burned the backs of her eyes and she blinked fiercely. ‘I was lying when I said I thought about him when I was with you.’
Angelo loosed an uncertain laugh. ‘Now she tells me. You put me through hell.’
‘I couldn’t help it.’
‘You kept on dumping me, but if you give me the chance I’ll spend the rest of my life making you happy.’
Gwenna studied him fixedly. ‘Seriously?’ she enquired a tad shrilly, for she was very much afraid of misinterpreting what he was saying.
Without batting an eyelash, Angelo got down gracefully on one knee. ‘Will you marry me?’
Gwenna was so astonished that she couldn’t find her voice at first. He was asking her to marry him. He was asking her to marry him! Her Delft-blue eyes shone. She struggled to think of all the questions she should ask before coming to a decision and then decided not to bother, because there was absolutely no doubt in her mind about what her answer had to be. ‘Yes…’
Angelo sprang upright, surprised at the speed of her response but content not to question it. ‘Does that mean you forgive me?’
‘Not necessarily…but I will marry you.’ Gwenna discovered that her teeth were chattering with shock.
‘Okay,’ Angelo pronounced, wondering if that dazed look was positive or negative, and then remembering what he had not yet said. ‘I love you…I love you a lot, amata mia.’
Dazzled by the enormous sapphire and diamond ring he’d placed on her finger as he confessed his love, Gwenna lifted startled eyes to his lean, darkly handsome face. ‘You don’t have to say that if you don’t mean it.’
Angelo strode forward and caught both her hands in his. Intense tawny eyes claimed hers in a look as possessive and urgent as his hold. ‘I can’t sleep at night without you. When you left Sardinia I thought my life was over. I’ve been in love with you for weeks and weeks without realising it…I really need you to be with me…for ever. ‘
Overwhelmed, Gwenna nodded several times and squeezed his fingers and whispered fervently, ‘I love you too…’
‘What about Toby?’ Angelo enquired with forced lightness of tone.
‘I think I was just really scared of falling in love,’ she confessed with an embarrassed grimace. ‘It wrecked my mother’s life, and Dad has a dreadful track record. Perhaps believing that I still loved Toby when I couldn’t have him made me feel safe—’
‘So, you’re over him?’ Angelo checked, not quite sure what he was being told, but hauling her up against his hard, muscular length just the same. ‘Like, totally over him?’
‘I love him as a friend…You know, I never did fancy him the way I fancied you.’ Gwenna dropped that news in a self-conscious whisper. ‘There’s times when I can’t wait to rip your clothes off.’
‘I know the feeling, amata mia,’ Angelo agreed raggedly, long, tanned fingers skimming through the layers of her jacket and her T-shirt to find the smooth skin of her slender waist.
Gloriously happy and quivering with the hot pulse of excitement that he always aroused, Gwenna wrapped her arms round him. ‘I’m all muddy,’ she muttered apologetically.
‘I’m not fussy,’ Angelo confessed, covering her luscious pink mouth with his, and groaning with sensual satisfaction when she responded with the abandoned enthusiasm that had made him her biggest fan.
From the gallery above the classic Regency hall of the Massey Manor, Angelo watched with amusement as the assembled members of the press tried without success to catch a photo of Gwenna either standing still or even looking in their direction. Having posed earlier that day to mark the official opening of the gardens, she had had quite enough of the cameras.
A glittering charity benefit in aid of a children’s hospice was being staged in their exquisitely restored English country home. In fact, a whole busy calendar of such events had been organised by the Rialto Foundation, the charitable trust established with Carmelo Zanetti’s legacy. Angelo and Gwenna were giving as much time as possible to the foundation and it had been well supported by the media, who had been well impressed by Angelo’s surrender of that amount of money.
Angelo thought that Gwenna was looking ravishingly beautiful in her pale blue evening dress, with sapphires and diamonds flashing at her throat and ears. He was very proud of his wife. In two years of marriage she had overseen the restoration of both house and gardens, travelled all over the world with him and acquired the name of being a wonderfully laid-back hostess. She also wrote a regular gardening column in a Sunday newspaper. He was the envy of many men.
But the greatest gift that Gwenna had given him apart from herself and her love was the lively little bundle Angelo was cradling against his shoulder. She had been christened Alice Fiorella Massey Riccardi, a giant moniker for a tiny baby. Six months on, they called her Ella. Angelo had been totally unprepared for the instantaneous attachment he had experienced the first time his daughter was placed in his arms. Piglet trotting at his heels—for Piglet did not like large crowds—Angelo took Ella back to her nanny in the nursery and laid her down in her cot. It was time to go downstairs and escort Gwenna onto the floor in the ballroom for the first dance.
‘It’s been a long day. I can’t wait to have you all to myself, amata mia,’ Angelo confided as he closed his arms round her.
A delightful quiver of anticipation rippled through Gwenna’s slight frame. He was so demanding, she thought blissfully. She knew she was a very lucky woman. Whirled round the floor below the magnificent Venetian glass chandeliers, she nestled closer to her husband’s lean, powerful body. It was a wonderful evening.
After she had said goodbye to the last of their guests she shooed Piglet out of the dining room. ‘You’re getting fat,’ she scolded, lifting him away from the plate of cake he had discovered lying beneath a chair. The little animal was assuming an even more barrel-like shape.
She went upstairs and checked on Ella, beaming down at her darling rosy-cheeked daughter with her riot of black curls. She had to admit that her pregnancy had come as a surprise. In fact Angelo had been teasing her about her weight gain long before it had dawned on either of them that an impromptu bout of outdoor lovemaking during the previous summer had borne fruit. But they had found Ella so much fun that they were planning to have another baby quite soon so that their daughter would have a playmate.
Gwenna felt that life had been exceedingly kind to her. She was busy and fulfilled and not even her problem father had managed to put a check on the great joy of her marriage. Admittedly, Donald Hamilton had proved to be an ongoing source of concern. His second marriage had broken up in a welter of acrimony. Forced to live in reduced circumstances and shunned by former friends, the older man had drowned his sorrows in alcohol. Gwenna had tried her best to help but to no avail. She had been very pleasantly surprised when Angelo had taken the trouble to intervene and succeeded where she had failed. Within weeks, Donald Hamilton had been attending regular AA meetings in clean, smart clothes, and last month he had started his new job: advising on how to detect fraud within Rialto.
‘He’ll have no access to money and he’ll be watched like a fox in a hen coop. His boss is an ex-policeman,’ Angelo had assured her when she’d voiced the fear that the temptation might prove too much for her parent. ‘I believe your father has already come up with some useful
