Page 33 of A Baby Scandal in Italy

Afterwards he stretched out beside her on the bed and pulled her into his arms. Ivy rested her head on his chest and listened to the gradual slowing of his heart rate.

Rafa brushed his lips over her hair. ‘Happy birthday,piccola.’ And then in a rougher tone, ‘What are you doing to me?’

Rafa was surprised at how easily he slipped into married life when he and Ivy returned to the castle after their honeymoon. One morning a few weeks after the wedding he jogged through the forest until the trees thinned and he emerged into sunlight as he neared the summit of the hill. Behind him were the high peaks of the Apennine mountains, and from his elevated position he looked down on the Castello Dei Sogni.

He frowned as he remembered the legend of the man who had hidden away in the fortress so that love could not find him. In the summer sunshine, the castle’s grey walls looked less forbidding. Perhaps even the strongest barricades had weak points and vulnerable areas where a slender girl with golden hair and Bambi eyes could enter stealthily and steal the heart of the castle’s foolish owner.

He shook his head, amused by his fanciful ideas. He was not a fool, and his heart was safe, Rafa reassured himself. Admittedly, his marriage to Ivy was better than he could have envisaged. The sex was spectacular, and he couldn’t get enough of her. But the truth was that what he felt for her was more than a physical response to their extraordinary chemistry.

What he felt for her.He was in dangerous territory, he brooded. But, the more time he spent with Ivy, the more he liked her. She confounded him daily. Her kindness and compassion were evident in everything she did, which was why his study was currently a feline nursery after the stray cat Ivy had rescued had given birth to her kittens beneath his desk.

Rafa grimaced. Jasmine, the cat from hell, clearly had a personal vendetta against him and dug her claws into his ankles every time he stretched his legs out under his desk. But Ivy adored the cat and her six kittens, so he did not complain when he threw away another pair of ripped socks.

He raked his hand through his hair as he remembered more of Ivy’s delightful traits. She was funny, and he had laughed more in the past month during which she had been his wife than he’d done in a lifetime. His childhood hadn’t been the happiest of times, Rafa conceded. His mother had always been distracted by her grief, and his father had put work above family. The occasional hiking trips to the mountains had been the times he’d felt closest to his father.

Now there was another Vieri heir. He’d never wanted to have a child of his own, but it was impossible not to love Bertie. Sometimes Rafa woke in the night with the thought that, if Ivy had disappeared back to England with the baby, he would never have known about his half-brother. But Ivy must have spoken to the journalist, who had then reported the facts of the story incorrectly. Rafa had married her to prevent the media and his mother from discovering the true identity of Bertie’s father.

He always came back to Ivy’s involvement in the newspaper story, and it was the reason he could not trust her. But did it matter? Rafa asked himself as he jogged back to the castle. Ivy was unaware that he had some doubts about her, and his misgivings reminded him as to why he should not be tempted to lower his barricades and allow her close.

He headed straight into the shower and then to his dressing room, to prepare for a dinner party they were hosting for some of his friends and their wives, who had quickly become Ivy’s friends. It seemed everyone was drawn to her warmth and sparkle.

When Rafa walked into the bedroom, his breath left his lungs in a rush as Ivy did a twirl in front of him.

‘You look stunning,’ he said huskily. He heard the hunger in his voice, the rough note of need.Dio, when had he started to need Ivy? When hadn’t he needed her? questioned a voice inside him.

Her gown was navy-blue silk overlaid with chiffon and embellished with tiny crystals that also adorned the narrow shoulder straps. The low-cut bodice did not allow her to wear a bra, and Rafa wished he could slide the straps down her arms and slowly bare her breasts with their rosy nipples that he loved to feast on.

He took a velvet box from his jacket pocket. ‘This will be perfect to wear with your dress,’ he said, opening the lid to reveal a delicate necklace of white diamonds, and a larger yellow diamond that matched the one on her engagement ring.

‘Oh, Rafa, it’s beautiful. But you shouldn’t keep buying me things.’

‘Why not?’ He liked spoiling her and seeing her face light up when he gave her gifts. She had been as appreciative of the bunch of flowers he’d bought for her from a market stall in L’Aquila, on one of their regular visits to the historic town, as she was of an expensive necklace. Her guilelessness was genuine, which increasingly made him wonder if hecouldtrust her.

He fastened the necklace around her throat and traced his finger over the yellow diamond nestling between her breasts. ‘I’m glad you like it. I had it designed especially for you.’

‘I love it.’ Her smile was brighter than the most dazzling diamond. ‘I wish I had something to give you.’

Rafa pressed his lips to the side of her neck so that she did not see his expression in the mirror. He was stunned to realise that Ivy’s sweetness, and her laughter that filled the castle and filled him, were the only gifts he wanted. ‘I will look forward to making love to you tonight when you are wearing only the diamond necklace,’ he murmured, fascinated by the soft pink stain that spread over her cheeks.

It amazed him that she could still blush after he had kissed every centimetre of her delectable body. But the pink stain on her cheeks quickly faded, and during the dinner party he noticed that Ivy was paler than usual. The party was a great success with excellent food, fine wine and the company of good friends. When the last guests had departed, and Arturo had locked the castle doors, Rafa found Ivy had fallen asleep on the sofa in the snug.

‘Perhaps I’m coming down with a virus,’ she said, yawning as he lifted her into his arms and carried her upstairs. ‘I’m so tired.’ Her lashes lifted and the gold flecks in her brown eyes were as bright as flames. ‘But nottootired,’ she said suggestively. ‘I’ve never had sex while adorned with diamonds.’

‘You have never had sex with any other man but me.’ Possessiveness swept through him. She was his. Ivy’s blonde head drooped onto his shoulder, and she did not stir when Rafa carried her into the bedroom, undressed her and returned the necklace to its box.

He pulled the bed covers over her and was struck by how fragile she looked. She had been pale and unusually tired for a few days, and Anna had confided to him that Ivy had experienced dizzy spells recently. It was probably nothing to worry about, he told himself, trying to shrug off a sense of foreboding. Ivy had overcome cancer as a teenager and there would be no harm in persuading her to have a check-up with a doctor.

Ivy opened her eyes and focused blearily on the clock on the bedside table. It must be wrong. It couldn’t be ten a.m. But her watch showed that she had slept until late. She sat up carefully and was relieved that she didn’t feel nauseous, as she had the past few mornings.

She had tried to convince herself that feeling tired was to be expected when Rafa made love to her at least once every night. But her symptoms reminded her of how she’d felt as a teenager when she had been diagnosed with blood cancer. Of course it wasn’t that—she was being over imaginative—but experience had taught her that life was unpredictable and happiness was precarious.

She hurried to the nursery, feeling guilty that she’d left Anna to take care of Bertie. Rafa must have left the castle hours ago. He had told her that he had an early-morning meeting at his office in Rome.

Bertie grinned when he saw her, showing off his first tooth. ‘I hope he wasn’t too restless during the night,’ she said when she took him from the nanny.

‘I think you should worry less about Bertie and more about yourself.’ Anna gave her a concerned look. ‘You have felt unwell for a few days.’

‘I’m fine.’ But she wasn’t fine. Ivy gasped and handed Bertie to Anna before she ran into the bathroom just in time to be violently sick. Eventually it passed and she sat shivering on the edge of the bath. Fear gripped her. Suppose the leukaemia had come back? She blinked back tears as she imagined Bertie growing up without her.

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