The Reluctant Husband

Santino smiled. ‘You look just like an enquiring sparrow when you do that, cara mia. Don’t ask me to explain to you how or why I love you. I only know that I do...’ Her stunned eyes clung to his, her breath catching in her throat as she struggled to accept and believe in the sentiments he’d expressed with such deep and unashamed sincerity.

Santino strolled forward and reached down to grasp her hands and draw her slowly upright. Brilliant dark eyes scanned her face with immense and tender appreciation. ‘We have ties that go back so many years. And you had such courage, such tremendous warmth and faith. No other woman has ever reached my heart as you did, and yet I realise now that I probably hurt you more than all the rest put together by not discouraging your attachment to me...’

Frankie leant forward into the welcoming shelter of his big, powerful body. Trembling, she rested her brow against his shoulder, eyes prickling with tears of intense happiness. ‘No, I needed you then. I had nothing else,’ she told him honestly. ‘And being in your arms is still like coming home.’

‘Today I was afraid that you weren’t planning to come home again,’ Santino confided unevenly, his arms closing round her slowly, as if he was still afraid to credit that the worst was over and the best was all to come. ‘You switched off me so fast five years ago. Then I told myself that it was for the best, but I was scared that it could happen again...’

‘I just love you more with every day,’ Frankie muttered in a wobbly voice choked with tears. ‘I’m really not that easy to get rid of.’

‘But you are. Five years ago you severed every connection between us. You had no second thoughts. You didn’t go home to face me; you just climbed on a plane. And you didn’t write. I was tempted so many times to seek you out, but I knew that that wouldn’t be fair. You had to be free to become an adult, and yet letting go so completely was the hardest thing I ever did.’

‘I never once thought you could’ve felt like that.’

‘I couldn’t end our marriage without giving us one more chance. I had such incredibly high hopes, and the instant I saw you in La Rocca the same fierce attraction leapt into being—’

‘And then Della’s dishonesty got in the way.’

‘But I still couldn’t bear to let go of you,’ Santino confided. ‘I promised myself that at the end of three weeks I would be cured of you.’

‘Initially I had the same objective.’ Frankie carefully unknotted his tie and slipped it off. ‘But it didn’t work.’

‘No, I just got in deeper...and deeper...and deeper...’

‘You said that having a good time in bed didn’t mean that you loved—’

Santino clasped a strong hand over the uncertain fingers braced against his chest. Intense dark golden eyes held hers fiercely. ‘And neither it does. Even if I could never make love to you again, I would still love you.’

‘But you hurt me so much saying that.’

‘I didn’t want you to mistake your feelings for me...I wanted you to take the time to get to know me again and be sure that what you were feeling was real and lasting. I couldn’t risk you waking up some day and deciding that you were too young to be tied down and that possibly it was a mistake to have stayed married to your first lover...’

Frankie was deeply touched that Santino had suffered from his own insecurities. ‘I’m sorry, but you are really the only man I have ever wanted.’

Santino coloured. ‘I liked that—’

‘I know...you’re possessive. So am I.’

‘Before I went to Milan—’ Santino tensed, throwing her an anxious look ‘—I didn’t know whether you were upset because you might be pregnant or upset because you might not be.’

‘You should’ve told me up front that you didn’t want a divorce any more,’ Frankie censured.

‘I needed you to make your own decision about what you wanted...but I tried to show you in every way possible how much I cared...’

‘I was afraid that was just because you thought I might be pregnant.’

‘Now you know differently...’ Santino curved his mouth with hungry fervour over hers and kissed her long and deeply until she shivered with need against him. ‘But, having got so used to the idea that I was going to be a father, I was a little disappointed... But perhaps it was for the best. You’re still only twenty-one. We’ve got plenty of time.’

‘You’ll be a father in time for Christmas,’ Frankie confided breathlessly.

Santino was stunned. ‘Say that again...’

Frankie explained the error of jumping to premature conclusions.

A slow smile of delighted satisfaction slashed Santino’s darkly handsome features. ‘So my reproductive cells won that battle on hostile territory...not so hostile after all, it seems.’

Frankie blushed as he drew her down on the bed with a strong look of intent in his lustrous dark eyes. ‘I found the teddy in the limo,’ she told him.

‘We’ll call her Flora...she can hen-peck Hamish. I was planning to gauge your mood with her and suggest that if you really wanted a baby we try again.’