Happy Mother's Day!

‘And two people looking after a baby is easier than one on their own,’ he continued softly.

Had he noticed her awkwardness around Claudio, then? Did he think her incapable of being left to care for a baby? But that was a question she dared not ask, and so she stuck to one she did. ‘And just where do you propose we live?’

Gianluca narrowed his dark eyes. ‘There is only one place for us to live,’ he said softly. ‘And that is in Italy.’ ‘Gianluca—’

‘You think I will tolerate Claudio being brought up in cramped conditions in London when he can have all the space he needs in rural Umbria—with the freshest air in the world for his little lungs?’ he demanded. ‘I have a large house in the Umbrian hills with enough staff to provide you both with every comfort you desire.’

‘But my independence?’ Aisling ventured and saw his mouth twist with derision as she recognised that it was the wrong word to use. She wanted to explain that she felt frightened—as if she were submerging her own identity in a sea of other people’s expectations—but she saw the repressive look in his black eyes and knew that he wasn’t interested in her needs. And why should he be? It was his son and only his son which mattered to Gianluca.

‘Is there no other solution?’ she asked weakly, realising that her normal strength and resilience had been sapped by birth and circumstances. And didn’t the thought of being taken care of for the first time in her life have an appeal she couldn’t deny?

‘You are on maternity leave,’ pointed out Gianluca smoothly. ‘So what is there to keep you and Claudio in England right now? You have already told me that you have no family.’

He made her sound as disposable as a paper handkerchief! She stared at him, aware that he seemed to have taken over and yet unable to fault his logic. What was keeping her in England, other than pride? And wasn’t pride pointless? She knew Gianluca well enough to understand that he would crush her pride underfoot if it interfered with how much he could see his son.

‘And, of course, I can arrange for a nanny,’ he continued. ‘To help you.’

‘A nanny?’ she repeated dully.

‘We’d need a nanny whatever happened,’ he said smoothly. ‘With two working parents it’s inevitable. You do still want to work, I assume?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she answered stiffly.

But Aisling was uncomfortably imagining some freshfaced beauty looking after their baby. Someone who could supplant her? Who would inevitably fall for her billionaire boss? She felt as if she were in a fog—fighting to see the clear horizon. ‘But … but …’

Gianluca raised his brows in autocratic query. ‘What is it, Aisling?’

She stared at him before asking the question. The other big one which was nagging away at the back of her mind. ‘What kind of marriage did you have in mind?’

Their eyes met for a long moment and then his gaze swept over her once more, only this time in a much more leisurely appraisal—as if her words had just given him permission to do so.

It was astonishing how all the weight she had carried along with Claudio seemed to have melted away. Her breasts were heavier, true—but that was no bad thing—and there was a new and irresistible softness about her. Like an ice cream which was beginning to melt, making you want to lick it all up. A nerve flickered at his temple and his voice grew husky.

‘I think you know which kind of marriage would work best—especially as the sex between us is so good. We can thrash out the details later—the important thing is that we agree the contract in principle.’

Especially as the sex is so good?

Thrash out the details later?

Aisling was glad that she was sitting down. He could not have found a more insultingly cold-blooded way of putting it if he had tried. Yet wasn’t he only doing what she had attempted to do for most of her life until she’d met him? To keep messy emotion at bay?

The trouble was that her heart had somehow become involved along the way. It still was. And now that they shared a child—there would never be any real peace, nor escape from him and this terrible aching deep inside her. She might bear his name as she had borne his child, but his love would never be hers. ‘And what if I won’t marry you?’

Gianluca’s eyes narrowed, for he did not underestimate her—though surely she must recognise that she was in no position to bargain with him? She was an intelligent woman, sì—but she did not have his resources. And neither did she have this terrible fear that if his son was taken from his life, then his heart might as well be ripped from his chest. For a man the world perceived as having everything, Gianluca realised that unless he had Claudio, he had nothing.

‘Then I will fight you in the courts,’ he vowed softly. ‘However long and however much it takes—I will fight you for custody, cara. And I will win, Aisling—because I always do.’

‘Then there is nothing left to say, is there?’ she asked him quietly. ‘Yes, I will marry you. There. You have your victory, Gianluca.’

His eyes narrowed as she bit her lip and turned her head away and a brief but unexpected thought flew into his mind.

That if victory it was—it suddenly seemed a rather hollow one.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE marriage took place in a small, hillside church in Umbria—not far from Gianluca’s vineyard home.

It was an odd kind of wedding, attended only by a handful of guests—Gianluca’s old nanny, his lawyer and the town mayor. Aisling had wanted to treat the occasion as a mere formality and wear something smart from her existing wardrobe—as if not making a fuss might protect her from the emotional fallout of marrying a man who did not love her.