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‘By that stage, I was secretly hoping that you wouldneverrecover your memory and, to be frank, I really didn’t have a proper game plan,’ Lorenzo confided grimly. ‘I only knew that I couldn’t face letting you go. I had fallen head over heels in love with a woman who was kind and compassionate and loving and I was revelling in every moment of the experience.’ A smile slashed his lean dark features. ‘I was extremely happy with you and I want that back. But I want to do everything the right way round this time. I want you to be my wife.’
‘Oh...’ was all Milly could bleat at that moment.
‘You’re not saying a flat no any more?’ Lorenzo was quick to recognise that she was weakening.
‘I’m thinking it over,’ Milly muttered, her cheeks colouring. ‘Why didn’t you at least phone me while we were apart?’
‘I was trying to be strong for both of us and I thought we were safer from press intrusion if nobody, including you, knew how I felt about you,’ he admitted grimly. ‘But I found it very hard to cope without you. I buried myself in work. It didn’t help. I came home at night and I couldn’t sleep and the house didn’t feel like home any longer without you in it.’
Milly began slowly to smile, and her hand crept up to frame one high cheekbone in a tender caress. ‘I love you, Lorenzo. I’ve missed you so much.’
Lorenzo tugged her gently into his arms and held her close. ‘How can you still love me after the mess I made of things?’
Milly jerked her head back playfully, a foam of silvery blonde ringlets falling against one cheekbone. ‘If you were perfect, you’d be boring. But you must stop hiding stuff from me in the belief that I have to be protected from every adverse event. I’m more resilient than I look,’ she told him firmly. ‘Yes, there would’ve been unpleasant stuff in the tabloids if it got out that we were together but we could have got through it. We are stronger together than we are apart.’
His ebony brows pleated. ‘I didn’t think of that angle.’
‘I know. Your glass is always half empty while mine is always half full,’ she teased, her violet eyes sparkling as she gazed up at him. ‘Let’s not care what anyone says or thinks about us. I learned how to do that at school. You must’ve been more protected than I was. I was always the kid in the unfashionable shoes, who got free lunches because she was the poor foster kid...’
Lean brown hands framed her animated face. ‘And now you’re going to be the wife of a billionaire.’
Her nose wrinkled. ‘It just goes to show...youcansleep your way to the top!’ she joked.
‘Madre di Dio...I love you so much,cara mia,’ Lorenzo husked, his mouth crashing down on hers with all the hunger he had fought to suppress for weeks giving her the strongest message yet that he needed her.
They stood there kissing, urgently entwined, too long separated to bear the idea of being apart even for a moment, both of them studiously ignoring Topsy, who was barking at their feet. She backed him up against the window, wrenching at his tie while he claimed urgent little biting kisses from her luscious mouth.
‘I gather I’m staying,’ Lorenzo pronounced with a wicked grin.
‘Wait until you’re invited,’ Milly told him, waited a heartbeat. ‘You’re invited.’
He carried her into the all-white bedroom and dropped down on the side of the bed, holding her between his spread masculine thighs. He made a production out of sliding down one strap on her shoulder and then the other, pushing them gently down her arms to her wrists so that the dress slid down baring the full swell of her breasts cupped in a strapless bra. He undid the bra, let it drop away, studying her ripe curves with reverent intensity. ‘You are perfect,’ he breathed.
‘You are not in the mood to be critical,’ Milly laughed, taking in his arousal clearly outlined by the fine fabric of his trousers.
‘Perfect,’ Lorenzo repeated aggressively as he splayed the gentle fingers of one large hand across her stomach. ‘You’ve got my baby in there...and that means the world to me.’
‘And me,’ she agreed as the dress fluttered to her feet and he gathered her into his arms and settled her down on the bed.
For a long time afterwards, there was nothing but the sheer urgency of the passion they had feared they might never experience again together, and then, in the tranquil aftermath, the real world intruded again.
Lorenzo fanned her tumbled hair back from her face and stared down at her with an adoring glow in his intense scrutiny. ‘We start again fresh from this moment with no ghosts from the past between us,’ he murmured sibilantly. ‘The house has already been cleared. I had mementoes put aside for you, photos and scrapbooks and such, but I donated the contents of the dressing room and the jewellery I bought her to a charity auction. It’s all gone.’
Milly nodded uncertainly, surprised and relieved and sad all at the same time. ‘We wouldn’t have met but for Brooke,’ she reminded him gently.
‘I can’t stand to think of a world in which I might not have met you,’ Lorenzo confessed. ‘So that is something to be grateful to her for.’
‘If her trust fund does come to me, I’d like to donate it to a good cause because I would never feel it was mine,’ Milly admitted ruefully. ‘I mean, our father never acknowledged me and neither did she really. She never once made me feel that she accepted me as an actual sister. It wouldn’t be right for me to keep it.’
‘As you wish. Just don’t let the past poison anything that we share,’ Lorenzo urged her anxiously.
Tender fingers stroked his roughened jawline. ‘I love you too much, Lorenzo Tassini, to ever let that happen,’ she whispered.
‘I hope that means that you love me enough to get married soon,’ he murmured softly, dropping a kiss down onto her reddened mouth.
Her eyes widened. ‘How soon?’
‘A couple of weeks?’
