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‘Why?’ he muttered against her with pure temptation. ‘We can always do it again. We can love each other like this every day for the rest of our lives.’
Every nerve curled in unendurable elation. She trembled in his arms as her physical and emotional reaction to his promise consumed her. He loved her so hard and she loved him right back.
For a long time, they remained breathless in the blissful safety of that loving embrace.
He reached out a long arm and grabbed his jeans from the heap of clothes on the floor and pulled something sparkly out of his pocket. ‘Is it too soon to put this back where it belongs?’
She stared at the ring and then back up at him. Her heart galloped faster than it had only moments ago when she’d been recovering from the most intense orgasm of her life.
‘We can always get another if you don’t like it, but I thought the emerald matched your eyes...you probably didn’t notice.’ His voice trailed off and he fell silent.
She felt the acceleration of his heart beneath her hand. ‘I noticed,’ she breathed.
‘You did?’ His face lit up.
Heart overflowing, she lifted her hand so he could slide the ring back on her finger.
‘Will you marry me, Ettie Roberts?’ he asked unevenly.
‘Yes,’ she whispered as she stared into his eyes. ‘It’s beautiful.’ And now it had heart; now it glittered even more brilliantly than before.
‘It’s for real, Ettie,’ he promised, husky and true. ‘It’s for always.’
Bathed in love, she laced her fingers through his.
‘Let’s go home,’ he said. ‘Basil will be wondering where we are.’
‘You named the puppy Basil?’ She leaned against him and laughed with pure, infectious joy. ‘Yes. Let’s go home to him.’
Together.
* * *
If you enjoyed Pregnant by the Commanding Greek, you’re sure to enjoy these other stories by Natalie Anderson!
Claiming His Convenient Fiancée
Princess’s Pregnancy Secret
The King’s Captive Virgin
Awakening His Innocent Cinderella
Available now!
Keep reading for an excerpt from Penniless Virgin to Sicilian’s Bride by Melanie Milburne.
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Penniless Virgin to Sicilian’s Bride
by Melanie Milburne
CHAPTER ONE
FRANKIE HAD COME back one last time to her ancestral home at Lake Como to say goodbye in private. The grand estate with its beautifully manicured gardens would be someone else’s home now. Someone else’s heritage. Someone else’s sanctuary.
She stood at the base of the grand scissor staircase in front of Villa Mancini. The shocking blood-red slash of the SOLD banner across the ‘For Sale’ sign made something in her stomach grip tight, as if her intestines were caught up in a strangling knot of fishing line. Would the new owner change the villa’s name? Turn it into a hotel or a casino? It had been in Frankie’s
family for four hundred years. Four hundred years of family—generation after generation.
So many relatives.
So many memories.
How could it be possible to lose four hundred years of family history in a game of Blackjack?
Frankie drew in a breath and slowly released it. You have to survive this. Now was not the time for a panic attack. Now was not the time for tears and tantrums, because nothing was going to change the fact it was too late to save herself from this shame. It would soon become public. Excruciatingly, humiliatingly public. So far, the press knew very little of her desperate financial situation. She had let it be known she was selling the villa only because she would be moving back to London after two months of nursing her father during his terminal illness. She had called in every favour she could to keep the press away from the truth. But how long could she hope to keep her father’s dirty little secret?
She pictured tomorrow’s headlines—Aristocrat heiress Francesca Mancini left penniless by late father’s secret gambling debts.
Frankie had drained her own bank account trying to keep her father’s problem a secret for as long as she could. There was nothing left in her trust fund. All the money left to her from her late mother was gone. She had sold her London apartment. How could she let her father’s memory be tainted by a gambling addiction he had only acquired in the last few months of his life? His aggressive treatment for brain cancer had changed him. Made him desperate and reckless. She’d foolishly, naively thought her savings would be enough to cover his indiscretions. But her income as a special needs teacher was hardly going to cover debts that ran into the millions.
It was hopeless.
Utterly, heartbreakingly hopeless.
Frankie walked up the left side of the staircase to the front door. She still had her key—the real estate agent hadn’t requested it because the new owner would not be moving in until the final paperwork was completed. She unlocked the door and stepped inside the marble foyer but something about the atmosphere told her she wasn’t alone. There was a different energy in the air, the villa was no longer cold and empty but alive and breathing.
