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Leah dealt her brother an outraged glance. ‘You’re not getting the point, are you? And my point is that it waswrongto try and trade me off into marriage as though that were the only acceptable thing to do in my situation! The last thing I need now is an unwilling husband—’
‘I didn’t try to trade you off—’ Ari protested.
‘I’mnotan unwilling husband,’ Gio slotted in quietly, only to receive a burning look of condemnation from his bride that would have caused spontaneous combustion in a less tough male.
‘But the idea of marrying medidn’toccur to you until Ari tried to persuade andguiltyou into it!’ Leah condemned brittly, a nagging headache tightening round her brow. She lifted a hand to rub at the pain in her shoulder, blaming the joint pain on her awkward gait. Since her third trimester aches and pains had become the norm for her.
‘I saw it as the practical solution to our plight. Only marriage met our mutual needs,’ Gio commented tautly.
Ari winced. ‘You need to up your game in the persuasion stakes.’
Leah felt as though she had been stabbed to the heart. Was that all their marriage meant to him? A businesslike bargain to raise their children together? That was so cold, so callous and unfeeling, utterly bereft of any promise of the warmth she felt that she needed to make their relationship a successful one. And yet she had already foolishly begun to believe that they were now sharing things that made their relationship much stronger.
‘It doesn’t matter. This marriage is over before it even begins!’ Leah exclaimed, reacting to the physical discomfort she was in as much as the hurt that Gio had once again inflicted. If it didn’t work, throw it away, her pride dictated in an effort to save face in an irreconcilable situation.
He didn’t love her and he didn’t want her as a wife. She had too much pride to settle for that kind of bloodless marriage and thanks to her inheritance she was a financially independent woman, who had no need to be kept by either her brother or husband.
‘You’re angry right now. Don’t make drastic decisions in this mood,’ Gio urged grittily, pale below his bronzed complexion at that sudden threat.
‘I don’t need either of you to survive!’ Leah lashed back at them and headed for the door, perspiration breaking out on her skin.
As she reached the door, her vision blurred and she tripped over her long skirts, tipping forward and landing up hard against the wood, clutching at the handle for support.
Gio scooped her up as she sagged. ‘You need to rest and take a deep breath,’ he told her worriedly, settling her down on a sofa.
‘I’m not feeling well,’ she admitted shakily as a clenching pain gripped her abdomen. ‘Oh, no, I think I’m in labour!’
Later she had only a blurred recollection of being bundled out into a helicopter with Gio and Sally accompanying her. She was frightened, frightened that losing her temper so comprehensively had put her unborn children at risk. When they arrived at the hospital she was rushed in the doors as though she were an emergency and when she realised that the twins had to be delivered immediately for both her sake and theirs, she only then realised that she was playing a leading role in a genuine emergency.
Gio’s ability to remain wonderfully calm grounded her as she was prepared for the surgery. When he finally reappeared by her side, gowned and masked, she was relieved by the steady pressure of his hand gripping hers. The lights above, the clicking monitors, the number of medical personnel surrounding them unnerved her a little. Gio chatted to her and the anaesthetist and she was grateful for the distraction that allowed her to get her breathing under control.
She felt pressure and then a jostling sensation before her little boy was delivered. He was brought to her all cleaned up for barely a minute before being carried off to an incubator.
‘They’re not quite happy with his breathing,’ Gio explained. ‘Seemingly, that’s common with a premature baby.’
And then their daughter arrived, squalling, with a cap of black curly hair like her brother before she too was borne off. It was all over very quickly but Leah felt inadequate and bereft that neither of her babies could stay with her for even a little while. When she arrived in her private room, Gio was waiting for her, Sally having stepped out to give them some privacy. He was not quite as elegant as usual. Black stubble framed his strong jawline, accentuating his mobile mouth and carved cheekbones. Even though he was tousled with his tie loose and his shirt unbuttoned at his throat, Gio still contrived to look drop-dead gorgeous.
‘Our children are beautiful. I’ve just been to see them again...’ His dark deep drawl was raw-edged with emotion, his pale blue eyes glossy. ‘Aurora is doing a little better than her brother, but the staff think there is no immediate cause for concern for him. Would you consider Luca as a name for our son? It’s the name of the priest, Father Luca, the man who encouraged me most during my childhood and adolescence,’ he confided tautly.
‘Yes... Aurora and Luca. I would be happy with those names,’ Leah conceded, studying him closely, shaken by the display of open emotion that he could neither hide nor control, while still struggling to accept that she was now a mother, simply sadly a mother who could not yet hold either of her children in her arms. ‘Are you surprised by how you feel about them?’
‘Stunned,’ Gio confessed with a sudden flashing grin. ‘But not in a bad way. I just didn’t expect to feel this immediate sense of attachment to them.’
‘They’re going to be staying in hospital for a while,’ Leah muttered, regret, disappointment and reluctant acceptance filling her as she realised that her babies would not be leaving medical care with her.
Gio stood by the door. ‘I’m afraid so, but the doctors have every confidence that given time they will gain weight and thrive. Ari’s already offered us the use of his city apartment for as long as we need it—’
Her brain felt a little fuzzy but then suddenly she recalled her final threatening words to Gio and she paled, her eyes flying wide. ‘Us? I’m not sure we still have an “us”,’ she framed shakily.
Gio bent to rest his lean hands on the foot rail of the bed so that their eyes were level. His icy gaze was diamond bright with determination. ‘You have to give me a chance to prove that this can work. So far, I haven’t had that opportunity. You can’t hold your brother’s crazy attempt at bribery against me when I turned him down,’ he told her squarely.
And on the most basic level, hehadrefused that proposition, yet somehow he had still ended up marrying her and magically acquiring the Castello Zanetti all the same, she acknowledged unhappily. Yet right now, with two vulnerable babies to worry about, weren’t there more important matters to concentrate on? For the present they were better together, not distracted by arguments and separation, she reasoned.
‘We’ll talk about all that some other time when we’re not so stressed,’ Leah murmured, resting her head back on the pillow, exhausted simply from the weight of making that one decision. ‘But you should get that DNA test sorted out, so that that’s out of the way.’
‘I wasn’t still planning—’
‘You wanted it. Let’s not be precious about it now. I agree to the test being done,’ Leah framed flatly.
