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Rafaele scowled. ‘I’m not impotent.’
Sam wriggled on his lap, feeling for herself just how potent he was. ‘You’re not impotent with me.’
Rafaele groaned softly, his hands touching her face, thumb pressing her lower lip. ‘I could never be impotent with you. I just have to look at you and I’m turned on.’
Sounding serious, Sam said, ‘Me too...’
‘Sam...that night when I tied you up...’
A dark flush highlighted those cheekbones and something inside Sam melted anew at seeing him so unlike his usual confident, cocky self. He was avoiding her eye and she tipped his chin towards her.
‘I liked it...’ she whispered, blushing.
‘But you cried afterwards...’
Her eyes softened. ‘Because I had just realised how much I still loved you. I felt so vulnerable, and I thought you were still punishing me for Milo.’
Rafaele groaned. ‘I was angry, but it was because you were under my skin again and I didn’t want you there. You brought up too many feelings, made me feel out of control...so I needed to control you.’
A wicked glint came into Sam’s eyes. ‘We can call it quits if you let me tie you up next time.’
Sam felt Rafaele’s body jerk underneath hers.
He quirked a brow at her. ‘Bridie has Milo...’
Needing no further encouragement, Sam scrambled inelegantly off Rafaele’s lap and stood up. She looked down at him and held out a hand. Rafaele felt his heart squeeze so much that it hurt. The symbolism of the moment was huge as he put his hand in Sam’s to let her help him up, but just before he came up all the way, he stopped on one knee.
‘Wait...there’s one more thing.’
Rafaele’s heart beat fast at the way Sam bit her lip. He gripped her hand like a lifeline and with his other hand pulled out the small but precious cargo from his pocket.
He held up the vintage diamond ring and looked at her. ‘Samantha, will you marry me? Because I love you more than life itself—you and Milo.’
She looked at the ring and her eyes glittered again with the onset of fresh tears. ‘It’s beautiful...’
He could see the final struggle in her face, the fear of believing that this was real...but then she smiled and it bathed him in a warmth he’d never known before.
‘Yes, I’ll marry you, Rafaele.’
She held out her hand and it trembled.
With a none too steady hand himself, Rafaele pushed the sparkling ring onto her finger. And then, with his other hand still in her firm grip, she pulled him up out of the painful past and into a brighter future.
A month later...
Sam took a deep breath and started her walk down the aisle of the small church in the grounds of Rafaele’s Milan palazzo. Umberto was giving her away and he wasn’t even using his cane. He was walking taller and stronger almost every day...especially on the days when Bridie was around...
Milo walked ahead of them in a suit, throwing rose petals with chaotic random a
bandon. He’d look back every now and then with a huge smile and Sam would have to prompt him to keep going. The small church was filled with people, but Sam was oblivious. She saw only the tall figure of the man waiting for her at the top of the aisle. And then he turned around, as if unable to help himself, and he smiled. Sam smiled back.
Umberto handed her over with due deference and then Rafaele was claiming her, pulling her into him. The priest’s words washed over and through Sam. She would never have said she was a religious person, but something in the ritual seemed to complete the process she and Rafaele had embarked on a month before, cleansing away any vague residual painful pieces of the past.
There was only now and the future, and the heavy weight of the wedding band on her finger, and Rafaele bending to kiss her with such a look of reverence on his face that she could have wept. In fact she did weep, and he wiped her tears away with his fingers.
Later, as they danced at their reception, which had been set up in a marquee in the grounds of the palazzo, Rafaele said, ‘Have I told you yet how beautiful you look?’
Sam smiled. ‘About a hundred times, but I don’t mind.’
