‘Nothing I care to bring to mind,’ he admitted dryly. ‘My mother was always harassed and often sick. I think now that she was what we would call depressed. No surprise there, but a child can’t understand why a person behaves the way they do. A child only knows that it’s hungry, or frightened, and I knew I had to fend for myself long before she died.’
‘And your father? Did you ever meet him?’
‘He turned up one night,’ Luca recollected. He huffed a short, humourless laugh. ‘My mother’s colleagues pelted him with rotten fruit and worse. I remember him standing on the street, shouting up at her open window. I remember his angry voice, and his soiled white shirt and the glint of his gold earrings.’
‘He doesn’t sound very nice.’
He shrugged. ‘Who knows?’
‘And now you’re a prince with a country to rule and a palace to live in. It must all seem quite incredible, even now?’
‘No. It seems right,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘If there was luck involved, it was that I met the Prince, the best of men, and a man who changed my life. Though even that wasn’t as simple as it sounds,’ he admitted. ‘After everything I’d seen, I wasn’t easily impressed—not even by the Prince of Fabrizio.’
‘How did he persuade you to leave the streets and come to live with him?’
‘He was a patient man,’ Luca said, thinking back. ‘From the moment he found me stealing food from the bins and the buffet table during his royal visit to the Coliseum, he was determined to save me. He told me this years later.’
‘What did he do about your stealing?’ Callie asked as he shipped the oars.
‘He asked his attendant to find me a shopping bag, so I didn’t have to hide my hoard down my shirt.’
‘Cool,’ she said, smiling.
‘Oh, he was that,’ he agreed as he sprang onto the shore to moor up.
She placed her hands in his as he helped her onto the dock. He wanted to take her right there. Throw her down on the cool wood and make love to her until she didn’t have the strength to stand, but delay was its own reward.
It was just a small island. She could probably walk around it in ten minutes, Callie thought. The grass was cool and green, and felt lush and thick beneath her naked feet. Picking up the hem
of her dress, she stared around. The clustering trees were lit with thousands of tiny lights in celebration of the ball. And then she saw the gazebo he’d talked about ahead of them. ‘Is this where you used to come and sulk?’ she asked.
‘How did you guess?’
As he swung around to face her, the pulsing heat of desire surged through her. ‘I’ve been a teenager too.’
He laughed and held out his hands. She felt so safe and warm when he took hold of her, and Luca’s kisses were always a drugging seduction. They seemed even more so here on this magical island. Just occasionally, fairy tales did come true. She wanted to believe it so badly as he kissed her again. She’d spent so much of her life bottling up emotion, but Luca knew how to set it free, and as his kisses grew more heated she knew she would take any and every chance to hold onto happiness.
He swung her off her feet and strode quickly to the entrance to the gazebo. Lowering her down, he steadied her and then pressed her back against the wooden structure. Caging her with his arms either side of her face, he brushed his lips against her mouth and smiled. It was the most romantic moment, but if she’d written the fairy tale herself she could never have predicted what he’d say next. ‘Marry me, Callie. Marry me and become my Princess.’
At first she thought she was imagining it, and it was all a dream, until Luca repeated softly, ‘Marry me, Callie.’
She stared into his eyes, struggling to compute what he’d said. Embarrassed, uncertain, she resorted to teasing him. ‘Shouldn’t you be down on your knees? Or, one of them, at least?’
‘I need an answer,’ Luca said, refusing to respond to her lighter tone. ‘Just a straight yes or no will do. Or are you playing for time?’
‘No,’ she argued. ‘I’m playing for the highest of stakes of all. I’m playing for my heart, and for the future of our child.’
‘Then, marriage makes perfect sense,’ he insisted.
‘Does it?’ She frowned.
‘You know it does.’
Smiling into her eyes, he kissed her again, and because she wanted him she was foolish enough to believe in the fairy tale for now.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘TRUST ME,’ LUCA said as he took her slow and deep. They had been making love on the soft cushions in the gazebo for what felt like hours. ‘Trust me,’ he said again as he soothed her down.