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‘If you’re up to the challenge,’ Leah gasped on the cusp of a moan as his pace quickened, her body tender and incredibly receptive. Sensation jolted her with exquisite reaction, propelling her to an even more intense second climax and an aftermath of drowning delight.
Lying flat on the bed, she whispered, ‘I swear that I’m never moving again.’
‘Well, I need you to conserve your energies for the month in bed you suggested to me,’ Gio teased, flashing her a glittering look of heated possessiveness.
‘Jacobo mentioned dinner,’ she mumbled.
‘We’ll eat late. Everything’s on our timing here. Go to sleep,’ Gio advised, stretching out beside her in complete relaxation.
They ate a snack supper late in the evening and fed the twins together before returning to bed. Leah felt at peace for the first time in months. They were no longer at odds, no longer being polite and careful with every word. Gio had even been generous enough to admit that he would never have been able to buy the Zanetti family home without her brother acting as a middleman. Taking into account Gio’s own disastrous childhood, she marvelled at his gentle, loving care of the twins and it continued to trouble her deeply that even his grandparents had rejected him out of hand. She still had questions she wanted to ask him but did not want to tread too heavily on sensitive ground. Gio was still very uncomfortable talking about his mother and she suspected that she could be the only person he had ever discussed his wretched background with.
Breakfast was served in the shade of the rear terrace that overlooked the sunlit gardens behind thecastello. Gio was smiling, relaxed. ‘You never told me when you lost your mother,’ Leah dared to say.
‘My first year at university. My father had assaulted her and, of course, she wouldn’t ever go for medical treatment when that happened lest he be arrested for assault. A broken rib pierced her lung and she died. I never saw him again after the funeral. The one bright moment was when he was finally tried and convicted for his crimes. He had so many enemies that he died within weeks of starting his prison sentence,’ Gio imparted grimly.
‘Did your grandparents attend your mother’s funeral?’
‘No. When they cut her out of their lives it was final. I finally met them when I was eighteen, soon after the funeral. I was a student studying nearby. I read in the newspaper about how they raised funds for a local museum and gallery and when they held a meeting I attended it...’
As his lean, strong features tensed, the cool distance of unease and annoyance entered his reflective gaze but that still couldn’t conceal the shadows of pain. ‘As soon as I identified myself, they turned away. There was no discussion, no explanation,nothing. That was that. They didn’t want to know me.’
As they walked through the garden beyond the terrace, Leah thought angrily of a teenaged, vulnerable Gio approaching possibly the only civilised adults related to him and being rejected as so many had already rejected him and her heart clenched with hurt on his behalf. By all accounts, his lady mother had been as indifferent to the misery of his life as everyone else around him, yet his grandparents could have turned that around for him had they had the courage, the foresight and the strength to ignore his parentage. Had they ever regretted that negative response? Thought better of it? Wished they had, at least, given him a chance to show them who he wasbeforethey judged him unacceptable? Gio had taken his grandparents by surprise in a public place. Perhaps had they known beforehand and had there been privacy they might have reacted differently, Leah reflected sadly.
‘My grandmother must miss her garden,’ Gio remarked with a curl of his lip. ‘She went to a great deal of trouble and expense to make a garden here because the only flat land was wooded and the woods were supposed to be conserved at all costs.’
‘She broke the rules?’
‘I would assume so, but then the woods here stretch for miles. The garden is a little overgrown. The gardeners haven’t tamed it yet,’ Gio commented.
‘It’s still very pretty,’ Leah countered, fingering the velvety petal of a scarlet climbing rose as she strolled past, enjoying the drenching warmth of the sunlight. ‘Have you ever considered going to see your grandparents and giving them another chance?’
‘No!’ Gio’s derisive dismissal of that possibility was immediate, and she spun to look at him in dismay, noting the shuttered hardening of his darkly handsome features. ‘That will never be on the cards.’
Her face hot from the sense that she had stumbled badly on a sensitive subject, Leah turned back to study the garden. She had moved too far too fast with him, she told herself soothingly, but she couldn’t help feeling hurt that he had been so quick to shut her down just when she had believed that all his barriers were coming down.
‘So... Oliver?’ Gio prompted, making her tense even more. ‘You promised.’
‘I met him in a wine bar when I was out with friends. He was good-looking, successful. I was bowled over,’ she admitted frankly, thinking that perhaps if she shared freely it would have the same effect on him. ‘But from the start he professed keenness without carrying through and I should’ve smelt a rat when he sometimes didn’t phone me for weeks. We had occasional dates in public places and the relationship didn’t really take off until he took me to a legal dinner with his colleagues. He made quite a fuss of me in front of them, more than he made of me when we were alone—’
‘He gave you mixed signals,’ Gio gathered.
‘Oh, very mixed. All over me one minute, ignoring me the next, but I was infatuated with him and I just worked harder to impress him. I thought initially that possibly I was competing with another girlfriend...if only I had retained that suspicion. It was a while before I noticed how critical Oliver was. He didn’t like the way I dressed, or my accent or my interests and my cooking skills were definitely below his standards—’
An unexpected laugh was wrenched from Gio.
‘You see, he wanted me to provide fancy dinners for his colleagues and I couldn’t do it. I had to buy ready-made stuff and fake it. I started to change myself to try and please him...’ Leah looked sad. ‘I was a total pushover for a man like Oliver. He was very manipulative and of course I irritated him because he didn’t ever like or want me for myself—’
Gio frowned. ‘Then why was he seeing you? Was he gay? Was that what he was trying to hide?’
‘No, he was having an affair with his boss’s young trophy wife, the gorgeous Celeste, but I didn’t find that out untilafterhe dumped me,’ Leah explained heavily. ‘He ditched me by text when the scandal of my employer, Patrick Lundsworth, being arrested broke. I was inconsolable and after a couple of days I realised I had left my raincoat at his apartment and I had to return his key anyway, so I went over there, expecting him to be out at work—’
‘And you found them together,’ Gio guessed with a grimace. ‘You must’ve been devastated.’
‘Celeste laughed in my face. It was her idea that he get himself a girlfriend to act as a cover-up for their affair. But by then she wanted me out of the picture because she and her husband had separated and she was so proud of her power over Oliver,’ Leah told him in an undertone. ‘She even told me that she had made him promise not to have sex with me.’
‘Well, at least she spared you that and he didn’t get to use your body as well,’ Gio breathed in a raw undertone. ‘If I’d known what he’d done to you the day we signed the prenup, I’d have knocked his teeth down his throat!’
His partisanship lightened her humiliation at having to recount the story of Oliver’s deception. ‘He told me then that he’s no longer with Celeste and I was surprised—’
