The Heir From Nowhere (20 page)

He sighed. ‘When I first met you, you reminded me of how she looked. So gaunt and half-starved. I couldn’t understand why you had been able to grow this child, when she hadn’t.’

‘You said you hated me back then.’

‘I know.’ He blew out through his teeth. ‘I didn’t know you. I didn’t trust you. I was angry.’

His hand dropped to hers again. ‘I was so wrong. It was like I’d built a stone wall around my heart. I hadn’t been able to save Carla with all the money in the world. All it took was one simple infection. Anyone else would have had the strength to fight it off. She had nothing to fight with.’

Angie looked down at the baby in her arms, her heart squeezed tight.

‘I didn’t want to have to save anyone else,’ he continued. ‘When you turned up on the scene with my baby in your belly, it was like you had started shaking those walls at their very foundations. And I didn’t want them coming down. I fought it every step of the way.

‘You brought them down, and you grounded me and brought me back to life, just as you have given life to our child. So believe me when I tell you, I want to be with you for ever. I want you to be my wife. I love you, Angelina, and one day I hope you can find a way to love me too, after all that I have put you through.’

She looked up at him, blinking through misty eyes.

‘I do love you, Dominic. It’s been so hard these past few months, loving you.’ And the tears came then—tears of joy. Tears of relief. Tears of love.

He sat next to her on the bed and cradled her head in
his arm, one hand behind his baby’s head. ‘Then you’ll marry me.’

She sniffed and nodded and cried some more and now she looked a complete and utter mess and still she could not stop herself, she was so deliriously happy. And as if he sensed her fears, he kissed her eyes, kissed away her tears. He took the sleeping infant from her arms and placed her back in her crib and reached down for the package he’d brought with him.

‘I didn’t think to get a ring,’ he said apologetically. ‘But I’d like you to have this.’ He handed her the parcel, wrapped in simple gold tissue paper, tied with a red ribbon.

She looked at it and then up to him, the question in her eyes. ‘Open it,’ he prompted, suddenly nervous.

Paper crinkled and tore even though she took care as she unrolled the gift. And then she gasped, lifting the carving free from the wrapping in her hands, turning it one way and then the other. The woman stood, one leg bent, her head angled down, her face looking down as her hands cradled the baby within her belly. She was long-limbed and slim with hair that floated in layers down to her naked breasts. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, awed by the work of art, awed even more by the mystery surrounding it. ‘But it’s me! Wherever did you find it?’

‘Do you remember, a long time ago, you once told me I didn’t actually make anything?’

‘No, Dominic!’ One hand went to her mouth. ‘I was wrong—so wrong. I was looking for reasons not to like you. I was clutching at straws.’

He pulled her hand away, shaking his head. ‘You were right. I was so busy making money, I’d forgotten how to actually make things. Real things. My poppa once
taught me to carve. You inspired me to pick up those tools—’

‘Hardly inspired!’

He gave a wry smile. ‘Okay, so you goaded me into picking up his tools. And it was harder than I remembered—much harder, and nothing worked. But one night I saw you coming out of the pool and standing there, wringing out your hair, your belly ripening with my child, and I knew I had to capture you. You brought me home, Angelina. You made me realise what was real again.’

Moisture made her lashes thick and heavy. ‘It’s beautiful, Dominic, just beautiful.’

‘You’re beautiful, Angelina. You will always be beautiful to me. Do you like it?’

‘Like it? I love it.’ And she looked up at him. ‘Nearly as much as I love you.’

And he dipped his head to kiss her. ‘Hold that thought.’

A
NGELA
C
ARLA
P
IRELLI,
or AC-DC as she’d become fondly known, a reference to both her first two initials and to her high octane energy levels, attended her first wedding aged six and a half months.

According to her, this party was all about her, and given the way she was passed from guest to guest, made to chuckle endlessly with tickles and funny faces and peekaboo, and generally clucked, oohed and aahed over, it was no wonder she assumed she was the star of the show.

Dominic knew differently.

He loved his tiny daughter immensely. Would gladly give his life for her.

But in his eyes, there was only one star on this day of days and his eyes drank in the vision of her as she approached, everyone in between wanting to congratulate her after their wedding in the gazebo, everyone wanting to compliment her on the way she looked. He could understand why. In that Grecian-inspired gown falling in folds around her perfect body and with her hair pinned up in sections leaving coiling trails around her face and throat, she looked like a goddess. Already he could feel another stint in the garage coming on.

Mind you, the next one would take a while. He didn’t
intend spending too much time down there at night in the foreseeable future.

Dominic was momentarily distracted as he heard his daughter’s chuckling laugh ringing out in delight. Rosa had her on her hip, he saw, bouncing her up and down in time to the music.

‘I do believe that daughter of yours is going to be a handful in a few years’ time.’

He turned to her as his new wife slipped a slender arm through his and he almost wanted to growl with pleasure that she was his. ‘So now she’s my daughter,’ he said, raising a questioning brow. ‘I thought we were equals in this role.’

‘Most of the time,’ she said as he handed her a glass of champagne from a passing tray.

‘Oh, and what’s that supposed to mean?’

And Angie just smiled as Rosa passed the child to the man alongside her, who clearly hadn’t expected an infant to land in his arms. For a second he looked shocked, as if he didn’t know what to do with her, but then she batted her dark eyes at him and smiled a baby-toothed smile and he warmed to her, suddenly laughing and jigging her up and down, her squeals of delight ringing out.

‘There you go,’ she said, ‘exactly my point. Unexpected woman meets unwelcoming man, falls in love with him and wins his heart. That is definitely my daughter out there.’

He smiled, pulling her close to him. ‘What do you think a son of ours would be like?’

‘Dangerous,’ she said without thinking. ‘A heart stopper. Likes fast cars and sleek women and knows how to use them both.’

‘Ouch, I think.’

‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘It’s not all bad. Because he’s a
keeper, this son of ours. And some lucky girl will get to keep him for ever.’

He pulled her into his embrace, wanting more than anything for her to open the tiny half-joking wedding gift he’d left under her pillow, the lace-edged pinny he was hanging out for her to wear so they could go to work on that upcoming son, forgetting for a moment his child and the crowd and the music and lights all around them. ‘Will you keep me for ever, Mrs Pirelli?’

And she gazed up into his dark-as-night eyes. ‘Only if they won’t let me keep you longer. I love you, Dominic, for ever.’

And as he kissed his brand-new wife, the mother of his child, he knew forever would never be long enough.