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‘But you’re crying,’ Alissandru said gently as though she might not have noticed.
Isla gave an inelegant sniff. ‘I think it’s my hormones. I think it’s being pregnant.’
Alissandru was bewildered. ‘So...you’re happy? You’re definitely going to marry me?’
‘Obviously.’ She gulped. ‘You’re not usually this stupid.’
‘I’ve never been in love before. Never been with a woman who would dare to call me stupid, either,’ Alissandru admitted with a spontaneous laugh.
‘Well, of course, you’re going to be stupid sometimes,’ Isla told him briskly, having finally mastered the tears dripping down her face. ‘But, you know, you’re not the only one who fell in love this spring. I love you too, but this time I thought we were only having an affair because you kept on hinting that we weren’t going to last for ever.’
‘That was the last dying strands of the single guy trying to stay free,’ Alissandru told her with wry amusement in his gaze. ‘Paulu told me once I didn’t know what love was and he was right. I would forgive you just about anything...but now don’t take that as an invitation,’ he added with his usual caution.
‘Are you really happy about the baby? How do you think it happened?’
‘I haven’t got a clue and don’t care. I’m just delighted that it has,’ Alissandru confided with warmth glowing in his level dark golden eyes.
‘I’m scared that something will go wrong again,’ Isla confided in a rush.
‘We both are, but at least we’re together now and together we can handle anything,’ Alissandru said with confidence. ‘I’ve got you and a whole future with you waiting for me...and I’ve never been happier in my whole life than I feel at this moment.’
That was quite a declaration from the once cynical love of her life and Isla rested her head back against his shoulder, struggling to accept that such wondrous happiness could finally be hers. ‘I love you,’ she whispered, stroking a fingertip along his shapely upper lip. ‘And we’re going to be incredibly good together.’
Alissandru smiled down at her with such tenderness in his beautiful eyes that her heart squeezed tight as the hold she had on him. This man with all his emotion would love strong and true, she sensed, thinking of his care for his own family. They had travelled a rocky road to their happy ending but they had both learned a lot on the journey. Her whole life was now opening up into a new dimension and the knowledge that she was no longer alone was a great source of joy to her. Alissandru and a baby too, she thought blissfully...
* * *
Almost four years later, Isla presided over a Christmas spent in London in their town house, which was filled to capacity with dogs and children. Indeed, Alissandru was talking about looking for a larger house as a London base.
‘I just don’t know how you’ve managed to acquire four of them so fast,’ Grazia pronounced, eying the four children surrounding Constantia with astonishment. ‘Thank heaven, I’m only having one,’ she added, patting the swell of her stomach beneath her highly trendy mint-green dress.
‘Two sets of twins adds to the count,’ Isla pointed out with amusement sparkling in her eyes, for Grazia, who had become a dear friend, had only married the year before and motherhood was entirely new to her. Entering an environment cluttered with the paraphernalia of four young children was more than a little daunting for her.
Gerlanda and Cettina had been born first—identical twins, dark haired and blue-eyed, two very lively little girls now three years old. Luciu and Grazzianu were non-identical boys and still babies, one noisy and demanding like his father but with red hair, the other quieter and more contented and dark. They had truly planned their third pregnancy although they hadn’t planned on a second set of twins.
Isla’s favourite photograph of their wedding sat near the fire, ring-fenced by a guard to protect the children. It showed her gorgeous traditional wedding dress, which had been nowhere near as trendy as poor Grazia had wanted to make it but had been everything that Isla had dreamt of, which was exactly as it should be, Grazia had said of a bride’s gown. Her uncle had given her away at their beautiful Sicilian summer wedding and it had been a wonderful family day, her relatives as welcome as the Rossetti clan could make them.
It was hard for Isla to credit that she had been married to Alissandru for almost four years. While she was pregnant with the girls she had done the London course she had wanted to do to complete her education to her own satisfaction. That achieved, she had discovered that she was happy to be a stay-at-home mother with a bunch of kids and dogs because she liked to be available when Alissandru was at home. He didn’t travel as much as he once had and he was always home at weekends and holidays, she thought fondly, watching Alissandru lift his youngest son in his arms and talk with apparent confidence about his feeding schedule. As if he had anything to do with it, Isla ruminated with amusement. They had a nanny to help and Alissandru got more involved with the fun side of parenting like bathtime and bedtime and buying toys. My goodness, could that man buy toys!
That had possibly been the biggest surprise of their marriage, Isla conceded with a tender smile. Alissandru adored kids, adored her being pregnant and wanted more. And she had told him no, four was enough and he would just have to content himself with four.
They spent most of their time now in Sicily and Isla could speak the language, although she made a fair number of mistakes, which she could depend on Alissandru to always correct. Sometimes, she thought ruefully, he was the most annoying man and yet if anything, after four years, he owned even more of her heart than he had at the outset of their marriage. He treated her as if she were as fragile as glass and tried to protect her from anything that he deemed prejudicial to her state of mind.
He strode over to her, clutching Grazzianu to his chest like a well-wrapped parcel. ‘He’s ready for his nap.’
As he bent his dark head down to her she saw the devilment in his gaze and knew that the only person ready for a nap was Alissandru and it wasn’t a nap he meant. She collected Luciu from his adoring grandmother and they took the babies upstairs to the nursery to settle them into their cots.
‘I... I just wanted to give you this,’ Alissandru confessed, surprising her as he loved to do, wrapping a diamond necklace round her throat like a choker and fixing the clasp before she could object. ‘You thought I meant sex,’ he said piously, as if such an idea would never have occurred to him.
‘It’s not even Christmas Day yet!’ Isla exclaimed, ignoring that crack.
‘I love buying you stuff. I love that you can’t say no now, mia bella,’ Alissandru confided, tugging her close to his lean, powerful frame.
‘I have more diamonds than I know what to do with,’ she muttered repressively, thinking of the king’s ransom in jewellery he had given her and the shelves and shelves of glorious handmade silk and lace lingerie, which she was willing to admit that she enjoyed wearing. ‘But thank you very, very much,’ she whispered, because she knew it was his way of showing how much he loved her and that she couldn’t change him and wouldn’t have changed him even if she could have done.
‘But you’re the most precious diamond of all,’ Alissandru intoned huskily. ‘I just adore you.’
And Isla smiled with the tremendous warmth that had attracted him from the very first time he saw that smile, he acknowledged thankfully. She was the centre of his world and all the sunshine in it, and the idea that he might have walked on by and missed out on what he had found with her still terrified him in retrospect.
‘And you know you’re loved...or you ought to,’ Isla informed him, kissing that smoothly shaven jaw line, which was as far up as she could reach, thinking how different he felt unshaven as he had been at dawn and as hot and rampant as only Alissandru could be and making her equally so.
‘I like to be told occasionally,’ Alissandru countered, taking a stand.
‘Why don’t I show y
ou instead?’ Isla whispered, watching those stunning eyes of his light up with alacrity and smiling even more.
* * * * *
