‘I really like the fact that you’re making that effort for your mother,’ Zara confided softly, her tender heart touched. ‘It would have been easier for you to turn your back on her.’
‘I think it’s actually harder to hang onto the prejudices, as I did over Loredana.’ Vitale compressed his handsome mouth. ‘I will never like your father—he is not a pleasant man and he hurt you. But speaking to him about the night my sister drowned did show me that I was still thinking of that incident with the vengeful attitude of a teenager distraught over his sister’s death.’
‘Yes,’ Zara agreed feelingly.
‘Someone else isn’t always to blame for the bad things that happen,’ he acknowledged heavily. ‘Although your father, in fact both your parents are very much to blame for your unhappy childhood. To have stood by and allowed you to be branded a liar at the age of ten to conceal your father’s violence towards your mother and you was unforgivable. That was a huge betrayal of your trust.’
‘I got over it.’
‘And I don’t think I will ever understand why you were still willing to marry Sergios Demonides just to cement a business deal and win your parents’ approval.’
‘It was very foolish but I had spent so many years craving their approval without ever getting it. I didn’t have enough self-respect,’ she admitted wryly. ‘I had to come to Tuscany to realise that to marry a man I didn’t love or care about was a very bad idea.’
‘I had an identical moment of truth when I met you. You changed my outlook, gioia mia,’ Vitale confided in a tone of immense appreciation. ‘I didn’t like emotions, didn’t trust them, preferred not to get involved with anything or anybody that made me feel too much. But you taught me how much of a difference love could make to my life and then you taught me to want your love …’
Heaving a delighted sigh at that assurance, Zara rested a small hand on his shoulder. ‘You know that three-month trial marriage I mentioned?’
‘Don’t I just?’
‘I won’t keep you in suspense,’ Zara told him teasingly. ‘I’ve decided to keep you for the long haul.’
The beginnings of a smile started to tug at the corners of Vitale’s mouth. ‘Finally she lets me off the hook.’
‘I’m not convinced it did you any harm to be on that hook in the first place.’ Zara mock-punched his shoulder. ‘Sometimes you’re far too sure of yourself. But I do love you,’ she whispered, suddenly full of heartfelt emotion. ‘I love you very much indeed.’
Vitale did not make it into the shower until much later that evening. In fact he didn’t even make it out of the bedroom, for Edmondo was instructed to bring dinner to his employers upstairs. Having declared their love and revelled in the wonder of sharing the same feelings and opinions, Vitale and Zara made passionate love. Afterwards they lay on in bed for ages talking about the why and the how and the when of those first seeds of love until even Zara was satisfied that they had talked the topic to death.
It was definitely not hard for her to listen, however, to how enraged Vitale had felt on her behalf when he appreciated how little her parents valued her in comparison to the twin brother whom they assumed would have been perfect had he lived beyond his twentieth year. In turn, Vitale was hugely amused by the news that his kindness to Fluffy had alerted Zara to the idea that he might have a softer centre than his initial behaviour towards her might have suggested.
‘So, I’m not on probation any longer,’ Vitale commented with a hint of complacency.
‘And how do you work that out?’ Zara enquired, surveying him questioningly.
‘You said you wanted me for the long haul.’
‘Depends on your definition of long haul,’ she teased.
‘For ever and ever just like the fairy tales,’ Vitale hastened to declare, spreading a large hand across the swell of her stomach and laughing in satisfaction as he felt the faint kick of the baby she carried. ‘You and the baby both, angelina mia.’
‘That’s an ambition I’m happy to encourage,’ Zara told him happily.
EPILOGUE
THREE years later, Zara watched her daughter, Donata, play in the bath in their London town house before scooping her out into a fleecy towel and dressing her little squirming body in her pjs. Her dark eyes were so like Vitale’s that the little girl was very talented at wheedling things out of her mother.
‘Daddy?’ Donata demanded, first in Italian and then in English, demonstrating her bilingual language skill with aplomb.
‘Later,’ Zara promised, tucking the lively toddler into bed and reflecting that it would be the next morning before Donata saw the father she adored.
Vitale had spent the whole week in New York and, although Zara and occasionally their daughter sometimes travelled with him, she had taken advantage of his absence to catch up with plans needed for Blooming Perfect clients in both London and Tuscany. Business was booming in both countries to the extent that Zara had been forced to turn down work. Media in
terest and an award won for a garden she had designed for the Chelsea Flower Show had given her an even higher profile and resulted in a steady influx of clients. Rob had become a permanent employee and Zara had hired a junior designer to work under her in London.
Vitale’s mother, Paola, had made it safely through her rehabilitation and as time went on had gained in confidence. Having undertaken training as a counsellor, Paola had recently found her feet in her new life by volunteering to work with other addicts. Vitale had also agreed to sponsor a charity for former addicts and their families. The older woman was now very much a part of Vitale and Zara’s life and was a very fond grandparent—a fact that Zara was grateful for when her own parents had little to do with their lives.
While Vitale had managed to come to terms with his mother’s malign influence on his childhood and had since established a more relaxed adult relationship with the older woman, little had occurred to improve Zara’s relations with her parents in a similar way. Her father could not accept the fact that Vitale knew about the domestic violence that had cast such a shadow over Zara and her mother’s life. In turn, Zara’s mother, Ingrid, was too loyal to her husband to challenge his hostile attitude to their daughter and son-in-law.
Although Zara occasionally accompanied Vitale to social events in London that her parents also attended, and the two couples were always careful to speak for the sake of appearances, there was no true relationship beneath the social banter. Sometimes that hurt Zara a great deal more than she was willing to admit to Vitale. At the same time she did have reason to cherish some hope of a future improvement in relations because her mother made a point of phoning and asking her daughter when she would next be in London so that she could see Donata. Ingrid would then visit her daughter’s home and play with her grandchild, but it was tacitly understood that those visits took place without Monty Blake’s knowledge.