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‘I think it was just a touch of colic.’
‘You’re going to make a wonderful mother. Oh, God, Cristiano would have been such a great father. I don’t know what I’m doing half the time.’
‘You’re a great father too, Samuele. There’s nobody who will love Mattio more than you. Speaking of which, if I could love you more than I already do, I would,’ she whispered huskily as she gazed at him with eyes shining with the strength of her feelings. ‘If only Violetta—’
‘I have already disposed of that problem—oh, not literally.’ He laughed when he saw her face. ‘Not that the idea is not tempting,’ he added drily. ‘But when she heard we were getting married and were applying for full custody, she knew she’d lost because she’d already abandoned Mattio once, so she settled for a final payment instead. Everyone, it turns out, has a price.’
‘That must have cost you a lot of money.’
‘Money is not important. What is the most important thing is that she has agreed to allow us to formally adopt Mattio so he will officially be our child, and he and our other children will inherit equally.’
‘Are we going to have more children?’
‘You like the idea?’
She nodded. ‘And I will love them all equally,’ she promised with damp eyes. ‘If they grow up to be like their father, how could I not?’
EPILOGUE
MAYALAYONher back on the day bed in the observatory and squirmed languidly, digging her bottom into the soft layer of sheepskins she lay on. ‘I wondered what it would be like to make love under the stars.’
‘And now you know,’ Samuele said smugly. ‘I arranged the meteor shower especially for you.’
‘Do you think your grandfather ever did this?’
‘What, make love under the stars the night before he got married?’
‘Well, I quite like the idea of the continuity,’ she teased.
‘Then I can think of a more pleasant form of continuity. That we spend each of our anniversaries here under the stars making love, though I might not be able to pull off the meteor shower every time.’
She emerged from the long languid kiss with a smile on her lips. ‘In six hours and twenty-four minutes, I will be your wife.’
Samuele had wanted it to happen immediately but Maya had insisted she wanted to get married with her family there, which had meant that they’d had to wait a few months until Beatrice’s morning sickness had improved enough for her to travel. The timing was perfect: in a dual celebration that morning they had signed the final papers that made them Mattio’s adoptive parents.
‘Are you all right about it?’ she asked.
‘Having the woman I love more than life by my side for the rest of our lives? I amveryall right,cara. Come here and I will show you how all right I really am.’
‘You’ve only got six hours and twenty-three minutes left...’
He grinned. ‘Six hours will do me just fine.’
