to a spectacular sapphire ring surrounded by diamonds. Removing it from the box, he lifted her hand and slid it onto her engagement finger. ‘If you don’t like it, we can choose something else.’
‘No...it’s beautiful,’ Jemima whispered dizzily. ‘Where did you get it from? I mean, we only arrived...’
‘It belonged to my mother’s family...and no, before you ask, it never belonged to Gigi,’ he assured her.
Smiles had broken out all around them. Several solemn toasts were made. Luciano seemed taken aback by the warmth of the good wishes offered. Jemima drank her wine and watched the sunlight glitter off her amazing ring while wondering with a little frisson of excitement if Luciano would be sharing a bed with her again that night.
‘Why did Gigi never wear this ring?’ she asked baldly.
‘It wasn’t flashy enough for her. She only wore diamonds.’
It was the first time he had voluntarily mentioned his first wife. Jemima supposed that in time she would learn more but she could tell by his tension that, although he was trying hard to be more open with her, it was a tender subject and he was struggling. So much had already changed between them but the biggest alteration in Luciano’s attitude had occurred as soon as he’d realised that she wasn’t her twin sister, Julie. The awareness that he had fought any attraction to her before he’d known her true identity soothed Jemima’s concerns. Luciano was willing to overlook her lies because he respected her attachment to Nicky and her principles. In other words, what was important to her was equally important to him.
‘So, when will we be getting married?’ she asked as Luciano tucked her into the elegant sports car outside.
‘As soon as possible. Draw up a guest list of friends and family.’ Curling black lashes shaded Luciano’s gaze, his wide sensual mouth relaxed. ‘My staff will take care of all the arrangements. We’ll have the wedding here.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Here in Sicily?’
‘I don’t think it would be a good idea to trail Niccolò back to the UK again,’ Luciano commented with a frown. ‘You would have to stay somewhere where my security people could look after you both because when word of our relationship breaks in the media you will both be a paparazzi target. It will be easier if you remain here on the island, where your privacy can be assured.’
Jemima tried to absorb the realities of her new life and slowly shook her head in bemusement because she could not even begin to imagine being a target for the paparazzi. But, more importantly, a further change of climate and yet another selection of strange faces would not benefit Nicky either, she conceded ruefully. If Castello del Drogo was to be the little boy’s permanent home, he should be allowed to settle into his new surroundings without the stress of having to adapt to any additional challenges.
‘I have a tour of Asia scheduled and, as I’ll be away for a couple of weeks, I suggest that you invite your family out to keep you company until the wedding,’ Luciano remarked, disconcerting her.
He was leaving her. Jemima refused to betray any reaction. Obviously he would travel on business and such temporary separations would be part of their lives. She had never been the clingy type. She was independent and self-sufficient, she reminded herself doggedly. Wanting to climb into his suitcase with Nicky was just plain stupid.
‘I’m surprised you’re prepared to leave Nicky so soon,’ she admitted.
‘When the tour of my holdings was organised, actually finding my son still seemed like a fantasy,’ he confided ruefully. ‘Now that I have found him I have no intention of being an absent parent. Once I’m home again I’ll be spending a lot of time with him.’
They returned to the castello. ‘What made you buy this place?’ Jemima asked curiously. ‘Was it purely for the private setting?’
‘I didn’t buy it. I inherited it. It belonged to my mother’s family. She grew up here.’ His lean bronzed face shadowed.
‘Did you stay here when you were a child?’
‘No. My mother never returned after she married my father. He first saw her playing on the beach down there as a teenager,’ Luciano told her, tight-mouthed. ‘When I was older he called it love at first sight. I would call it lust...’
Like what Luciano had felt on first seeing Jemima? Jemima wondered ruefully. An instant attraction, similar to what she herself had felt, so how could she look down on that?
‘How did they get together?’ she prompted.
‘In a decent world they would never have got together. He was a murderer, a thief, a gangster,’ Luciano declared without any expression. ‘She was the adored only child of a titled, educated man. But that man gambled and got into debt and my father bought his debt and soon my father owned him. My father wrote off the debt in return for my mother’s hand in marriage...’
‘My goodness,’ Jemima said sickly. ‘What did she have to say about it?’
‘She loved her father and she did what she had to do to save him from the shame of bankruptcy,’ Luciano revealed. ‘I can’t imagine she was happy about the price she had to pay. She married a brutal man.’
Jemima heard the chill in his dark-timbred voice and decided it was definitely time to change the subject. He didn’t want to talk about his parents’ marriage and in the circumstances that was hardly surprising. As she recalled, his mother had died when he was only three years old and it was unlikely that he remembered much about the beautiful brunette in the portrait on the stairs. It was something they had in common and she commented on the fact.
Luciano turned frowning eyes on her.
‘Have you forgotten that I was adopted? I don’t remember anything about my birth parents but what I do know now, thanks to Julie’s research, is that there’s nothing there to be proud of. Our birth mum was a drug addict and I’ll never know who our father was.’
The grim edge stamped round his beautiful mouth eased. ‘Ignorance could be bliss.’
‘Leave it in the past where it belongs,’ she urged, closing her hand round his. ‘We’re not responsible for what our parents did, nor do we have to resemble them.’
Luciano smiled at her simplistic advice and her unsubtle attempt to offer him comfort. He didn’t need comfort. He knew who he was and where he had come from and what he had to avoid to achieve a reasonably happy and successful life. Caring too much about anything, be that women, work or money, was what he had surrendered to embrace peace of mind.
Nicky was surfacing from a nap when they entered the nursery and he held out his arms to Jemima with a huge smile. She hauled him up and turned to Luciano with a grin, wanting to include him, wanting to encourage father and son to get to know each other properly. ‘Let’s take him down to the beach. He’s never seen the sea.’
She changed into her serviceable and rather faded blue racer-back swimsuit, unable to face the challenge of modelling one of the daring ‘barely there’ bikini sets in her new wardrobe. Luciano joined her in swim shorts, lifting a delighted Nicky high and smiling with satisfaction when the little boy laughed. She watched the long, lithe line of his muscled back flex as he tucked Nicky securely below one arm and strode downstairs. Not an ounce of fat clung to his well-built physique and it showed in his narrow waist and lean hips.
A
