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He held out a hand. ‘Come here.’
She went over and let him catch her, pulling her onto his lap. After some breathless kisses she moved back. ‘What are you doing?’
A glint of something came into his eyes and he said, ‘Catching up on local news.’
He indicated with his head to the computer and Serena turned to look. When she realised what she was seeing, she tensed in his arms. The internet was filled with photos of them kissing passionately in the airport—obviously taken by people’s mobile phones. One headline screamed: Has Fonseca tamed wild-child DePiero at last? Another one: Fonseca and DePiero rekindle their scandalous romance!
She felt sick and turned to Luca, who was watching her carefully. ‘I’m sorry. This is exactly what you were afraid of.’
But he just shrugged, eyes bright and clear. No shadows. ‘I couldn’t care less what they say. And they have it wrong—you tamed me.’
Serena let the past fall away and caressed Luca’s jaw, love rising to make her throat tight. ‘I love you just as you are.’
Luca said gruffly, ‘I want to take you to every beach in South America to watch the sunset—starting with the ones here in Rio.’
Serena felt breathless. ‘That could take some time.’
Luca kissed her and said, ‘At least a lifetime, I’m hoping.’
He deliberately lifted up her left hand then, and pressed a kiss to her ring finger, a question in his eyes and a new tension in his body. Serena’s heart ached that he might still doubt her love.
She nodded her head and said simply, ‘Yes. The answer will always be yes, my love.’
Three years later.
The wide-eyed American reporter was standing in front of Rome’s supreme court and saying breathlessly, ‘This is the trial of the decade—if not the century. Lorenzo DePiero has finally been judged and condemned for his brutality and corruption, but no one could have foreseen the extent to which his own children and his wife suffered. His landmark sentencing will almost certainly guarantee that he lives out the rest of his days in jail.’
The press were still stunned to have discovered that the privileged life they’d assumed the DePiero heiresses to have lived had all been a lie.
Behind the reporter there was a flurry of activity as people streamed out of the majestic building. First was Rocco De Marco, the illegitimate son of Lorenzo DePiero, with his petite red-haired wife Gracie. Quickly on their heels were Siena Xenakis and her husband Andreas.
But the press waited with hushed reverence for the person they wanted to see most: Serena Fonseca. She had taken the stand for four long days in a row and had listed a litany of charges against her father. Not least of which had been the manslaughter of his wife, their mother, witnessed by her when she was just five years old.
If anyone had been in doubt about the reliability of a witness who had been only five at the time, the further evidence of her father’s systematic bullying and collusion with a corrupt doctor to get her hooked on medication had killed those doubts.
Her composed beauty had been all the more poignant for the fact that she hadn’t let her very advanced pregnancy stop her from taking on such an arduous task: facing down her father every day. But then, everyone agreed that the constant presence by her side of her husband, Luca Fonseca, had undoubtedly given her strength.
They finally emerged now—a striking couple. Luca Fonseca had an arm curved protectively around his wife and the press captured their visible smiles of relief.
Lawyers for the respective parties gave statements as the family got into their various vehicles and were whisked away with a police escort to a secret location, where they were all due to celebrate and unwind after the previous taxing months.
Luca looked at Serena in the back of the Land Rover, their hands entwined. He lifted them up and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. ‘Okay?’
Serena smiled. She felt as if a weight had finally been lifted off her shoulders for the first time in her life. She nodded. ‘Tired...but happy it’s finally done and over.’
Luca pressed a long, lingering kiss to her mouth, but when he pulled back, Serena frowned and looked down. Immediately concerned, Luca said, ‘What is it?’
Serena looked at him, a dawning expression of shock and wonder on her face. ‘My waters have just broken...all over the back seat.’
The driver’s eyes widened in the rearview mirror and he discreetly took out a mobile phone to make a call.
Serena giggled at the comic look of shock and pure fear on Luca’s face. He’d been on high alert for weeks now, overreacting to every twinge Serena felt. And then it hit her—along with a very definite cramping of pain.
Her hand tightened on his. ‘Oh, my God, we’re in labour.’
Luca went into overdrive, instructing the driver to go to the nearest hospital.
Their police escort was already peeling away from the rest of the convoy and the driver reassured him in Italian, ‘I’m on it—we’ll be there in ten minutes.’
