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Zac’s eyes flashed with something fierce. Relief. Joy. And love. He smiled and took her hand. ‘Zac Valenti—nice to meet you too.’ Then he cocked his head on one side. ‘With a name and colouring like that you must be Irish?’
Her heart felt as if it would explode in her chest, but she answered, ‘My parents emigrated here before I was born.’
Zac kept hold of her hand and slowly started pulling her towards him. ‘Why haven’t I seen you around before?’
Rose smiled tremulously and let herself be pulled. ‘I’m from Queens, and I’m afraid I’m just a humble maid.’
Zac pulled her right into his body and said, in a suspiciously choked-sounding voice, ‘As it happens, just humble maids are some of my favourite people.’ He threaded a hand through Rose’s hair, ‘Would you think it very forward of me if I kissed you, even though we’ve only just met?’
Rose’s voice wobbled even more as she said emotionally, ‘Only as long as you promise never to stop.’
‘That,’ Zac said reverently as he bent his head towards hers, ‘I can promise.’
And so that night, on a beautiful rooftop, in the middle of a magical garden high in the dark velvet sky, they started again.
EPILOGUE
A year later
ZAC VALENTI LOOKED around the massive glittering ballroom from his antisocial location, leaning against a pillar at the back of the room. Women passed him, dripping in jewels. He held in a scowl. And then something caught his peripheral vision and he looked to his right to see a bright flame of gold and green approaching him. Something swelled in his chest. His wife, his love, his world.
She emerged from the crowd, smiling at him. Her hair was swept up and she wore a shimmering strapless column of emerald-green that made her eyes pop out like two jewels. The only jewels she needed. Apart from her wedding rings.
When she reached his side Zac pulled her in close and it felt as it always did—as if a part of him was slotting back into place. He automatically breathed easier.
Rose looked up at him, eyes sparkling. ‘The gossip in the powder room tonight is about the sudden decision of a certain Jocelyn Lyndon-Holt to go on a long worldwide cruise.’
A familiar tension came into Zac’s muscles at the mention of that woman, but also a sense of release. He’d given a recent exclusive interview to a financial magazine, finally revealing the truth of his parentage and details of his hitherto less well-known Italian business concerns.
This cruise was his grandmother’s attempt to escape her fall from grace. The fact tha
t she would be hounded by reporters at every stop along her route was inordinately satisfying. As was the legal agreement he’d made her sign before she’d left, which had been her only chance of ensuring the Lyndon-Holt name would live forever.
The Lyndon-Holt fortune was to become a philanthropic foundation, with one of its main recipients being a new charity—set up by him and Rose—which allocated funds for expensive medical operations to those who couldn’t afford it.
Rose’s father had recovered fully from his operation, and they’d taken an emotional trip back to Ireland with her mother’s ashes shortly after their daughter’s birth. Needless to say, Simona May Valenti—named for her paternal grandmother with the Italian spelling, and maternal grandmother—was the apple of her doting grandfather’s eye.
They’d christened her three months previously, in the church near the graveyard where Zac’s ancestors were buried. It was also where they’d been married, before Simona’s birth. Italy was their second home now, and they retreated there as much as possible.
Zac said now, with faux gravity, ‘Quite frankly, I’m less interested in idle gossip and far more interested in seeing how quickly I can get you out of that dress, Mrs Valenti.’
Rose slipped her arms around his waist, pressing so close that he could feel the thrust of her breasts against this side. Lust shot through his system with predictable force, making his body respond.
‘Witch...’ he growled, and she smiled, well aware of her effect on him.
He pulled her around in front of him, as much to disguise his body’s reaction as to torture her a little too.
He smiled when he saw her cheeks flush and her eyes dilate. ‘What do you say to going somewhere a little less...stuffy?’
She smiled. ‘I say yes.’
And then they both became aware of a moment of déjà vu at the same time—recalling that first night when he’d said those same words,
Rose said more huskily, ‘Take me home, Zac.’
So he did.
They went home to their new Greenwich Village townhouse and, after sending their nanny home, checked on their peacefully sleeping baby daughter, legs and arms spread wide in abandon.
