EPILOGUE
‘I T ’ S TWINS ,’ A RISTOPHANES SAID . He sounded...angry.
Cesare bit back a smile. ‘Congratulations?’
His friend had called him in a fury, because apparently he’d found out that a woman he’d spent a night with three months earlier was now carrying his child. Two children, to be exact.
‘I don’t need your congratulations,’ Aristophanes snapped.
‘I fail to see what you’re so angry about,’ Cesare said patiently. ‘Weren’t you supposed to be trying to get her pregnant?’
That had been the case, according to Aristophanes, but he had refused to give Cesare any details. Annoying. Especially because Aristophanes had always made it clear he didn’t want children.
‘Don’t you understand?’ Aristophanes growled. ‘I can’t not have them in my life. They’re mine.’
‘I don’t think you really want me to say I told you so, do you?’
Aristophanes said something filthy in Greek then disconnected the call.
Cesare put his phone back on his desk and smiled.
Just then, the doors of his office opened and his wife came in. She was wearing the most beautiful sea-green gown, the exact shade of her eyes. It wrapped around her figure deliciously and he wondered if perhaps they could change the time of their dinner date. Maya was with Emily; she was taken care of. They could make it later. Give him some time to—
‘Cesare,’ Lark said, looking stern. ‘No, we don’t have time, and anyway...’ The stern look faded to be replaced by the smile she gave for him and him alone, the one that lit her face, that made him ache to hold her. ‘I have something to tell you.’
It couldn’t be bad, not judging from her smile, yet his heart started beating faster all the same. ‘Oh?’ He pushed his chair back and got to his feet, coming around his desk to where she stood and taking her gently into his arms. ‘Something good, I hope?’
Her face shone. ‘I’m pregnant.’
It was something good. It was the best news he’d ever had.
And a little under eight months later, when Lark delivered their twins, a boy and a girl, it got even better.
He realised then what he’d subconsciously known the day he’d chosen Lark and his child over his own fear.
That the true Donati legacy was love and always had been.