‘I do.’
‘And you want to marry me.’
‘Correct.’
‘And not just because I’m pregnant with your convenient heir?’
Pressing back in the driver’s seat, Luca sighed heavily. He owed her nothing less than the truth. ‘When I first found out, I’ll admit that it suited my plan.’
‘You needed an heir,’ she supplied.
‘Yes, I did. And great sex.’
‘Luca—’
‘R
egularly.’
‘You’re impossible.’
‘Seriously?’ he asked. ‘If you want to know what I want? I want a family like the Browns.’
‘Fourteen children?’
‘One at a time?’ he queried, sliding her a look. ‘That’s not so bad.’
‘For you, maybe,’ Callie said, biting back a smile. But then she turned serious. ‘Callie from the docks, the Princess of Fabrizio?’
‘Callie from the lemon groves, and my beloved wife,’ Luca argued as he pulled away from the kerb. ‘So, what’s your answer, Callie?’
‘The same as it was before,’ she said tensely. ‘I still need time to think.’
‘All you need is time to assess your character and abilities to realise that you have everything it takes and more to be my Princess. So I’ll give you until we get to the Browns’, and then I want your answer.’
‘And if it’s no?’ she pressed.
‘We’ll deal through lawyers in the future.’
Her face paled. ‘That sounds like a threat.’
‘It’s the only practical option I can come up with. Or you can give me your answer now, if you prefer?’
She refused to be drawn, and by the time he had stopped the car outside the Browns’, he could feel Callie’s tension. Helping her out of the low-slung vehicle, he kept hold of her hand as they walked to the front door. Each time they talked, he learned a little bit more about her, and what he’d learned today had confirmed his opinion that they weren’t so different. They both had principles, loyalty, and trust printed through them like sticks of rock. Callie was honest to a fault, and still overcoming the scars of a difficult childhood. He’d had the most enormous stroke of luck when he’d met the Prince at the Coliseum, and Callie had experienced a small taste of luck with her surprise win on the scratch card that had allowed her to travel to the lemon groves. It was strange how fate set things in motion. Experience had taught him that sometimes it paid to go with the flow.
‘Come in, come in,’ Pa Brown invited as he threw the front door wide.
Luca might live in a palace with servants on every side, but he hadn’t been joking when he said that he envied the Browns. This was the type of family he had imagined being part of when he was a boy on his own each night with only the ghosts from the past for company. He and Callie were welcomed back into the warm heart of the Brown family just as the Christmas gifts were being opened and happy noise was at its height. Dogs and children were racing around colliding with each other, while Anita tried in vain to keep up with the amount of wrapping paper flying through the air. Rosie was attempting, without much success, to dissuade the younger Browns from opening each of the crackers before they were pulled, to discover what gifts lay inside.
‘We saved some crackers for you,’ she explained to Callie and him, as Pa Brown insisted on taking Luca’s jacket.
‘And I’ve saved two big dishes of plum pudding,’ Ma Brown added from the doorway.
‘I’d like a few moments of Ma and Pa’s time. If I may,’ he said.
Silence dropped like a stone. Every head turned his way, and then the focus switched to Callie, who shrugged, giving him no clue as to what her answer would be to his proposal.
‘Of course,’ Pa Brown agreed, breaking the tension as he exchanged a look with his wife. ‘Come into the kitchen where we can be private, Luca. Would you like Callie to join us?’