She stopped him with a finger to his lips.
“Words are cheap. I learned that from Alex.” Tears mingled with the rain on her skin. She reached up to stroke his rough cheek. “You showed your love for us with your actions again and again. Why did you do it, Maximo?” Her expressive brown eyes glistened. “Why did you pay me full market value for my shares, when you’d already given the company back to my grandfather? How could you give that away?”
“Having the company didn’t bring my family back to me.” He shook his head, suddenly feeling damnably close to crying himself. “I don’t care about hurting Ferrazzi anymore. I just want you, Lucy. You and Chloe are my family now. I would do anything for you. I would give up my quest for revenge, I would give up my fortune. I would die for you.”
“I know.” She held him tightly. “I know.”
Long minutes later, he looked up. “Where’s our daughter?”
“Still sleeping in the car with Amelia. I found your cousin walking outside in the rain. Chloe was so tired. She wouldn’t fall asleep until she had her hippo in her arms.” She swallowed. “Until she knew we were coming home to you.”
“Can you really forgive what I did?” he whispered. “You deserved a family. And I took that away from you.”
“No. You gave me a mother.” Placing her small hands beneath his chin, she forced him to meet her gaze. “Connie Abbott loved me. I am the person I am today because of her. And…because of you.”
“Lucy.” He could barely speak over the lump in his throat.
Rising on her tiptoes, she kissed him. The patter of rain against the roof slowed, then stopped. Her kiss was gentle, tender, promising a lifetime of trust and a whole heart.
The kiss of his life, from the only woman he’d ever loved. The only woman he would ever love.
“Oh, no,” they heard Amelia groan. “Chloe, don’t look!”
Reluctantly they pulled away from their embrace. Fragile sunshine flooded through the doorway where Amelia stood, covering the baby’s face with her hand. She rolled her eyes like the teenager she was.
“Your parents.” Amelia sighed sympathetically to the baby as Chloe playfully pushed her hand away. “Won’t they ever stop with the mushy stuff?”
Lucy leaned back against her husband as she stretched her arms up around his neck. “What do you think, caro? Will we ever stop?”
He looked down at her, loving her so much that it suffused his whole being, making him feel like he was shining with it—so proud and tall and high that he could fly.
“I will love you as long as Sicily rises from the sea,” he swore. “You and only you. I will love you until the stars cease to shine. Until—”
But at this moment, his bride turned around in his arms.
“Show me?” she suggested shyly.
So he showed her, with a single kiss, how their love would last forever.