Page 35 of His Royal Bride Replacement

‘You sent the flowers that keep on changing in our sitting room?’ Rosy paled in dismay. ‘I never looked for a card. I just thought it was the staff ensuring fresh flowers in there for us. I’m really sorry Ididn’tnotice.’

‘Being calm and practical is fabulous for being a queen,’ Alessio told her as he herded her into their bedroom, where champagne on ice and chocolate-covered treats appeared to be awaiting them, making her brow furrow. ‘But when you’re a wife and you have a husband trying to tell you that he’s hopelessly in love with you, it’s not so good,piccolavolpe…’

‘Hopelessly in love with me?’ Rosy parroted in sheer shock at that announcement. ‘Since when?’

‘I think it started the day you crashed your bike, because I couldn’t take my eyes off you. I was enthralled the whole time I was with you but trying to keep my distance because I was supposed to be getting married,’ Alessio explained. ‘I accept that I’m not great at the frills when it comes to telling you that I love you, but I’ve never told a woman I love her before and you’re so…silent.’

‘Because I love you too,’ Rosy finally piped up in a belated rush. ‘And I was silent because I was shocked. I honestly didn’t think you had those kinds of feelings for me. I thought I was just the replacement bride, the substitute for Graziana.’

‘In bed as well?’ Alessio quipped. ‘Surely not?’

‘That’s sex, that doesn’t count,’ Rosy argued.

‘Don’t be naïve. Love and sex are an unbeatable combination in a healthy relationship.’ Alessio eased her up against him and kissed her with passionate hunger and she shivered against his lean, muscular body, thought becoming a distant impossibility. ‘And we have both because we attract each other like magnets…and you love me. To paraphrase you, when did that happen?’

‘Oh, just along the way somewhere. I got attached. I tried not to but the more time I spent with you, the more it crept up on me.’

‘You’re making falling in love sound like a distinctly disturbing experience.’ Alessio laughed. ‘But I’m still crazy about you. I got it wrong on our wedding night but I must have got some things right.’

‘You got an awful lot of things right,’ Rosy whispered, her hands reaching up to frame his high cheekbones so that their eyes met, his bright and unusually vulnerable, hers steady and warm with approbation. ‘But I’m not about to tell you them all and swell your ego.’

‘That’s mean,’ Alessio complained, tugging her down on the bed and uncorking the champagne to send it foaming down into the waiting flutes before slotting one into her hand.

Bubbles tickled her nose as she sipped from the glass and reached out to try one of the dainty chocolate-dipped fruit treats on the silver salver in front of her. ‘I don’t think you have a mean bone in your entire body,’ she told him.

Her conscience was twanging because she knew she was holding back on him and that wasn’t fair. He had told her that he loved her and she had been so astonished at that announcement, she had simply stared at him. He had had the courage she lacked. ‘You’re loyal, protective, kind, thoughtful, entertaining, honest…at least, when you’re not keeping quiet about stuff in the unnecessary belief that you’re protecting me.’

* * *

‘It’s fundamental to me to protect you any way I can from anything that could harm you,’ he objected.

‘I’m strong, Alessio. I can handle all kinds of unpleasant truths. I mean, there’s really nothing that you don’t have going for you in the lovability stakes. How can I possibly be the first woman you’ve told that you loved her? What about that harpy who slept with your father?’

‘I hadn’t got around to telling her that I believed that I loved her. I’m not sure now that I ever did. I didn’t experience any desire to run around taking care of her as if she were breakable…as I do with you.’

‘I bet if she’d known you were thinking it was love, she’d never have got with your father,’ Rosy opined with newly learned cynicism.

Alessio swiped her champagne flute from her and the chocolate treats, ignoring her little whimper of disappointment. ‘We’re not talking about that tonight. Tonight is for us and nothing else. Let’s not waste any of it discussing my youthful mistakes.’

‘I can’t believe you love me,’ she admitted unevenly. ‘It feels too good to be true.’

Alessio continued to strip off his suit and hauled his shirt over his head, exposing every mouth-watering inch of his muscular torso. Her heartbeat pounded and she wriggled out of her dress, cast it aside, treating her wispy silk underwear with a similar lack of care. He came down over her, all sleek dark predatory male, primed for action, and her mouth ran dry. ‘Believe it,’ he urged thickly. ‘I amneverletting you go. I’m not a changeable person,piccolavolpe.I never wanted to keep one particular woman before and the emotions involved are much stronger than I realised they’d be.’

‘Are they?’ As he slowly lowered his big body down on hers, every skin cell in her body was flaring alive with sensual energy and with the connection she had only ever felt with him. He loves me, she thought in awe and intense relief. He had deserved to be loved. Trusting him and giving him that chance to prove himself worthy had been the biggest emotional risk she had ever taken but had also brought her the most magnificent reward.

‘Yes, you’ve noticed that I’m not always reasonable where you’re concerned. I’m possessive, territorial. I would be jealous if you so much as looked at another man.’

‘No chance of that,’ Rosy scoffed tenderly as he looked down at her with burning adoration in his jewelled gaze, her fingers skimming appreciatively across the smooth hot skin of his wide shoulders. ‘You’re it for me. I’m here for the long haul.’

‘I was worried that you would think it would be too soon to tell you how I felt but I didn’t want to keep it a secret.’

‘And you got a dog-sitter lined up for Clover so that she doesn’t come whining and scratching at our bedroom door and you ordered champagne and strawberries.’

‘I wanted to make more of an occasion of it but you get embarrassed if I make extravagant gestures.’

‘You can’t buy a vet a new clinic just because she looked after Clover for a week and a bit—other people just pay the bill,’ she pointed out gently.

‘It was for you. You were so impressed with all the rescue work she did for free. Some people deserve that you go that extra mile…and I may not have mentioned it, but sheisgetting that new clinic. It’s not extravagant. She runs a charity and it’s a tax write-off,’ Alessio informed her with just a hint of one-upmanship.

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