‘Traumatic?’ Pippa parroted as he released her hands to execute a restive movement towards the window.
Andreo swung back to her again. ‘You didn’t feel the same way…of course it was traumatic!’ he pointed out. ‘You were about one degree warmer than a freezer the next day, and the minute you found out who I was you wanted nothing to do with me!’
‘But I did…I did feel the same way.’ Her thoughts had only slowly reached the awareness that he had to be talking about having fallen for her. Pippa blinked rapidly. Andreo loved her? He loved her?
‘Are you saying that you love me?’ Andreo shot at her incredulously.
‘To death…love you just so much,’ she stressed, suffering from emotional overload and very near to tears in her over-excitement.
Andreo focused on her with dazed dark golden eyes. ‘But you were leaving me again…’
Pippa nodded and compressed tremulous lips.
‘For the second time,’ Andreo emphasised.
Pippa nodded again, tears of regret clogging up her vocal cords.
‘Even though I’d asked you to marry me…’
The tears overflowed and streamed in a silent river down her cheeks.
‘But all that is absolutely OK!’ Andreo insisted in panic at the sight of those tears. ‘Honestly, I have no idea why I’m so full of complaints. I’m crazy about you and I’ll be crazy about our baby too. I can forgive you for anything. Please don’t cry, amore.’
‘I can’t help it…my emotions are all over the place and you only have to touch my heart a little at the minute and I could flood the sea with tears. I think it’s my hormones, something to do with being pregnant.’ Pippa loosed an embarrassed laugh. ‘But I’m just so happy!’
Andreo caught her to him with two possessive hands and claimed her ripe mouth with hungry, demanding urgency and it was the best cure for tears imaginable.
‘Happy…happy…happy,’ she repeated, wicked, wanton excitement sending tiny little shivers through her as she stayed melded to his lean, powerful frame.
‘And I think you need to lie down,’ Andreo informed her huskily, vibrant amusement lighting his keen appraisal as he swept her up into his arms and began to mount the stairs to the master bedroom. ‘I know I do…’
Pippa felt incredibly warm and safe: he loved her. All her fears had been empty fears born of her insecurity.
‘Am I allowed to ask what changed your mind about babies?’ Andreo prompted, lowering her down onto the bed with immense care.
‘I think I was most scared of the responsibility. My parents had a bad marriage and my childhood suffered because of it,’ Pippa confided awkwardly. ‘I was afraid that if I had a child I would make him or her unhappy too.’
‘I can understand that, amore. But if you valued yourself as I do, you would already know that you are far too sensitive to behave as your parents did.’
At that vote of confidence, her discomfiture melted. ‘I felt different once I knew I was pregnant,’ she admitted softly. ‘I realised the baby would be part of both of us and all of a sudden our baby was this fascinating little person in his own right. I still worried about how I would measure up as a parent but I felt excited too.’
‘You’re such a perfectionist and so hard on yourself. I promise that I will never let you down,’ Andreo swore with tender force. ‘I was too impatient with you. In time, you will learn to trust me.’
‘I trust you now but I’ll still watch you like a hawk,’ Pippa warned him cheerfully. ‘There are desperate women out there.’
An appreciative grin slanted his wide, sensual mouth. ‘Will you marry me now?’
‘I’ll think it over,’ she dared, confident enough to tease him while still marvelling that he could have fallen in love with someone as ordinary as she believed herself to be.
Halfway out of his shirt, a virile wedge of bronzed muscular chest revealed, Andreo froze and groaned, ‘If you want me in your bed again, you have to marry me.’
With a sense of joy and freedom entirely new to her, Pippa burst out laughing and feasted her eyes on his lean, darkly handsome features. ‘If I agree to marry you as soon as it can be arranged, can I have something on account?’
All male provocation at that request, Andreo let his shirt drop to the floor with a flourish. ‘So you want to marry me?’
Pippa arched her toes so that her sandals fell off and heaved a blissful sigh of agreement. ‘Definitely…do you mind if I ask you how much you love me?’ she muttered more shyly.
Andreo rested adoring eyes on her. ‘Head over heels and crazy about you. Enough to last two lifetimes at least, amore.’