The Italian's Secretary Bride (18 page)

Alice had to look away…

Roman and Scarlet represented everything she wanted and would never have…
couldn't
have, unless Luca loved her—and, no easy way to say this, he didn't!

Self-pity, Alice, she reproached herself sternly, is not an attractive thing. Besides, she had other priorities now; like the child she was carrying. She had to tell Luca; on this subject at least there was no option.

She'd been through this in her head a million times before and a few barely intelligible words on the phone didn't change anything. She was pretty sure she knew how Luca would react when he knew about the baby. Luca called his father old-fashioned and proud of the family name, but he was just as proud; he was an O'Hagan.

He'd want to marry her for the sake of the baby.

There was no escaping the fact that Luca
was
the love of her life—and Luca would be resenting the fact he was tied to the mother of his child.

She sucked in a deep breath. ‘No, I'm not that desperate,' she agreed quietly.

‘Honestly, if you're worried about Luca, don't be,' Roman advised earnestly. ‘He's got more lives than a cat,' he reflected. ‘And he has a
very
well-developed sense of survival.'

She nodded. ‘I'm sure you're right,' she agreed, on the outside, at least, calm.

‘If you need me, you know where I am.' Scarlet, her pretty face a study of concern, caught Alice's arm.

Alice reminded herself that it had always been a long shot that anyone was going to swallow her show of disinterest close on the heels of her hysterical breakdown.

‘I know,' she agreed, doubting that Roman would appreciate it if she took Scarlet up on the offer.

A glance at the grandfather clock ticking away in the hallway revealed it was still relatively early. The lure of another sleepless night and an intensive study of the wallpaper—no matter how tasteful—held a limited attraction for Alice. She responded to the plaintive cry of a sleek cat who had escaped from the kitchen and unbolted the grand front door.

The moggy vanished without a backward glance into the night and Alice stood there inhaling the sweet night air redolent of night-scented stock that someone had filled the tubs outside the door with.

Why not? she thought.

Feeling rather like a schoolgirl daringly ignoring a curfew, she pulled a jacket casually slung over the back of a chair in the hallway over her shoulders and went outdoors.

As she stepped outside the heavy door swung closed behind her with a decisive clunk. She shrugged; it wasn't as if she were locked out in the literal sense. Nobody here seemed to feel the necessity to lock anything. She could quite easily let herself in the side kitchen door after she had had a walk in the moonlight.

The night was simply magical…no street lights, just a moon and the smell of green growing things. Alice felt her mood lift.

The moment she stepped on the neatly trimmed lawn her high heels sank into the soft ground. After stumbling her way a couple of hundred yards, she slipped the shoes off and stuffed them in the jacket pockets.

Back to nature, she thought as she enjoyed the squidgy feel of the wet grass. Experimentally she wriggled her toes and discovered it was not actually unpleasant. An owl hooted eerily in the distance as she turned her face to the warm soft breeze that sprang up. Lost in thought, she walked until the lights from the house were a distant twinkle.

She reached a slight rise ahead as the parkland became woodland proper, and she stopped to catch her breath, realising for the first time how far she'd gone from the neatly manicured lawns. She began to wonder if she had maybe had enough of nature for one night. Maybe she ought to make her way back now?

Just as she was reflecting how easy it would be to imagine yourself the only person in the world out here a cloud drifted across the silver face of the full moon. It almost immediately lifted. Alice had lived in the City so long she had almost forgotten that dark in the country was not the same thing as dark in the town! Not by a long chalk!

Standing there, she rediscovered that the countryside at night was not actually quiet. If you listened as she was it was filled with sounds—soft, sinister rustling sounds, sounds made by things she couldn't see.

Now that she thought about it, she wasn't sure she wanted to see them. Come to think of it, what was she doing in the wilds of Ireland, alone, in the middle of the night?

It seemed a good idea at the time.
That was probably what all the victims of mad knife-wielding psychopaths said, or
would
have if they hadn't been dead. She brushed aside her morbid fancies.

‘A torch would be good!' She spoke out loud to steady her nerves. They stayed steady until the moon ducked once more behind a cloud at the same moment her hair snagged on a low branch.

Alice lost it. She let out a high-pitched scream and began running barefoot. By the time exhaustion made her stop she had lost her bearings totally.

Don't panic. What's the worst that can happen?
Excluding psychopaths!
She forced herself to think logically. She could get blisters, scratches and scare the odd sheep. It was a warm night so she wasn't going to get hypothermia. Gradually her racing heartbeat slowed.

Tomorrow she would laugh about this.

Despite her determinedly upbeat attitude tomorrow seemed an awful long way away.

She slid the shoes back on her dirty feet and cautiously now continued through the trees heading towards high ground, calculating that from that vantage point she might be able to see where she was.

Despite her efforts to spot landmarks around her, nothing around looked familiar. If I'd been a girl-guide this would have been a different story. Talk about wisdom in retrospect, she thought. The only survival tips she seemed to have picked up involved digging a hole in the snow and wrapping yourself in clingfilm…or was that tinfoil? Well, as she had neither, or for that matter snow, it wasn't terribly helpful.

‘A trail of breadcrumbs is what I need,' she muttered as she gingerly picked her way around a bramble bush. Emerging unscathed the other side, she felt quite pleased until without warning she collided with a large warm body. A warm body that had hands, ones that grabbed her.

Instinct took over and she immediately tried to pull free, struggling frantically against her captor, whose grip lessened momentarily when she released a scream an Irish banshee would have been proud of.

During the short, frantic struggle that followed several of her wild blows and kicks found their target and she had the satisfaction of hearing her assailant grunt in pain more than once.

‘I know karate,' she warned. ‘I don't want to have to hurt you.'

‘Congratulations, you're hiding your reluctance really well so far. Alice,
Madre di Dios
, will you calm down? I'm not going to hurt you.'

A
LICE
froze…She would have recognised that voice amongst a thousand others. In a split second she tumbled headlong from extreme terror and misery into total bliss!

'Luca?'

‘Were you expecting someone else?'

The relief that flooded through her was profound as she collapsed weakly against him. He felt solid and deliciously real. Too real to be a dream.

‘I can't believe…'

For a moment she saw his dark lean face, dappled by moonlight that shone through the leafy canopy overhead, before his mouth came crashing down. With a soft, muffled cry against his lips, she wound her arms around his neck; resistance didn't even enter her head.

There were tears running down her cheeks when he eventually lifted his head. He blotted them gently with the back of his hand.

‘Believe now?' he said, breathing against her cheek.

She might have interpreted his tone as complacent if she hadn't been in a position to know that he was shaking, racking his greyhound-lean frame with fine tremors.

She sighed and cupped her hand around the side of his face. ‘That was quite a hello.'

He turned his face into her hand and kissed the centre of her palm, sending a delicious shiver all the way to her bare toes. ‘I'm known for my hellos.'

‘So that was nothing special?'

His fingers tightened around the delicate bones of her wrist. ‘Very special. I've been thinking about it for a long time. I wasn't sure about how welcome I'd be. But you seemed to be moderately glad to see me?' Luca's attempts to read her expression were frustrated by the shadow that lay over her face.

A plea for reassurance from Luca?

‘Moderately glad, yes,' she agreed with overdue caution. ‘How did you know I was here?'

‘I didn't know, at least not that it was you, but I heard you from half a mile away. I thought you were a particularly noisy poacher.'

‘I'm not a poacher.'

‘That's good. You have no aptitude for it.'

‘I was thinking about you,' she murmured, pressing her face into his chest. The feeling of intense relief was mingled with an overpowering sense of coming home. ‘And you came,' she sighed softly. Nothing had ever sounded as good to her as the thud of his slow, steady heartbeat.

Luca held her as though he'd never let her go.

For several minutes she stood there as he stroked her hair, letting the mellifluous stream of passionate Italian that spilled from him wash over her.

When she finally lifted her head she saw that he was looking strained; his lean face in the moonlight was all stern, strong angles and fascinating shadows. Her breath caught in her throat…
Oh, my God, but he's beautiful!

‘You're really here?' She sighed happily.

‘We'd already established that,
cara
. If we carry on covering old ground we could be here all night.'

‘I just still don't understand how or why…' She looked around the leafy glade. ‘Where is here?'

'You don't know?'

‘I went for a walk; I got lost.'

‘You thought that going for a walk in the middle of the night was a good idea? What the hell were they thinking of,' he snapped, ‘letting you go out? They should have found you by now.'

‘Nobody's looking. I didn't ask permission, Luca, and I doubt if anyone even knows I'm not in bed.'

‘So you could have fallen and broken your leg and nobody would have been any the wiser.' She could hear the anger in his voice as he slid a finger inside the lapel of the borrowed jacket. She shivered as his fingertip slid along her collar-bone.

‘I thought the fresh air would make me sleep. I lost a shoe,' she discovered. ‘They cost a fortune.'

‘Be grateful that's the only thing you lost!' he retorted harshly. ‘When I think—'He broke off and cursed softly when he saw the glint of tears on her cheeks.

‘I was lost,' she revealed plaintively. ‘And scared, so don't shout at me.' With a shiver she cast a scared look over her shoulder. ‘Is it far back to the house?'

Without replying he took her hand and led her to the top of the small rise; below them was the house illuminated by strategically placed spotlights.

‘I thought I was miles away!' she gasped. ‘When all along—'

‘All you had to do was follow your nose,' he interjected, looking amused. ‘And a very beautiful nose it is too.' He kissed the pink tip of her nose.

‘You can laugh, but you were lost too.' Actually Luca wasn't laughing, he was looking at her as if he was committing every detail of her face to memory. Her erratic pulse rate kicked up another notch.

‘Me…?' His deep voice held a dry satirical lilt but he still didn't smile. ‘I swerved to avoid a loose horse and ended up in a ditch.'

The breaths nagged painfully in her throat. Without realising it she grasped his shirt, dislodging in the process the jacket draped around her shoulders.

‘Were you hurt?' Her eyes ran down the lean, taut lines of his body but she could see no obvious signs of injury.

He shook his head. ‘Would you have cared?'

She didn't respond to his soft taunt; the rampant hunger in his eyes was less easy to ignore. ‘You didn't ring. We waited to have dinner.'

‘But not long?'

She conceded the point with a shrug.

‘The old man doesn't like to eat late,' he said drily. ‘I suppose he wasn't happy…?'

‘Actually everyone was pretty happy.' Except me, she wanted to say, but didn't.

‘So nobody missed me?'

‘We managed to muddle through without you.'

‘That's good.'

Alice gave a snort of exasperation and pulled out of his arms. ‘Would you prefer I said that I was worried sick…that I had a
totally
terrible night? If you must know I made a total fool of myself.' She pushed her fingers in her hair and shook her head back and forth in weary disbelief. ‘Your parents think I'm a lunatic.' She arched a brow. ‘Does
that
make you any happier?'

‘Looks like I missed quite a night. Are you hugging that tree?' he asked as she walked over to a large oak and laid her face tiredly against the bark.

It stops me hugging you.

‘Don't worry, you didn't miss that much.' Besides my disintegration into a raving lunatic. ‘You'll be able to catch up on the wedding arrangements; nobody is talking about much else.' In the darkness she couldn't see the colour leave his face.

‘There isn't going to be a damned wedding.'

‘W…what are you talking about? Of course there's going to be a wedding; everyone's so excited.'

‘For God's sake, woman, you promised me you wouldn't do anything!' he groaned.

‘And I haven't.'

‘You call saying you'll marry my brother nothing? You're both insane if you think I'm going to let that happen. You can't settle for second-best. I know you think you'll never feel the way about anyone like you did your husband,' he admitted. ‘And Roman's got this crazy idea he's never going to find love after being dumped. Dad's been getting to him lately, but believe me he's a lot tougher than he looks.'

‘But…Luca…I'm…'

‘I know I behaved like an idiot. I know I messed up big time when I proposed, but the idea of you bringing up a baby alone just…I just couldn't let that happen.'

‘Why were you willing to bring up another man's child?'

‘It wasn't an easy decision to make,' he admitted. ‘But once I realised the important thing was that it was
your
child too, I knew what I had to do,' he explained simply. ‘These last few weeks have been hell. You must have realised half those calls I put through to the office were just so that I could hear your voice.'

‘They were?' she gasped, enchanted by this revelation. ‘You sounded so cold and distant,' he accused.

She pressed her hand to his lips. ‘Stop it, Luca, I'm not marrying Roman.'

‘Damn right you're not,' he growled, kissing her finger.

‘He's got engaged to Scarlet.'

‘Scarlet?'

‘You'll like her,' Alice promised. ‘And Sam.'

‘Who the hell is Sam?'

‘Sam is Roman's son.'

'Dio mio,'
he breathed in a shaken voice. ‘I have missed a lot. I knew you were here, and when Da said on the phone that I was off the hook because according to Mum the chances were Roman was finally about to tie the knot…' He appealed to her. ‘What was I supposed to think?'

‘On past experience, something really stupid. Luca, darling, I'm only crazy about one of the O'Hagan brothers.'

‘I got on the first flight I could,' he revealed in a harsh, driven voice. Alice stood there in the darkness, tears streaming down her face,
feeling
the pain she heard in his voice. ‘When I reached London I rang…you answered and it seemed like my worst fears were confirmed. If only I'd had the guts to come out and tell you how I actually felt.' He stopped abruptly, his lean body stiffening.

‘What did you just say?' he demanded in a raw voice. ‘What did you call me?'

‘
Darling.
Luca, you asked me to marry you once and I said no…'

‘You said more than that,
cara
.' His hand moved to her cheek. ‘You're still crying?'

‘I didn't mean what I said. I was hurt and angry and I've regretted it so many times since,' she admitted.

‘I deserved it,' he said. ‘I suppose you realise by now that Da is in no danger of dropping dead if I don't get married. I was wrong.'

‘You were a manipulative snake.'

He didn't offer any excuses. ‘Listen, I
totally
accept that Mark was an important part of your life,' he told her urgently. ‘But you have to move on…'

‘I have moved on. Luca, will you marry me?'

The silence stretched until Alice, who had been serenely confident about what she was doing moments earlier, started to think she'd made a terrible mistake.

‘What did you say?' His voice was barely recognisable.

‘I said will you marry me, Luca?'

‘Why?'

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and stepped right off the cliff. ‘Because,' she replied in a clear, confident voice, ‘I love you. I love you more than I thought was possible.' The breath whooshed out of her lungs as he enfolded her in a satisfyingly hungry, rib-crushing embrace.

Luca kissed her until she forgot where she began and he ended. While it lasted the rest of the world ceased to exist for Alice.

‘Is that a yes?' she asked shakily when they finally surfaced.

Luca ran a finger down her smooth cheek. ‘What do you think?'

‘I think I'd like to hear you say it.'

‘Yes, of course yes, you idiot woman. And of course I love you, Alice, my first and last true love. Why else would I have done what I did tonight? I mean, what sane man would throw his phone over a hedge when the batteries run low and hike ten miles cross country?'

‘Gracious,' she exclaimed. ‘Is that what you did?'

‘Damn right I did.'

‘You could have got lost.'

‘No. Roman and I know this place like the back of our hands. We used to camp out here—' he gestured towards the sinister-looking craggy peak silhouetted to the north ‘—and fish through the night on the lough.'

‘I can understand your desire to recapture your youthful exploits as a wilderness man but—and I know I'm a tender-foot, but wouldn't it have been easier to go to the nearest house and use the telephone?'

‘Most probably, but you forget you're talking to a man in love here and all I could think about was getting to you.'

‘And now you're here.' She couldn't stop smiling. ‘Luca, there's something I haven't told you…'

‘And what might that be?' he asked lovingly. ‘Is something wrong?' he added, suddenly picking up on her tension.

‘I don't think so and I hope you won't think so either. I didn't tell you before because—'

‘If there was someone else while we were apart I'll understand. It's probably my fault,' he gritted. ‘But I don't want to know any of the details.'

‘Of course there was nobody else!' The cloud lifted from the moon and she saw the intense relief on his strong face. ‘If you must know, I've spent the last few weeks with my head down the toilet.'