Bound to the Tuscan Billionaire (16 page)

‘You can't stop me seeing him.'

Marco stood, and he towered over her in a menacing reminder of the power he wielded. ‘What's to stop me taking him with me right now?'

‘I will,' she said, standing to bar Marco's way to his son.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

‘B
E
REASONABLE
, C
ASSANDRA
.
Let me go to my son.'

‘No. You can't have it all, Marco,' she said, standing at the foot of the stairs. ‘You think everyone wants you for the basest of reasons, even the mother of your son. If you think your worth lies solely in your money and power, then all I can say is that you must have a very low opinion of yourself.'

‘You make it all sound so straightforward, Cassandra.'

‘Because it
is
straightforward!' she exclaimed with frustration. ‘You might be the master of all you survey at Fivizzano Inc., but this is my territory, my home, and I'm still waiting for an answer to my question. What part do you intend to play in Luca's life?'

‘A full part if you come back to Rome with me. What?' He frowned. ‘I don't understand why you're looking at me like that. You'll be living in the lap of luxury...'

Cass shook her head in desperation. ‘If you don't know what's wrong with that statement, I can't help you. Why would I exchange my cosy home here for your sterile penthouse—where I never see you, and where I'm waited on by strangers who won't let me lift a finger, whether I want to or not, and where I'm hounded every time I leave the building by the paparazzi? Is that what you want for your son? Why on earth would either of us want that for Luca? I may be the first woman in the world to say this to you, Marco, but you've got nothing to offer me that I don't have right here ten times over. When I was a little girl I lived in a mansion not too dissimilar from your home in Tuscany, but it was the unhappiest place I can ever remember living in. I was always hungry, always afraid—'

‘That wouldn't happen in Rome,' Marco stated with absolute confidence.

‘No,' Cass agreed. ‘But I would be exchanging one set of problems for another—isolation instead of hunger, and uncertainty instead of fear. The end result wouldn't be happiness, or even progress—and I'm not just talking about me. I'm thinking about all three of us. I don't want Luca to experience the constant uncertainty that you and I grew up with. Have we learned nothing from that experience? You must have longed for a different life. I know I did. And you have built a successful and very different life for yourself, so why take your son back to the past? Let's move on. Let's take this chance to move forward.'

‘That's all I've ever wanted.'

‘But on your terms!' Cass exclaimed with exasperation. ‘You want everything on your terms.'

‘As you do on yours,' he argued.

‘I am defensive,' she admitted. ‘That's my legacy from the past, but now I have a son to consider, and my main job is to protect Luca. I have to do everything I can for him, and I believe I can do that best here, not in Rome.'

He laughed bitterly.

‘Do you expect me to throw up everything and come to live here?'

‘No. I'm a realist. I know you can't do that.'

‘What, then?' he demanded. ‘What's your solution, Cassandra?'

‘I don't know,' she admitted, shaking her head.

Something in her dejection touched him. He'd never seen Cassandra in this mood. Had he reduced her to this? Had he stolen away all her certainty and confidence? If he had, he would never forgive himself. It was like taking one of Cassandra's precious plants and crushing the life out of it beneath his heel. ‘I will do whatever you want,' he said.

‘Anything?' she murmured.

‘I won't lose you. I can't,' he said softly and intently.

They were silent for a long time, until he remembered what he'd left in the car. ‘I've got something for you.'

‘For me?'

He had never bought her anything, he realised. ‘For Christmas,' he explained. ‘It isn't much.'

Cassandra shook her head with concern. ‘But I haven't got anything for you.'

He shook his head and laughed with sheer happiness. ‘Are you sure about that? I think you just gave me the most precious gift in the world. The gift of a son?' he prompted. ‘That's a gift beyond price. Do you want to see the small thing I got for you?'

‘Why don't we check on our son first?'

The expression on Marco's face told Cass everything she needed to know. He was every bit as invested in their future as she was, and though the nuts and bolts for a couple who lived in different countries still had to be ironed out, he was one hundred per cent behind her, and they would find a way to make it work.

It was the first time that they had stood together as a couple, staring down at their infant son. ‘You're right,' Marco said. ‘He's beautiful.'

Cass smiled with pure happiness as she ruffled their son's soft, fluffy black hair. Luca's face was still wrinkled and pink, with a frowning, puzzled expression, as he grew accustomed to life.

‘He looks like my son.' Marco's eyes were steel bright as he smiled at her.

She angled her chin to give him a wry look. ‘I suppose if he grows up to look like you, it won't be too bad.'

They left their son sleeping and went downstairs again.

‘Do you want me to get your gift?' Marco suggested.

‘I'd like that very much.'

‘I'll be right back,' he promised.

He felt as if he'd got wings on his heels as he ran out to the car. He delved onto the back seat, and brought out the gift-wrapped package he'd bought for Cassandra. Coming back into the house, he handed it to her.

She opened it and fell silent.

‘You see, I do understand,' he said. ‘I'm on the same steep learning curve you are, and I don't always get it right.'

‘You got it right this time,' she said, caressing the scarf.

‘Shall I...?'

‘Please,' she said.

He took the length of soft cashmere from its ivory tissue paper and draped the colourful scarf around her neck.

‘I love it,' she whispered. ‘Thank you.'

‘Thank you,' he said, as he dipped his head to brush her lips lightly with his. Cassandra leaned against him, and when he put his arms around her she lifted her face to his.

‘I love you,' he said.

‘I love you too,' she said, smiling, ‘but you don't always make it easy.'

His eyes brightened. ‘And you're so easy,' he commented, smiling soft and slow.

‘Will you help me to bathe Luca?'

‘Of course I will.' Putting his arm around her shoulder, he led her back upstairs.

He only had to take Luca in his arms and lower him into the lukewarm water, keeping him safe in the crook of his arm, to know that without Luca and Cassandra he was nothing—he had nothing. But could he convince this spirited, vexing, complex woman to join him in a life that would be challenging from day one? Every move she made would be scrutinised and picked over, and every day would present them both with a new mountain to climb.

‘You can pass him to me now.' She was holding out a towel.

He did so with the utmost care, and then he caught Cassandra looking at him with a little smile on her face.

‘Do I look as soppy as you?' she asked him.

‘I don't think you could ever look like me,' he reassured her, as she wrapped their infant son in a soft white towel.

‘How do I look?' she asked.

‘Fishing for compliments?'

She smiled. ‘Why not?'

‘You look like a woman in love.'

‘How odd.' She pretended surprise. ‘I can't imagine why that would be.'

Leaning against the door, he stopped her leaving the room, and bringing both Cassandra and Luca into his arms he murmured, ‘If your imagination won't stretch that far, what hope is there for me?'

‘None,' she agreed.

‘Stay with me, Cass. My life doesn't mean anything without you. I want all three of us to live together, wherever you want to live. It doesn't have to be Rome... Tuscany,' he murmured. ‘The countryside is so much better for a child to grow up in.'

‘Tuscany,' she echoed softly, her face lighting up.

‘I don't know why I didn't think of it before,' he admitted.

‘You had other things on your mind?' she suggested.

‘Maybe...' His eyes warmed as he smiled down at her.

‘Do you think there will be more children?' she asked him thoughtfully.

‘Why not? You're good at growing things, aren't you?'

She grinned. ‘You're not so bad yourself.'

He was distracted for a moment as he pictured kicking a football about with his son in the beautiful gardens that Cassandra would design and care for on the country estate he'd always loved better than anywhere else on earth.

‘Marco?'

‘Marry me, Cassandra.'

‘Marry you?' she exclaimed with surprise.

‘Why not? No one else will do.'

‘No one else would put up with you, don't you mean?' she suggested.

He curved a smile back at her and then turned serious. ‘I don't want anyone else. I only care about you, and what you want, what you think...'

‘What I want?' Cass said softly. ‘I want what I've always wanted. You. I love you Marco. I've loved you since we first rolled a rug together.'

‘So now we can be a real family and save rug-rolling for any spare moments we might have.'

‘I doubt we'll have many.'

‘Are you saying yes to my proposal?' Suddenly he wasn't sure of anything, and Cassandra's reply mattered more to him than anything else on earth.

‘Luca has to know that love is for ever, and that his parents are for ever, and if you can promise me that...'

‘For ever doesn't sound long enough to me.' Grabbing Cassandra close, he kissed her slowly and then with increasing passion until Luca got jealous of his parents' distraction and started to wail.

‘Hold that thought,' Cassandra instructed as she headed for the bedroom. ‘We have a little man who's hungry.'

‘Shall I warm a bottle and bring it up?'

‘No, thank you. I'll feed him myself. As soon as you arrived bottles became redundant.'

‘So, I do have my uses,' he teased as he followed her upstairs.

‘Luca thinks so,' Cass agreed wryly, making space for Marco on the bed.

EPILOGUE

Three years have passed...

‘W
HAT
ARE
YOU
THINKING
?'
Marco murmured, looping his arms around Cass's waist.

‘Right now? Or a few minutes ago? You have to be more specific,' she teased him, arching a brow as she stared into the face of a man who had only grown more ruggedly good looking in the time she'd known him.

‘Right now?' Marco's powerful shoulders eased in a shrug in response to this part of her query. ‘I know what you're thinking right now.'

‘How?' Cass demanded, though she knew the answer. She just wanted to hear him say it.

‘I can feel you softening in my arms.'

‘Interesting that I
soften
,' she exclaimed, shivering with desire, ‘when the opposite happens to you. You make me so hungry for you. How do you do that?' she groaned, pressing against him.

‘Consistent results?' he suggested.

She smiled and rolled her head back, inviting more kisses.

‘So, tell me,' Marco coaxed. ‘What were you thinking just now to put that dreamy look on your face?'

‘I was thinking that this was inevitable,' she admitted, pressing closer.

‘You and me?' Marco rocked his body into hers.

‘Our family, living here on your Tuscan estate. I don't know why I didn't think of it right away.' She glanced up. ‘And Quentin and Paolo visiting on a regular basis. That crazy makeover you insisted I have for the party has certainly produced unexpected results.'

‘Quentin and Paolo are good friends?'

‘More than that, I think,' she said, smiling.

‘Are they with the baby now?'

‘My godmother and our two fairy godmothers are with our baby daughter and Luca now.' Cass laughed. ‘Last time I looked all five of them were taking a nap before the gardens open at two o'clock.'

‘That gives us plenty of time.'

‘No, Marco—there's no time! Where are you taking me?' Marco had her firmly by the wrist and was leading her through the rose arbour she had designed in the gardens they had started opening to the public the previous year. ‘Marco, I have to look respectable,' she protested when he pulled her down on the grass.

‘It won't hurt for my gardener to have a little grass in her hair,' he said, looming over her. ‘I just want to tell you how much I love you. And I want to tell you how much my family means to me, and that I owe all this to you.'

‘I think you had some part to play in the creation of our family—an equal part, I do believe.'

‘If you insist,' he murmured, slanting a grin.

‘I do insist.'

‘I never pictured myself with any of this—happiness, and a family.'

‘And I never imagined I'd find someone like you. When I was up to my elbows in mud and you arrived in that flashy helicopter, my first thought was to grab my pitchfork and run you through.'

Marco laughed. ‘Such a waste of a warm afternoon and a firm, grassy bank,' he murmured, dragging her close. ‘But you're right—it is time to get ready to greet our guests...'

She followed his glance to the main gates and the road beyond, where, in the far distance, she could just see a haze of dust heralding the first visitors to the estate. With a cry of alarm she shot up. ‘They're here! You've got to stop them—I forgot the time. I'm not properly dressed!'

Marco grinned at her. ‘Go,' he said. ‘I'll handle the visitors.'

‘We make a good team,' she called back as she raced to the house.

‘The best,' Marco murmured happily.

* * *

With three-year-old Luca sitting on his shoulders and baby Cristina sleeping in the shade at his side, Marco looked on with pride as his beautiful wife, the woman who had given his life meaning, took the local dignitaries and other avid gardeners on a guided tour around the beautiful garden she had created. Her seedlings were fully grown, and had burst into flower right on cue.

He glanced down at their baby daughter, and jiggled the legs of the son they adored. All their seedlings were growing nicely, thanks to the love and care of a woman who was a natural mother, as well as his lover and closest friend. Cass designed gardens for other people now, which gave her an interesting and varied life but allowed her to spend plenty of time with the children. Maria and Giuseppe were more a part of the family than they had ever been, thanks to Cass, as were Quentin and Paolo, and Cass's godmother, who was home briefly from Australia, where she would return each winter to live with her son. He could safely say that the past and all its demons had finally been laid to rest.

When the visitors had gone she gave the children tea, while he set about the necessary job of splitting logs. Winters could be cold in Tuscany, and he had a family to keep warm.

When the children were in bed, Cass came outside in the burnished light of early evening to find Marco dressed in faded denim, stripped to the waist. She would never get used to seeing him half-naked. He was such a magnificent sight, bronzed and lean, with his muscles rippling. She indulged herself by just standing and watching him for a while, until he looked up and smiled, sensing she was there. He was glistening with sweat and covered in mud, as she had been on the day they'd first met...

Planting his axe, he strode towards her.

They went inside where the house was quiet. The children were sleeping, and a low buzz of conversation was coming from the kitchen where everyone else was happily chewing over the events of the day. They went straight up to their suite of rooms, where Marco headed for the shower. Snatching hold of her wrist, he took a laughing Cass in with him beneath the spray.

‘Marco—I'm fully dressed!'

‘Not for long,
cara...
'

Cupping her face, Marco kissed her long and slow. ‘Do you have any idea how much I love you?'

‘Not half as much as I love you. I must do to put up with you—I'm soaked.'

The look in Marco's eyes reduced her in an instant to a trembling mass of need, and the smile on his firm, sexy mouth effortlessly completed the task.

‘My wife,' he whispered against her ear. ‘The mother of my children. My friend. My lover. The woman I love more than life itself.'

* * ***

Also available in the
ONE NIGHT WITH CONSEQUENCES
series this month
A VOW TO SECURE HIS LEGACY
by Annie West

And look out for THE SHOCK CASSANO BABY by Andie Brock in May 2016.

Keep reading for an excerpt from
A VOW TO SECURE HIS LEGACY
by Annie West.

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