Page 44 of The Italian's Marriage Bargain

‘Because making love and having sex are two different things.’

His simple explanation halted her; his summing up of the magic they had once shared took some of the fight out of her response, allowing him a small window to continue.

‘Anna has done so much damage, told so many lies. If there is to be any hope for the three of us we must ignore every last vile thing she has said. We must—’

‘Two of us,’ Felicity choked. Correcting Luca was second nature, but his inadvertent slip seemed rather insensitive, and her tears seemed to be coming back for an encore.

‘The three of us.’ Luca sat back down, his eyes never leaving her, one strong, warm hand moving so very gently down to her tender bruised stomach below the starched white blanket. Its warmth, its quiet strength didn’t cause the pain she’d anticipated. Instead came a sense of security and support, and the muscles that had tensed as he’d moved relaxed under his hand, moulded into the soft comfort of his touch.

‘It’s too soon, Luca,’ Felicity sobbed. ‘Too soon to be making promises we can’t keep. Too soon to be talking about other babies when all I want is this one.’

‘It is all I want too.’

His hand was still on her stomach, gentle, protective and infinitely safe, and as a small smile rose on his face, more breathtaking than the morning sun rising over Moserallo, the bleeping of her heart-rate on the monitor picked up. Somewhere deep inside hope flared, a tiny fluttering, stretching its wings, as Luca softly spoke.

‘What do you think is wrong with you, Felice?’

‘A miscarriage.’ She struggled with the word, struggled with the images so hazy in her mind. ‘When I came in the doctor said…’ Her mind searched its recesses, dragging the painful memory to the fore.“Gravidanza ectopica probabile.”I didn’t need a translation dictionary to work out that it was an ectopic pregnancy, that my tube had ruptured. I signed the consent form…’

‘Probabile.’He was smiling so widely she almost joined him, almost dared to believe that Luca really could do everything—Luca really could put this right. ‘It means probably,’ he said softly. ‘The one little word that is every doctor’s escape clause. Only in this case they were only too happy to be proved wrong. You had a ruptured appendix, Felice. Yes you were sick. Yes, we have been worried about you and the baby, of course, but that was all it was. The baby is safe.’

He knew what she’d been through, understood that her doubt in no way reflected on her love for him, understood that the rivers of her pain ran deep, and that sometimes his word simply wouldn’t be quite enough.

‘Wait there,’ he whispered, kissing her softly on the cheek.

‘I don’t exactly have much choice.’

He was back in a moment, back with the nurse, who smiled kindly and gently lifted her gown, squirting jelly onto her stomach as Luca held her hand.

‘Now do you believe me?’

She would have answered, would have said yes, but tears were streaming unchecked now as one shaking hand touched the screen, trying somehow to capture the future, all her hopes and dreams, right there before her eyes.

‘It’s so tiny,’ Luca said gruffly, and there was a definite catch in his throat as he stared in wonder at the monitor.

“‘From little acorns…’” Glancing across the pillow, she stared at his profile, stared at the man who loved her gazing upon the child they would love together.

Come whatever.

EPILOGUE

‘JO’Sgetting very spoilt.’

As they ambled along, their hands entwined, the early-evening sun casting an amber glow around them, catching the sprinklers jetting in to life and watering the lush green golf course, Felicity was grateful to the glare for the excuse to wear her sunglasses and hide the inevitable tears that came each and every time they left Australia. Not that she was complaining—Luca didn’t turn a hair whenever a wave of homesickness hit, and the air path between Italy and Australia was a rather frayed carpet.

‘I don’t think you can spoil a six-month-old.’ Felicity smiled. ‘Dad’s just enjoying having him around.’ Luca’s hand tightened around hers and she squeezed it back gratefully.

‘I wish I wasn’t so badly handicapped.’ Luca sighed. ‘Your dad just laughed at me when I said that, but I’m going to work on it. I’m going to improve my game if it’s the last thing I do.’

She didn’t even bother to correct him, but a smile chased away her threatening tears at the image of Luca and her father on the golf course. Richard, a true-blue Aussie in every sense of the word, still scratched his head in bemusement at some of Luca’s odd ways. Still,gnocchiwith carbonara sauce Santanno-style was proving a big hit on the menu, and it was nice to see Richard smiling again after so many difficult years—getting to know his son-in-law over a game of golf, and bypassing beer for a glass of good Italian red and chatting long into the night about football and golf and all the things men strangely held so dear.

‘You know, after Joseph died I never thought my parents would be happy again—I mean really happy. Content was the best I could hope for. But seeing them with Jo…’

‘They’re happy,’ Luca said softly. ‘Of course there will always be sadness there, always be a big piece of their lives missing, but Jo has been a gift in so many more ways than we could ever have imagined.’

He was right, of course. The purgatory of morning sickness had seemingly been left behind with her appendix, and Felicity had enjoyed the final six months of her pregnancy being spoiled, loved and adored by her doting husband. Jo had burst into their lives two weeks late after a trouble-free labour, and had been making up for lost time ever since—smiling at the world, charming everyone who came near with his dribbling smile and mass of dark curls, his dark, dimpled olive skin and eyes that melted even the hardest heart.

‘Let’s meet the neighbours.’

---