Molly blinked, still coming to terms with what he had shared with her about Aloise. He carried her upstairs and settled her on the big divan. ‘I’m not any stronger. You’re incredibly addictive,’ she told him. ‘I was a clean-living girl until you came along!’
Leandro gave her a rakish grin that tilted her heart on its axis. ‘It meant a lot to me that I was your first lover. I think I fell in love with you the very first night we met, but I had no idea what had happened to me. Although I wasn’t in love with her, Aloise hurt me,’ he admitted gruffly. ‘I tried so hard with her and got nowhere. I wanted to keep a distance with you, not get too involved, too close…’
Molly was transfixed by what he had said. ‘You fell in love with me?’
‘Dios mio…like a brick being chucked off the roof of a skyscraper. I’d never been in love before. In lust, sì. In love, never! But I couldn’t tell the difference. The whole time I was in conflict with myself. I asked you to be my mistress.’
‘And that hurt me.’
He crouched down in front of her, grasped her hands and kissed them in fervent apology. Her eyes shiny with love, her fingers smoothed his handsome dark head.
‘It served you right that I was pregnant,’ she told him. ‘Why were you so careful to tell me that you couldn’t give me love when you proposed?’
‘I didn’t know I had it to give. Love has never been my style. I was jealous of Jez for a long time.’
‘Jez?’ Molly yelped in disbelief.
‘You and he had close ties that I found threatening,’ Leandro admitted.
Molly rather liked the knowledge that Leandro wasn’t as sure of himself as he always seemed. She leant forward and kissed him with loving brevity.
‘Meeting you has been a humbling experience for me.’ Springing upright, Leandro raised her and wrapped his arms round her in a possessive hold. ‘I did everything wrong. I didn’t give you the wedding or the honeymoon you should have had.’
‘You were the bridegroom from hell,’ his beloved confided without hesitation. ‘But really great in bed after banking hours.’
‘I love coming home to you-’
‘But you were late back every night!’ Molly complained, unable to let that claim go past unchallenged.
‘I forced myself to play it cool, so that I didn’t feel out of control,’ he breathed. ‘I hate feeling out of control.’
‘I like it when you’re out of control,’ Molly whispered, ready to take shameless liberties with her exploring hands and then suddenly freezing in dismay. ‘Oh, gosh, I still haven’t told you about the birth control pills I found in the wardrobe!’
Leandro was astonished, but quickly realised they could only have belonged to Aloise. ‘So, she didn’t want children with me.’
‘If she felt trapped in her life, a child would only have trapped her more,’ Molly suggested.
‘What does it matter now?’ Leandro tugged her down onto his hard thighs and linked his hands round the swell of her belly with an air of proud satisfaction. ‘It’s all so long ago and you and I belong together. The minute I saw you I was drawn to you.’
Molly thought of all the years of feeling that she was not good enough for the people and the things she wanted and needed out of life. Her new-found siblings and Leandro had between them washed away all those wretched insecurities. Bubbling over with happiness at the new knowledge that she was loved, she realised that she owed him the same honesty.
‘I only realised that I loved you the day I left the castle. Leaving broke my heart,’ she confided.
‘It took me far too long to realise what I was doing to you. When you walked out, I felt gutted,’ Leandro admitted grimly. ‘But it certainly did wake me up, mi vida. I had no idea you loved me.’
‘Madly, passionately and for ever,’ Molly swore with fervour and he surrendered to the glow of warmth in her eyes and kissed her with a passion that stole the breath from her lungs.
Eighteen months later, Molly walked down to the beach with Ophelia and her three children. The Greek island of Kastros, which belonged to her brother-Ophelia’s husband-Lysander, was an oasis of perfect peace.
The latest addition to the family circle, little Felipe, slumbered in his all-terrain buggy. Black lashes as long as fly swats brushed his olive-skinned cheeks. With his black curls and green eyes, Molly and Leandro’s firstborn was a handsome combination of his parental genes. A livewire toddler, usually he rarely slept during the hours of daylight. But they had had a barbecue on the beach the night before, which had kept him awake long past his usual bedtime and he was now making up for that.