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‘And?’
‘That I want to wake up to you in the morning. I want you to annoy the hell out of me. I want you to confuse me—I don’t ever want to know you—’
‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Caitlyn interrupted. ‘What you meant to say was that you want to know me…’
‘I know exactly what I am saying. I want to spend the rest of my life trying to work you out. I love that you confuse me.’
‘Oh.’ Caitlyn smiled, closing her eyes—because she could now, because she knew that when she opened them he’d still be there.
‘In fact I fell in love with you a long time ago.’
‘When?’ Her eyes were still closed, and she was smiling, his words like the warm sun on her face. ‘At the hotel? Or was it in Rome…?’
‘Shut up and let me talk.’
So she did just that. And she was so, so glad that she did, or she might never have heard his amazing answer.
‘On the stroke of midnight the night we first met.’
‘It wasn’t midnight.’ She opened her eyes and her heart to him. She couldn’t be quiet, just couldn’t contain it. Because it was just so wonderful, so amazing, that he’d felt it too—that love, their love, had always been real, that the torch she’d carried for him had had heavy-duty batteries for a very good reason. ‘It was ten to twelve. Because I specifically remember looking at the clock. It was at ten minutes to twelve that we fell in love.’
‘Just because you move fast, it doesn’t mean that I have to…I like to take my time and think about these things.’ He kissed her, kissed her between sentences—like a gorgeous long meal, like a wonderful smorgasbord, where you didn’t have to rush, could just pick and choose the good bits and go back for more whenever you wanted. You could start and finish with dessert if you wanted, or just get full on a thousand prawns. ‘I went into the ballroom and everyone was talking. I had friends around me, a good malt whisky in my hand and a beautiful woman on my arm, and I looked at my watch, and I looked at the closed door, and I wanted to be on the other side of it. I had everything a man could want—only it didn’t feel right because you weren’t there.’
‘I’m here now,’ Caitlyn said softly.
‘So am I…’He rained her face with butterfly kisses, and she rained them back, kissing away all the hurt and the grief, chasing away all the horrible, scary shadows till there was only light left. ‘I’m here, where I belong.’
EPILOGUE
‘DO YOU want me to say something?’ Caitlyn offered as Lazzaro called for the bill.
‘The food was fantastic,’ Lazzaro said. ‘Let’s not make a fuss.’
‘But every time we come here they get it wrong! I specifically ordered the mushroom risotto, and we got vegetarian arranchini.’
Lazzaro peeled off another note and added it to his already generous tip. They were sitting in one of the smartest cafés in Rome, and the waiter had in fact done an amazing job—deciphering somehow, from Caitlyn’s truly appalling Italian, that they wanted rice and vegetables.
It was bad.
Even after a year of flying between two amazing cities—even after having a son who had been born here in Rome—Caitlyn’s mastery of the language was poor, to say the least. But her Italian was delivered with such flair, such passion and enthusiasm, and such a warm, generous smile, that no one—not the doctors, nor the midwives, nor the hotel staff or even a waiter—had the heart to tell her.
‘Che era meraviglioso—grazie.’ Caitlyn beamed at the bemused waiter as she clipped little Dante into his pram and wheeled him out of the restaurant.
‘That was wonderful—thank you…’ Lazzaro loosely translated, rolling his eyes and mouthing another thank-you to the waiter, then joining his wife and new son on the street outside.
‘You’d think they’d never seen a blond baby.’ Caitlyn smiled as everyone who passed cooed into the stroller. ‘Mind you—he is gorgeous.’
And the image of Caitlyn.
Blond, already lifting his head and taking in the world, smiling and cooing at six weeks and refusing to sleep, he was a carbon copy of his mother—and Lazzaro, just as he was with his wife, was completely smitten.
