He shook his head. ‘I knew that you would never try and pass off another man’s child as mine.’
His total confidence drew an emotional sob from her aching throat. ‘God, you’re so …’ She gave a teary sniff. ‘You’re a much nicer person than me.’
He levelled an amused grin at her face. ‘You are the only person who has ever called me nice—not even my own mother thinks I am nice.’ A frown contorted his face as he asked, ‘But if there was no other man, what is it that has been coming between us? You are not going to tell me that you have some stupid idea I only want you because of the baby.’ His face tightened with displeasure at the thought.
‘It did cross my mind, but, no, not now. It’s just I knew you didn’t love me when you married me.’
‘I didn’t love you?’
She shook her head.
‘You were in a terrible place after Rafe killed himself.’
Francesco flinched at the sound of his brother’s name. ‘I thought we had dealt with this idea before.’
‘Oh, I’m not saying you deliberately used me to ease the pain. But you were all over the place emotionally speaking … it was like, you know, turning up the radio to drown out the road drill.’
‘I didn’t turn to prescriptive drugs to dull the pain, I turned to you? Presumably you thought I would wake up one day fully healed and find you surplus to requirements.’
She nodded.
Succumbing to mirth, he threw back his head and laughed.
‘You thought I was having an affair,’ she pointed out when he had stopped.
‘Point taken,’ he conceded. ‘But, per amor di Dio, how could you think something so crazy? Rafe’s death had nothing to do with me marrying you! Except in the fact it made me appreciate that a man should grab happiness with both hands when he had it within his grasp … It is just a pity that my pride had made me lose sight of this for a while.
‘Pain is part of the grieving process. I felt pain when Rafe died and I still do. I suspect I always will. While I did not embrace that pain, cara, I never tried to escape it.
‘As for you being some sort of distraction, God knows,’ he said, tracing a finger down the sweet curve of her cheek with his thumb, ‘you are that, but it is total nonsense. I did think of Rafe when I saw you that first day, because I know that he would have recognised what you were immediately.’
‘And what is that?’
‘My soul mate, the one woman I was destined to spend the rest of my life with. My brother always was more intuitive and much better with words than me.
‘Me, I saw you standing there, the freckles on your nose, the hair like fire.’ He sighed and looped a strand around his finger. ‘I saw your belligerence, your bravery, your sheer bloody-minded stubbornness and I knew that I wanted to wake up every day looking at that face.’
The tears ran unchecked down Erin’s cheeks. She was so happy she felt as though she might never walk at ground level again, but always float six inches above the ground.
‘As for deceiving you—that was not deliberate, though I did perhaps seek to take advantage of your obvious affinity for cowboy boots.’ He laughed when the colour flew to her cheeks. ‘When we met I felt somehow that I was starting life afresh. I did not mention things because they did not seem important.’
By the time Francesco stopped talking there was a glazed look on Erin’s face. ‘I’ve been feeling so guilty—I felt as though I was taking advantage of you.’
‘Because I was an emotional wreck,’ he said drily. ‘And now you know that I am not nearly so needy and vulnerable as you imagined, do you still want me?’
A rapturous smile spread across her face like the sun. ‘I’ll always want you.’
‘Even if you learn that I will cheat, lie, manipulate and sell my soul in order to keep the one thing that I cannot live without.’
‘If that one thing is me, I see no problem.’
The air left her lungs in one long gasp as he literally fell on her, his long body covering her as they sank down together on the sofa.
For some time they kissed and touched, passion flaring hot and out of control. It was Francesco who pulled away, rolling off her straight onto the floor where he lay on his back, breathing hard.
‘What am I thinking? You just fainted and I jumped on you like a wild animal. The baby …!’
Erin, her face flushed, leaned over the side of the sofa and stroked his face. She was breathing hard.