The Good, the Bad and the Wild (23 page)

‘You’ve changed,’ Nick said, his heart so swollen, he was pretty sure it was about to burst. He couldn’t believe she’d offered him everything. Knew he would never deserve it.

She gave a stiff nod, the wry tilt of her lips crucifying him. ‘I know. I’m not a doormat any more.’

He choked out a laugh. Then grasped her wrists, hugged her to him. ‘You were never a doormat. You were just so…’ he searched for the word ‘… sweet.’

She cringed. ‘I’m not sweet. And I don’t want to be.’

She was. And she always would be. But he knew that wasn’t what she needed to hear.

‘The point is, I’m strong.’ She looked up at him. ‘You don’t have to run away, you can just
tell me to my face you don’t love me. And I’ll survive.’

He clasped his arms round her back, and sank his head into her hair to inhale her wonderful scent. ‘Yeah, you’ll survive.’ He hugged her trembling body to his. ‘But I sure as hell won’t,’ he said, wanting to absorb her into him so he would never be without her again. ‘I don’t just love you, Eva. I’m pretty sure I can’t live without you.’

He drew away, held her at arm’s length, then saw the smile on her face and took courage from it. ‘The last six weeks have been agony. I wanted to contact you countless times, but it was easier to pretend I was being noble, that I was giving you the choice, than admit the truth. That I was scared out of my wits you’d already come to your senses and realised I didn’t deserve you.’

‘But that’s mad, you do deserve—’

He framed her face in his palms, placed a tender kiss on her lips to silence her.

When he pulled back, the stunned pleasure on her face sent his heart soaring into the stratosphere. ‘It doesn’t matter any more. Because I’m through running. And I’m going to spend the rest of my life proving that I
do
deserve you.’

She flung her arms round his neck, leaned into his body. ‘You really don’t have to do that,’ she said, sending him a saucy look under her eyelashes that had lust swelling right alongside
the joy. ‘But if you insist, I know a very good place you can start.’

He threw back his head and laughed—the sheer elation making him light-headed.

Sobering, he let his hands travel down to caress her buttocks through the bulky raincoat, then pulled her against his hardening erection, eager to begin the rest of his life with this sweet, smart and incredibly strong woman by his side.

‘That’s funny, because so do I,’ he murmured.

EPILOGUE

‘M
AY BE
this wasn’t such a great idea after all.’ Nick stared at the imposing Hampstead mansion block out of the windscreen of the hire car he and Eva had picked up at Heathrow airport an hour ago.

Traffic had been lighter than he’d expected for the day after Boxing Day. Way too light in fact. Was he really ready for this?

Eva’s hand settled on his thigh and rubbed gently. ‘If you don’t want to do this, Nick, you don’t have to,’ she murmured as if she’d read his mind. ‘We can go book into the hotel.’ She gave a quiet little laugh. ‘From the pictures on their website, the honeymoon suite is amazing.’

Covering her hand, he let go of the breath he’d been holding.

‘You booked the honeymoon suite?’ He gazed at his wife, and huffed out a laugh, pathetically grateful for her attempt to lighten the mood. ‘When we’ve been married for over six months?’

She wiggled her eyebrows. ‘It has the best bed,’ she countered, her blue eyes sparking with humour. ‘And anyway, they won’t know how long we’ve been married, will they?’

‘Really?’ He placed his palm on the firm mound of her belly, felt the familiar ripple of love and pride at the thought of the life they’d made together growing inside her. ‘This is a bit of a giveaway, don’t you think?’

‘Not necessarily,’ she said laughing. ‘We could have been living in sin.’ Her brows rose mischievously. ‘In fact, we would have been if you hadn’t turned out to be such a square,’ she finished, a mock pout on her lips.

He chuckled, remembering her initial attempts to persuade him that they didn’t
have
to get married just because they’d had a slip-up with their birth control and were becoming parents a lot sooner than planned.

‘Sweetheart, give it up…’ He curved his hand round her neck to draw her close, touched his nose to hers. ‘Your wild days are over.’ He nuzzled her lips, letting his hand linger as it caressed the soft hair at her nape. ‘I wasn’t about to miss the chance to get my ring on your finger. The baby just helped seal the deal.’

Had it really only been two years since she’d agreed to move to San Francisco? She’d changed him so much. Made him a braver, better man than he’d ever thought he could be—making him realise that your life wasn’t defined
by the mistakes you made, but how you dealt with them.

He’d faced so many of his demons and learned to conquer them with Eva by his side. Best of all, he’d made his peace with Don Vincenzo and the truth about his biological inheritance. With Eva’s help, he’d come to accept that he wasn’t so much Leonardo’s son as Vincenzo’s grandson. And getting to know the old man, over the summer months they now spent at the palazzo, and become a part of his family, had given him back the important foundation that he’d lost at sixteen. His lips curved at the memory of Vincenzo’s elation when his grandfather had greeted him and Eva as they arrived for Christmas in Lake Garda and spotted her pregnancy.

Nick sighed, and faced the austere mansion block again, where his PA had discovered his sister Ruby now lived with her husband of six years, Callum Westmore. His lips firmed.

The question now was, did he have the guts to finally deal with the biggest mistake of his life?

‘Seriously, Nick. You don’t have to do this,’ Eva said, her voice full of the sweetness and support that had become such an important part of his life.

He looked into her eyes, the smile returning. ‘Yeah, I do. It’s past time. I want our child to know Ruby.’ He rested his palm on Eva’s leg. ‘I just hope to hell married life has calmed her
down a bit, because the kid I remember could create quite a scene when she set her mind to it.’

He climbed out of the car, skirted the bonnet and opened the passenger door for Eva, then slung his arm round her waist. The solid feel of her against his side giving him the courage he needed.

Because the truth was, he’d take a scene any day to what he really feared. That Ruby would cut him dead, the way he deserved.

Eva squeezed Nick’s hand as he pressed the buzzer on the mansion’s intercom. She could feel the tension vibrating through him, knew how much this meeting meant to him. And while a part of her hoped that Ruby Westmore was a woman with a big heart and a forgiving soul, if she wasn’t, Eva already had a contingency plan. No one got to hurt Nick, not even his sister. So the woman would have to go through Eva to do it.

‘Who’s there?’ The high-pitched enquiry crackled out of the panel.

Nick frowned at Eva, clearly as puzzled as she was by the abrupt question. ‘Um… We’re here to see Ruby Westmore.’

The door buzzed and Nick shoved it open.

They climbed the brightly lit stairwell to the first floor, the building’s wrought-iron balustrade and marble flooring matching the gothic frontage. Just as they reached the landing a door
opposite the stairwell opened and a little girl standing on a chair peered out. ‘My mummy’s Ruby Westmore and she’s making turkey for dinner. Again,’ she announced, her nose wrinkling comically. ‘And Daddy’s giving Arturo a bath.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Eva said, when Nick simply stared at the little girl, clearly struggling to process the fact that this stunningly beautiful child with her cap of honey-brown curls and her bright emerald eyes had to be his niece.

‘What’s your name?’ Eva asked.

‘My name’s Alessia and I’m four and a half. My big brother Max is five and three quarters and he’s on a sleepover with his best friend Becca,’ she continued without any prompting. ‘Daddy says Alessia means trouble in Italian.’

Eva bit into her lip to hold back a grin at the non sequitur. She could just imagine how much trouble.

‘It’s nice to meet you, Alessia,’ she said. ‘I’m Eva and this is my husband Nick and we’d really like to talk to one of your parents.’

‘Hello,’ the girl replied, her gaze dipping to Eva’s stomach. ‘Do you have a baby in your tummy?’ she asked bluntly, happily ignoring the request for parental intervention. ‘Mummy had Art in her tummy for ages.’ She rolled her eyes and gave a long-suffering sigh worthy of an eighty-year-old. ‘But he’s out now and Daddy says he’s even more trouble than me and Max.’

‘Ally, get down off that chair this instant,’ a male voice boomed from inside the apartment.

Far from looking worried or even chastened, the little girl shot Eva and Nick an impish grin and whispered loudly from behind her hand, ‘That’s my daddy.’

The door swung wider and a tall, strikingly handsome man with jet-black hair and the same intense emerald eyes as his daughter stood before them with a cherubic baby haphazardly wrapped in a towel held securely in the crook of his arm.

‘Hi, I’m Callum Westmore,’ he said tightly, looking harassed with his hair furrowed into rows and a large damp patch on his T-shirt. ‘Sorry, I didn’t hear the doorbell.’

Before either Eva or Nick could introduce themselves, he turned to his daughter, who had wrapped her arms round his waist from on top of her chair.

‘Ally, you little terror,’ he said, sounding more exasperated than annoyed. ‘How many times have I told you not to answer the door?’ he said, his voice softening as he folded his free arm round his daughter’s shoulders. ‘You’re supposed to tell me or Mummy if you hear it ring. Remember?’

The little girl nodded sheepishly, then turned beseeching eyes on her father. ‘I forgot, Daddy.’

‘I’ll just bet you did,’ he muttered, but, from the way he was stroking the little girl’s shoulders,
it was fairly clear he was putty in her hands.

Eva smiled at the tableau Callum Westmore and his children made as he turned his attention back to them. ‘Sorry about that. My daughter is like her mother and doesn’t follow instructions very well,’ he said dryly. ‘How can I help you?’

Eva opened her mouth to reply, when Nick answered, his tone stiff. ‘I’m Nick Delisantro. We’re here to see Ruby. I’m her—’

‘I know who you are,’ Westmore interrupted sharply, his voice harsh, his brows lowering over eyes that had gone as hard as flint. ‘I also know how you treated my wife.’ His gaze swept over Nick. ‘What makes you think she wants to see you?’

Nick straightened. ‘That’s between my sister and I.’

Barely restrained violence crackled in the air as the two men squared off across the threshold to the apartment.

Eva placed a restraining hand on Nick’s arm, determined to calm the situation down, when little Alessia pointed at her and said happily, apparently oblivious to the tension, ‘Look, Daddy, Eva has a baby in her tummy, just like Mummy did.’

Callum Westmore’s gaze shifted to Eva and he stared blankly for several seconds before his gaze lowered to her belly. She realised the exact moment he registered, not just her presence, but
her condition as a dull flush appeared on his cheeks. ‘I…’

Eva thrust out her hand to rescue him. ‘Hello, Mr Westmore, I’m Eva Delisantro, Nick’s wife,’ she said gently. She might have wanted to dislike the man for his aggressive dislike of Nick, but she couldn’t, when it was obvious his anger stemmed from an unflinching loyalty to his wife.

It was also hard not to feel sympathy for his current predicament as she saw him process the fact that he was going to have to back down, with his children looking on and a pregnant lady on his doorstep.

He shook her hand. ‘Hello, I didn’t mean to—’

‘Cal, what’s all the commotion? Who’s at the door?’ a smoky female voice asked before a statuesque beauty appeared beside him.

Eva took in the caramel-coloured curls piled high on the woman’s head in a casual knot, the lush, outrageously curvaceous figure that looked stunning even in the simple cotton dress and the captivating chocolate-coloured eyes that went wide with shock as the woman whispered the single word, ‘Nick?’

No wonder these two had produced such beautiful children together, Eva thought.

‘Hi, Rube,’ Nick said, his voice breaking on the nickname. ‘I’m here to apologise. For what I did to you and to Dad. Can you forgive me?’

She gave her head a little shake, her lashes dampening with tears. ‘Nick,’ she murmured again, covering her mouth with her hand. But Eva didn’t see anger or derision on her face, all she saw was surprise and an emotion so fierce it was overwhelming.

‘Why are you crying, Mummy?’ Alessia asked, blunt as ever.

‘Ruby, you don’t have to do this,’ her husband said gently as the baby chortled in his arms. ‘I can make him leave if you want me to.’

She glanced at her husband, sending him a spontaneous smile that literally beamed with the love the two of them clearly shared. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Cal. He’s my brother.’