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ability to reach inside and hurt him?
No. He saw where that led. He’d seen and felt the pain and brokenness all through his childhood. His mother’s tears, anger, addictions, helplessness and grief. No. He could not offer Mia that kind of love.
But what he could offer…he’d make sure she’d be happy with. She’d want for nothing. He’d treat her like a queen.
‘We’ll figure it out as we go along,’ Alessandro told her, smiling to soften the prevarication of his words, and what they both knew he wasn’t saying. Wasn’t promising. He saw it in the cloudy flicker of her eyes, the slight downturn of her mouth before she made herself smile back. ‘This is going to work, Mia. I will do my best, my utmost, to give you everything. To never hurt you.’ Again he felt the weight of what he wasn’t saying.
To love you.
She nodded slowly. ‘I know you will, Alessandro.’
‘When shall we marry?’
‘There’s no real rush, is there?’
‘Why not make it official?’
‘We still could use the time to get to know each other,’ Mia protested. ‘The three months…’
‘It’s already been nearly three weeks,’ Alessandro returned. Why not marry sooner?’
‘At least give it a couple of weeks, so we can plan.’
‘Very well.’ He could wait that long. ‘Are there people you want to invite?’
She shook her head. ‘No, not really.’
‘Then it will be just us, and Ella, exactly as it should be.’ He smiled, liking the thought. ‘A family from the beginning.’
‘Yes.’ She smiled back, but he saw a tiny frown puckering the ivory smoothness of her brow, and he drew her towards him for a lingering kiss. ‘We will do this properly, and wait for our wedding night,’ he said, savouring the thought. ‘Trust me, Mia, our marriage will be the beginning of everything.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SHE WAS A married woman.
Mia gazed down at the two rings now sparkling on her finger, the first the elegant solitaire diamond from the night of her proposal, the second a simple band of white gold that Alessandro had slipped on her finger only moments ago.
They were standing on the terrace at the villa in Tuscany, the gardens and hills spread out before them in all their blossoming glory, the sun shining benevolently down. Alyssa and Paulo had been the witnesses to their wedding, the local priest, a smiling man who spoke no English, the officiant. Ella, clasped in Alyssa’s arms and gurgling happily, had been the only guest.
Mia had worn a strapless dress of ivory silk that she’d bought in Rome on an extravagant shopping trip last week; Alessandro had insisted she buy a complete trousseau, including some very sexy lingerie that made her heart race just to look at.
The last three weeks had been a whirlwind, and a wonderful one at that. Mia had let her fears trickle away in the blazing certainty of Alessandro’s attention. He doted on Ella and was kind and considerate with her, and the kisses that punctuated each evening had become longer and more lingering, leaving Mia in a welter of unsated desire, wondering why Alessandro insisted they wait, even as she acknowledged she was glad that he had.
He’d given her no reason to doubt the sudden, surprising choice she’d made that night after the ball, when she’d turned down the offer of a night for so much more.
Mia had been shocked by her own audacity and conviction, but in that moment she’d felt the rightness of what she was doing…what they were doing.
She could trust Alessandro. That, she realised, was the choice she was making.
With the ceremony finished, Alyssa handed Ella to Paulo, who took the baby with smiling ease, as she went to fetch the refreshments. Alessandro came to stand by Mia, placing a hand on her lower back, warm and sure, as he smiled down at her.
‘Happy?’ he murmured, and she turned to smile at him, realising that she really was. Over the last few weeks, her fears and doubts had been chipped away until there was very little of them left.
The dread that had taken residence in the pit of her stomach like some fermenting acid no longer pooled there. Yes, she was still afraid, but it was the uncertain nervousness of a new bride rather than the consuming fear of a woman on the brink of some awful abyss.
She was on the brink…but perhaps of something wonderful. Mia was trying to stay pragmatic, reminding herself that Alessandro had made no declarations of love, and neither had she. They didn’t know each other well enough for that yet, and she still wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to give him that much of herself.
And yet, despite her reservations, the possibility remained, in her heart at least, that this could be a marriage not just of convenience and companionship, which Alessandro had already promised, but also of love, something he most certainly had not. Something she’d never let herself consider before, but was now allowing herself to cautiously wonder about, if just a little.
