'I'm sorry. I should have told you sooner, years before, but I knew that things would end the minute you found out about me. You're not an ordinary man, Angelo. If you were, it wouldn't have been so bad.' She risked stroking his hair and he pulled her hand to him and held it. 'Ordinary men aren't in the public gaze. They can handle a woman with a dodgy background.'
'I've been to hell and back this week, Francesca, but the one thing I know is that I want this baby of ours to have a family.'
'And if I weren't pregnant, Angelo? Would you still have taken out an ad in the newspaper letting the world know that you wanted to marry me or would you have counted yourself lucky to have got away?'
'If you read the article carefully, my darling, you would see that at no point did I mention the fact that you are pregnant. Everything else, yes, but that, no.'
So he hadn't mentioned anything about being in love with her, but nevertheless a little tendril of hope began to uncurl inside of her.
'Because … ?'
'Because I want you for my wife, Francesca, whether you happen to be carrying my child or not.' He looked at her steadily, willing himself to say what he needed to say in a way that wouldn't frighten her off. 'When we embarked on this crazy … affair, we both knew the rules. Sex without commitment. We would finish what had been started years ago and emotion wouldn't get in the way.'
Why was he reminding her of things she didn't want to remember? After he had called her my darling and looked at her with eyes that promised even if they hadn't delivered?
'But emotion did get in the way, after all. At least, it got in my way.'
'I beg your pardon?' She leaned towards him, straining to hear every single word he was saying.
'I thought I was in control, but it turns out I wasn't.' He shot her a rueful smile. 'And, before you say anything, just hear me out and then decide what you want to do. Whatever you want, Francesca, I'll fall in line with.' He breathed in deeply and expelled his breath in one long sigh. 'I know you didn't choose to become pregnant. I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts and then so gutted by what you told me that it never even crossed my mind to ask how you felt about having a baby and for that I'm … I'm sorry. This … is difficult for me … '
He stood up and paced the room, his movements agitated. Francesca had never seen him like this before, and she reckoned she had probably seen him in all his moods. It was a revelation of vulnerability. Finally he returned to the chair and sat down, resting his elbows on his knees. 'I've spent the week going over in my head everything that's happened between us. You made a big deal of letting me know that you were willing to let me walk away from you, or rather you walk away from me, because you didn't feel that your background would do me any favours. It occurred to me that maybe I had got it all wrong from the start. Maybe you just didn't want to be hooked up with me. Maybe behind the smokescreen was someone who just wasn't willing to spend her life with someone who had all the privileges of wealth. It struck me that you might be physically attracted to a man like me but emotionally attracted to a man like Jack when it came to a permanent relationship.' He took a deep breath and shook his head. Was he even making sense? He knew exactly what he wanted to say but he could feel that the words were not emerging from his mouth in quite the order he would have liked. For the first time, his formidable grasp of the English language had deserted him. 'Women are attracted to me. They like the wealth, the power, the status.' He gave a dry laugh. 'Georgina being a case in point. Fact is, though, you're not like other women and so all the usual yardsticks no longer apply. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?'
Francesca nodded slowly. 'I think so … '
'I'm glad you're pregnant, Francesca. I'm over the moon that you're having my baby but I meant what I said. I want to marry you, baby or not, because I … because I realise that sleeping with you wasn't enough for me.' He gave her a crooked smile but underneath she could see that he was drained. 'Call me a greedy man, but I want more than just your beautiful body. I want your mind, your heart, your soul, because you have mine. All those things. They're yours. They belonged to you three years ago when you walked out on me and they belong to you now. If you'll have them. I hope you do and I hope that you'll marry me even if I have to spend the rest of my days winning your love. Even if, right now, you may not think me the right man for you.' Over the past torturous week Angelo had figured out what it was about love that set it aside from everything he had ever experienced in his life before. Aside from being the one thing over which he exerted no control, it was also a humbling experience. He was hanging on for dear life to what she would say.
'That's a tall order, Angelo.'
He paled. In one short sentence, his world came crashing down.
'I mean,' Francesca continued thoughtfully, 'it takes a lot to win my love.'
'I'll do anything.'
'Romantic gestures?' She frowned. 'You know, flowers et cetera, little love notes dotted around … '
Angelo looked at the slow smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. 'Yes, I can do flowers et cetera.'
'Candlelit dinners now and again-cooked by you, of course … '
He raised his eyebrows and looked doubtful. 'You drive a hard bargain but I'm willing to give it a go.'
'Breakfast in bed every morning?'
'Seriously pushing your luck here.'
'Then how about sex on demand?'
'I think I can manage that.'
'I love you, Angelo.' She looked at him with shining eyes. 'I fell in love with you years ago and that's why I never told you the truth about myself, my background. I thought that you would drop me like a hot potato the minute you found out and, the longer I left it, the more of a mountain it became until there was no way out but to leave, but I've been hurting all this time.' She leaned towards him and kissed him, melting into his arms, letting him carry her over to the bed-but no sex, he told her, not until her doctor had given her the go-ahead.
So they talked. Once he started, Angelo found that the words poured out of him, words that had never crossed his lips before. He could remember Georgina asking him if he loved her, could remember his reply that love was an illusion, something people clung on to because it made them feel safer, less isolated. It had seemed a perfectly reasonable response to him at the time. No longer.
Francesca, caught up in the rapture of the unbelievable, could have listened to him for ever. She quizzed him over and over about whether he was certain that he could marry a woman with a colourful past and was ridiculously pleased when he told her that her past was a damn sight more interesting than anyone else's he could think of. What she saw as a liability he viewed as an asset, and Francesca didn't know whether to believe him or not, but what she did know was that he would protect her from anyone who might ever dare to question his decision. The rush of love that filled her made her tremble.
'Do you realise,' Angelo said, eventually drawing her to him, 'I've never had as many unofficial days off work with any woman as I've had with you? And yet we've never been on holiday together. We'll just have to put that right while there are just the two of us to consider … '
They did. Three months later, for their honeymoon on a tiny island in the Caribbean. The wedding had been small-just a few close friends and family and no paparazzi. Francesca had no idea how he had managed to pull that off but, as he'd wryly told her, today's gossip became yesterday's fish and chips' wrapping in the blink of an eye.
With her pregnancy now beginning to show, Francesca wore a range of loose clothing and one-piece swimsuits, ignoring Angelo's urges that she show her swelling stomach proudly. Everything about her pregnancy made him proud.
Through the open windows of their little wooden cabana she could hear the sound of the sea lapping against the shore and outside was inky black.
Angelo was standing in front of the mirror, absentmindedly trying to tidy his hair without the use of a comb, towel slung low on his hips because he had just emerged from the shower.
He caught her eye in the mirror and grinned. 'Are you doing that on purpose?' he asked, turning around. 'Lying there with that sexy little smile on your face? You know what it's going to do to me … ' As if to prove his point, he released the towel and revealed his arousal.
'You mean I still turn you on even though I no longer possess that model figure that used to drive you crazy?' As if she needed reassuring. He had proved to her over and over again just how much she still turned him on. He delighted in her blossoming figure and adored the heavy fullness of her breasts and the darkening of her nipples, which had become much larger and more pronounced.