Damiano's Return

Apparently shaken by the realisation that she could not magically solve her every problem by begging Damiano to forgive her, Annabel departed with a lot less drama than she had arrived.

‘We’re out,’ Damiano then instructed their housekeeper. ‘I don’t care who comes to the door. We’re not here.’

Eden was feeling incredibly sleepy. Damiano took one look at her wan face and drooping head and he scooped her off her seat and carried her back upstairs. ‘This has all been too much for you, cara—’

‘Actually I’m so grateful I didn’t miss out on hearing what an unwelcome shock you gave Annabel with your return from the dead!’ Eden laughed helplessly at that recollection. ‘I didn’t dare look at you in case I went off into whoops. Are you finally going to tell me why you broke off your engagement to her?’

Damiano winced. ‘Do I have to?’

‘You owe me,’ Eden told him playfully.

‘I overheard a conversation she had with her sister. Her sister had just got engaged and she asked Annabel what she liked most about me,’ Damiano related with a pained smile. ‘And there was this huge silence and then Annabel finally said, “he’s loaded and he’s great in bed.” That is the moment when the rot first set in.’

‘She was probably joking—’

‘Having had the pleasure of hearing that opinion, I naturally began paying closer attention to our relationship. I then found out that she wasn’t at all averse to slipping into other men’s beds when I was abroad,’ Damiano shared wryly as he laid her down on the bed.

‘Oh…’ Eden rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, understanding why he had had no desire to tell her that particular tale before.

‘I didn’t tell my family why I’d ditched her. That was a mistake,’ Damiano acknowledged. ‘But I’d learned by then that my own feelings for Annabel were pretty shallow and I didn’t care enough to disabuse them of their illusions.’

‘Then you met me…’ Eden was tiring of the subject of Annabel which had now been for ever shorn of further interest.

‘That was love at first sight. Absolutely terrifying!’ Damiano confided.

‘Eden sat up with a start. ‘Say that again—’

‘Do I have to?’ A charismatic smile curved Damiano’s sensual mouth. ‘Post-Annabel I was convinced that I was the coldest fish alive as far as women were concerned. I was very cynical and then I saw you and I swear that both my brain and my body went haywire the same second.’

‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this,’ Eden framed in a daze.

Glittering dark eyes rested on her bemused face and he muttered ruefully, ‘You’re not going to like hearing the rest of it. In those days, I hated feeling like that and that added a certain hostility to our every encounter. I wanted to be in control…’

‘And you thought you weren’t in control because I wouldn’t sleep with you,’ Eden filled in for him with a sigh.

‘No, there you’re wrong, amore. As far as I was concerned, if you didn’t want to make love with me, you couldn’t possibly care about me or want me anything like as much as I cared about and wanted you.’

Even five years on, Eden was stricken by that revealing confession. She looked at him with reproachful eyes. ‘Oh, no…’

‘Oh, yes,’ Damiano told her levelly. ‘When I fell for you, love and sex were quite indivisible in my estimation. I’d never been in love in my life before but I couldn’t believe you could love me and keep on freezing me out—’

Eden traced a regretful fingertip along his hard jawline. ‘I had no idea that I could make you feel insecure back then. You always seemed so incredibly confident—’

Damiano caught her into his arms and held her fast, shimmering dark golden eyes scanning her with tender amusement. ‘Call it like it was, tesoro mio,’ he urged. ‘I was arrogant and I just could not credit that a virgin could run rings round me—’

‘I was very nervous of that kind of intimacy…but I think that if I’d known you loved me after we married, I would have felt very different,’ Eden said slowly. ‘Unfortunately, your sister told me about Annabel and then, when I came back from our honeymoon and finally saw Annabel, I thought that you most likely had married me on the rebound—’

‘You and I were engaged for all of one week. I was engaged to her for two years and never got myself to the point of fixing a wedding date,’ Damiano pointed out. ‘I love you very, very much. Even when I was acting like a jerk, I never doubted that. I couldn’t have handled it if I’d come home and you hadn’t been here for me.’

Eden glowed with happiness. She rested her head down on his chest, listening to the slow, solid thump of his heart beating, drinking in the familiar scent of him. Then she smiled. ‘How do you feel about having a baby?’

‘On a scale of one to ten—ten being the height of keen,’ Damiano informed her teasingly. ‘Ten.’

‘Sounds promising—’

Damiano vented a laugh. ‘I have now finally reached the pinnacle of male maturity where I can consider a baby without being gripped by the devastating fear that you might feel more for the baby than you feel for me!’

‘Even better. Are you aware that I haven’t been on the contraceptive pill for years?” Eden enquired, slowly raising her head to study him.

A slight frown-line drew his ebony brows together. ‘I have to confess that I hadn’t got around to thinking about technical stuff like that yet—’

‘Technical stuff?’ Eden queried chokily.

‘When I’m in bed with you, I’m not exactly grounded…’ Lustrous dark golden eyes suddenly settled on her with raw intensity. ‘Accidenti! If you’re not…and I haven’t been using—’

‘You’re going to be a father,’ Eden told him softly.

Damiano rolled her gently flat against the pillows and stared fixedly down at her. ‘Are you teasing me?’

‘I’m pregnant,’ Eden declared.

At that confirmation, Damiano hastily released her from a good half of his weight. ‘That’s fantastic!’ he breathed, visibly stunned.

‘But not breakable,’ Eden added, hauling him back to her with possessive hands.