s doubtful.’
‘Er...if it’s money—’
‘No, I’m not taking money off you!’ Pixie told her fiercely. ‘You may be marrying Mr Rich but that’s not going to change anything between us.’