Skye buried her head in his shoulder, loving the smell of his skin and his hair, feeling like the luckiest woman in the world. He shifted lithely against her, acquainting her with his arousal, and excitement kindled. His lips connected with hers and the slow burn began in her pelvis, making her strain into even closer connection. And for a long time, there was mostly silence broken only by occasional gasps and sighs and mutterings until they both lay replete in each other’s arms.
‘I’ll love you as long as I live,’ Enzo swore hoarsely.
‘So you have to live for ever.’ Skye felt ecstatically happy for the first time ever, awash with emotion and hazy wonderful dreams of the future.
‘Possibly a baby in a year or two?’
‘Oh, definitely. Haven’t Brodie and Shona turned you off in the slightest?’
‘No, they taught me that I love having a family. We may move to Italy once the adoptions are finalised, but it’s not set in stone,’ Enzo murmured lazily. ‘We’ll see how we both feel when the time comes.’
EPILOGUE
SIXYEARSLATER, Skye twirled in front of the mirror in their bedroom. She had teamed a flimsy flirty skirt and a corset-type top in pale purple with sheer stockings and very high heels. It was Enzo’s thirty-third birthday weekend. The evening before they had partied half the night away in an exclusive Roman club with their friends. But tonight, they were having a dinner party solely for two and she had given their staff the night off.
Donning a robe to cover the outfit because she didn’t want the children asking tricky questions, she went to check on them. They lived in Tuscany in the midst of beautiful rolling countryside only a couple of miles from Enzo’s grandparents and all the facilities of the town. Their home was an architect-designed contemporary house that was extremely spacious and comfortable. As soon as the adoption was granted, they had moved to Italy. Skye had wanted Brodie to have the time to become acclimatised to a new home and a new language before he started school. It had worked a treat because the children had initially picked up Italian much more easily than Skye, although she had since caught up.
Enzo had moved the headquarters of the Durante Group to Florence and now based himself there. That year when he had first become involved in running his vast inheritance had been a very busy one, incorporating loads of travel as Enzo acquainted himself with the different sections of the business. For a little while she had worried that he would turn into a workaholic, but her multiple pregnancy had immediately centred Enzo’s interest on staying closer to home and spending time with the children they already had before the challenging birth of another three babies.
Luka and Gaetano looked at her with identical Enzo-style grins and abandoned their Lego fight to climb into bed without even being told. She tucked them in. They had madly curly black hair and Enzo’s eyes and they were four years old. Next door their sister, Gianna, was already cuddled up with half her cuddly-toy collection in her princess bed. Gianna had green eyes like Alana and straight black hair she liked to wear in braids.
When Skye and Enzo had finally decided to try for a baby, they had assumed it would take a while for her to conceive. In fact, it had happened within weeks and they had both sunk deep into shock when they’d learned that Skye was carrying triplets. The pregnancy had been trying and the triplets had arrived early by C-section and now, with Brodie pushing nine and Shona seven years old, they had agreed that their family was complete.
Brodie was reading in bed. Brodie was always reading and quite the swot at school. ‘I’m nearly finished, Mum,’ he mumbled absently, barely looking at her.
Her little brother had asked her and Enzo if he could call them Mum and Dad after he started school. He understood that he was Skye’s brother and he knew all about his late parents but, like many children, he didn’t want to be different from his peers.
Resisting the urge to laugh at his uninterest, Skye went in to see Shona, who was a very pretty little girl but a complete tomboy, who modelled her wardrobe on her brothers. ‘Is Dad home yet?’ she asked sleepily.
‘Not yet.’
Removing the robe and giving herself a last check in the mirror, Skye was heading downstairs when she heard Enzo’s car and she smiled. Enzo strode through the door, complaining about roadworks and hold-ups while fending off Sparky’s bouncy enthusiasm. Age had yet to slow Sparky down. ‘Dinner awaits,’ she told him.
As she served his favourite meal, which his grandmother had taught her how to cook, she was thinking about how happy she was. They saw a lot of Eduardo and Sophie Martelli, who had become as much Skye’s family as they were Enzo’s. Her relationship with Enzo and her self-esteem had gone from strength to strength after Ritchie had been found guilty and imprisoned. Once the arson attack, his part in it and his photograph had appeared in the newspapers, a couple of women had come forward to identify him to the police for assaulting them. But before those charges could even come to court, Ritchie had been killed in a prison riot.
Skye hadn’t wished her ex-boyfriend dead, yet there was no denying that knowing he was no longer around gave her a certain sense of relief because she was convinced that while they were getting married in Italy, in an attempt to kill or seriously injure Enzo, Ritchie had cut the brake line on the SUV that had crashed. Regrettably, however, the police had been unable to find enough evidence to charge him with that crime.
‘That’s some outfit,’ Enzo commented as their wine was poured, wondering what she was up to because Skye generally wore classic fashion and there was nothing conservative about what she was wearing. The provocative garments clung to her every delicate curve and showed off her shapely legs. He settled back to enjoy his meal, dark eyes lingering on her with appreciation. Skye always liked to keep him guessing.
‘If only you knew,’ Skye teased with a secretive smile.
‘When do I get my surprise?’
‘After dinner when we go upstairs.’
Anticipation infiltrated Enzo and he ate fast. He had never stopped being grateful for having met Skye and her siblings in his twenty-seventh year. She had turned his life around, smoothed his reconciliation with his grandparents and given him five fabulous children. He knew he had been rewarded five times over for stopping to help her that night on the road.
‘Go lie on the bed. Get comfortable,’ Skye instructed him tautly as she locked the bedroom door behind her.
He raised a brow, removed his jacket, tie and shoes and reclined back in relaxed mode against the carved headboard.
‘If you laugh, I’ll kill you,’ she warned him anxiously before disappearing into her spacious dressing room. Music sounded, and it wasn’t her usual style either. ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’ by Def Leppard filled the room with a loud, raunchy rock beat.
And then Skye reappeared and began to dance, a little jerkily at first because she was visibly nervous. She needn’t have worried because Enzo was transfixed from her first movement. It was the very last thing he had expected. In fact, he had been expecting her to produce another present from the dressing room. His jaw almost dropped when she tugged at her top and it detached from her body and went flying off. It was a specially made stripper outfit, he realised as the pouting curves he adored were bared, revealing glittery pink nipple pasties with tassels attached. He adored the surprise because Skye, being naturally shy about her body, had moved out of her comfort zone purely forhisbenefit.
As the music clicked off, Skye was in the act of crawling across the bed and he grinned at her, loving her so much in that moment for the anxious light in her eyes.
‘Best present ever,’ Enzo growled, lifting her up onto him, shamelessly acquainting her with the hard, urgent thrust of his arousal.