The Italian's One-Night Baby(28)

‘So, when she met you again—’

‘It all came spilling out.’ Rio sighed heavily. ‘And I had to listen. It would have been cruel to tell her that it was very old history for me and that I no longer cared. I kept on saying that we had both made mistakes and weren’t suited in any case but she kept on and on and on talking and crying—’

‘I’m glad I didn’t interrupt. Listening was the right thing to do. That was kind because I’m sure you were very uncomfortable and if I could’ve seen your face, I would’ve known that, but I could only see her face. When did you become that sensitive without me noticing?’ Ellie asked in honest surprise.

‘Oh, that probably happened when I realised I was in love with you. I then decided that I wanted to be the perfect husband—’

‘You are...but I’m a very imperfect, distrustful wife,’ Ellie mumbled in shame, burying her hot face in his shoulder, drinking in the familiar scent of him with an enormous sense of relief combined with sheer wonderment. He loved her? Her gorgeous, passion-filled, outrageously exciting husband loved her? He didn’t find her too boring or sensible? Jealous and possessive? She was ecstatic with wondering happiness. ‘So what happened with your mother when you did meet her?’

‘There was a piece in the newspaper about me being found when I was abandoned and she always knew where I was. When I began to make money she looked me up,’ he confided grimly. ‘And that’s all she wanted... Money. She told me a lot of lies. I found out that although she had weaned herself off her own addiction, she made a living by dealing drugs to others. I had nothing more to do with her—’

‘That must have hurt.’ Ellie sighed in sympathy.

‘It is what it is. Getting off drugs didn’t magically turn her into a nice or caring woman.’ Rio shrugged. ‘As to my potential father? I was an accident. Probably one of her customers. She had no idea.’

‘It really doesn’t matter to me,’ Ellie emphasised. ‘I wasn’t only saying that. What matters to me is the man you are now and I love him. I even love you a little more for being kind to Franca, which you must’ve found trying.’

Rio tilted up her face, dark golden eyes adoring. ‘There could never be another woman for me, Ellie. I’ve never loved like this. I didn’t know I even could love like this but you’re everything I ever wanted in a woman...even if I didn’t realise that until I met you the second time.’

‘We just fought,’ Ellie groaned.

‘And I got more of a kick out of fighting with you than I got out of any affair I’ve ever had,’ Rio confessed. ‘But the hunger for you was overwhelming... I couldn’t fight that—’

Ellie lifted warm eyes to his lean, strong face, glorying in his scorching appraisal. ‘I couldn’t either. I always keep my feet firmly on the ground and then I met you and everything, including me, went crazy—’

‘But we’ve had so much enjoyment out of each other,’ Rio commented with appreciation. ‘On levels I didn’t even know there could be between a man and a woman. Before you, it was all about sex for me—’

‘Oh, I know that.’ Ellie flushed. ‘In Dharia—’

Rio winced. ‘I was a jerk...but I had never wanted any woman the way I wanted you that night and I was on a high and then it all went pear-shaped, thanks to the twins—’

‘Perhaps we both needed another couple of years to be ready for something more serious,’ Ellie suggested forgivingly.

‘Dio mio, I love you!’ Rio swore passionately in receipt of the face-saving, utterly unearned excuse she was giving him and appreciating her generosity. He gathered her into his arms and almost squeezed her with his enthusiasm into suffocation. ‘Really, really love you and I can’t wait for the baby now that I know for sure that I have you by my side...’

‘Well, when you ordered that giant train set in Venice and told me there was no reason why a little girl shouldn’t enjoy it as much as a little boy I kind of guessed that our baby would be welcomed,’ Ellie confided as he smoothly edged her down onto the bed. ‘Nap time for pregnant Ellie, is it?’

‘No. No rest for the imperfect wife,’ Rio teased with a charismatic slashing grin as he looked down at her flushed, smiling face. ‘Adriano was so relieved when you and then I showed up. He hates the house being empty because he has nothing to do and he’s been fretting about Beppe. He’s making dinner for seven, which gives us a few hours to fill—’

Ellie’s eyes widened at that implication. ‘You mean, you were so sure of yourself when you arrived here that you just went ahead and ordered dinner?’ she exclaimed in disbelief.

‘I wasn’t prepared to leave here without you and if you refused to leave I had a case out in the car to enable me to stay here with you,’ Rio explained without hesitation. ‘When I want something, principessa... I don’t quit and I don’t surrender and I do believe that I would fight to the death to keep you in my life.’

‘At heart you’re a romantic,’ Ellie told him with satisfaction and approval. ‘When I came here, I was fighting for you too—’

Rio interrupted her in Italian to tell her argumentatively that walking out of their marital home had been a dreadful, shocking action to take.

Ellie refused to apologise. ‘I was trying to make a statement, draw a line for you. Maybe it was a little extreme but I was hurting so badly—’

‘I don’t need a damn line, woman... I’ve got you in the flesh!’ Rio told her aggressively. ‘And it was not only extreme but also forbidden. You are not allowed to walk out on me ever again in this lifetime!’

‘Is that a fact?’

‘Sì... You’re my wife, the centre of my world, my everything. You don’t walk out. You stay and shout.’

Ellie breathed in deep, helplessly touched by that instruction. ‘I’ll shout the next time,’ she promised.

‘There won’t be a next time!’ Rio spelled out feelingly. ‘Promise me—’

‘Sì... I can promise that,’ Ellie whispered, running adoring fingers through his cropped black hair and down one proud cheekbone to rest against his wilful lower lip. ‘You’re mine. I’m never going to walk away from you again.’

‘Or drive off in my sports car,’ Rio instructed. ‘It’s far too fast and powerful on these roads when you’re not used to it.’

‘I liked it—’

‘No. I want you safe, bella mia.’

And before Ellie could demand that she had the right to influence what he drove in the interests of his safety, Rio kissed her with all the passion of his relief, love and desire for her and her impressionable toes curled. Take that, sensible Dr Ellie, she thought in wonderment that he truly was hers after all her anxiety and distrust, and then a thought occurred and she wrenched her mouth free...

‘You never apologised for calling me a gold-digger!’ she reminded him hotly.

‘Of course I didn’t.’ Rio slowly shook his handsome dark head in apparent amazement at that reminder. ‘That would have been owning up to flawed judgement or stupidity and it would’ve made you think less of me, so I decided to tough it out because I was trying to win you over to wanting to keep me by that stage.’

‘Nothing would make me think less of you, you stupid man,’ Ellie mumbled before she locked her lips to his again, his instant forgiveness procured, and there was no further conversation or indeed argument for quite some time. The excitement of their reconciliation powered the passion and the promises with buoyant happiness and fresh appreciation of the love they had found where they least expected it.





EPILOGUE

POLLY GROANED. ‘I’M OUT of my depth here. What do we do about this situation?’

Ellie groaned too. ‘Mind our own business for now. If the sister we haven’t even met has a thoroughly wicked and dishonest father, it’s not our place to tell her so. Lucy doesn’t know us or trust us yet. She’s found her dad and, at the very least, probably thinks very highly of him and, at worst, really loves him because he’s been kind to her—’

‘But what if he’s just using her for some reason?’ Polly proclaimed emotively. ‘Doesn’t she deserve to know he went to prison for fraud?’

‘We need to establish a relationship with her as sisters first,’ Ellie opined, crossing the terrace of her Italian home to prevent her fiery little daughter from striking the younger prince of Dharia, tall, sturdy Hassan, aged two, for taking one of her dolls and wheeling his toy tractor over the top of it with little-boy glee.

Across the terrace, his older brother, Karim, the crown prince of Dharia, shouted at his little brother in Arabic.

‘He’s telling him off,’ Polly translated. ‘He’s so like Rashad, very well behaved.’

‘That’s never going to be my problem with Teresina,’ Ellie whispered. ‘She’s always ready to fight for what she wants. It’s a continual battle.’

‘Well, you mix two pretty opinionated people like you and Rio and that’s what you get,’ Polly pointed out cheerfully. ‘She’s gorgeous with that hair though.’