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Indeed, all roads led to Rome.
He would not be driving, though. Dante called Sarah, asking her to send his helicopter, right now, this minute, to return him to Rome.
‘There are storms forecast,’ Sarah said, though Dante didn’t want to hear it. But then Dante, who had never known fear, felt its sudden arrival at speed, for as he drove, he caught a glimpse of a rider in his fields, and slowing down he saw that it was Mia, riding Massimo. Through the poppy fields she cantered and the pair of them looked stunning, the black horse gleaming against the red poppies and a thundery navy sky. But though Mia appeared to be handling him with ease, the fact was she was pregnant.
He halted the car in the middle of the road and climbed out. He could hear his heart pounding in his chest, and feel the sudden dryness of his mouth. Suddenly his fear was laced with fury.
How dared she risk it?
If she fell and the horse bolted, it would take for ever to find her, assuming she wasn’t trampled.
He wanted to press on the horn, but he did not want to startle Massimo, and anyway it appeared as if she was heading back to the stables.
Well, Dante would be there to meet her.
As Mia came into the yard she was tired in that nice physical way, but her head was no clearer and she had no idea how to deal with Dante’s questions.
She felt better now, though, and Massimo had ridden like a dream. She praised him as they came into the yard. ‘There’s no slowing you down, is there, boy?’
She was just getting her breath back, a little elated, and looking around for the stablehand because it was awfully quiet, when she saw Dante come round the corner. She was suddenly breathless again because his face was as thunderous as the sky.
‘Whatthe hell are you doing?’ he asked, and he took the reins.
‘What does it look like?’
‘Don’t be facetious,’ he said. ‘Get down.’
Mia ignored him and cast her eyes around the yard. ‘Where is everyone?’
‘I have given the staff the rest of the day and night off, so we can have some decent time to ourselves.’ He got back to the issue of her riding. ‘What the hell were you thinking, riding Massimo?’
‘Dante, I don’t know what you’re making such a fuss about. My mother rode until two weeks before she had me. I even checked that it was okay with the doctor...’
‘You didn’t check withmydoctor,’ he snarled.
‘Thank goodness for choice, then.’
‘Get down, Mia.’
He would not be argued with, and she had the awful feeling he was going to come and fetch her himself, so she took her right foot out of the stirrup and went to dismount. It was a manoeuvre she had made hundreds if not thousands of times, but she had never been more aware of her movements.
Dante was too.
Relief was seeping into him that she was back at the yard and safe, yet it was tempered with anger. Those thousands of questions he’d had were fading with the ache of distraction as she went to dismount.
Mia held Massimo’s mane with her left hand and swung her leg over, taking the cantle of the saddle with her right. It was going to be a very long, slow slide to the ground with Dante’s eyes trained on her.
Her breathing was difficult but for very different reasons now and when his hands came to her hips, instead of guiding her down, he held her there, suspended.
In fact, he took all of her weight and held her with strong hands that seemed to burn through her. It felt electric, it felt like something she had never known, and her eyes screwed closed.
Helowered her down very slowly and with such utter precision that had they not been completely dressed she might have been forgiven for imagining he was lowering her onto him. A jolt shot through her as her boots hit the stone ground, and there she remained.
His hands were still hot on her hips and pressing in and she did not know how she could go from defensive and defiant to wanting to fold over and be taken, but then slowly he turned her round.
‘You are pregnant,’ Dante stated, although she took it to be a question.
‘Yes!’
