Chapter Eight
Ella would have liked the honeymoon period to last for more than five and a half minutes but she had to admit to herself that that was never likely to happen.
They weren’t leads in a romcom where eleventh-hour revelations occurred and love was shouted from the rooftops.
He might be attracted to her—and her body burned when she remembered just how heatedly he had proven that—but this was a practical matter for him.
After the night they’d spent together at her house, he’d almost immediately reminded her that things would have to be set in motion.
And, since then, Rocco had been true to his word. He had stayed for the night and the following morning he told her he would have to return to London.
‘Come with me,’ he urged quietly, his dark eyes intent and serious. ‘Because we need to pin down timings and details of what happens next. Life for both of us is about to dramatically change, and I’m not a man to approach big changes in life without due diligence being done beforehand.’
He was standing fully dressed by the side of the bed at the crazily early hour of half-past six in the morning.
It was still pitch-black outside. It could have been midnight.
Ella was lying naked under the thick winter duvet, barely awake and still pleasurably indulging in drowsy thoughts of Rocco slowly beginning to love her the way she loved him.
After the most wonderful and loving experience with him the night before, she was inclined to optimism.
She snapped out of that in a hurry.
‘London?’
‘I have a place there as well offices.’
Which brought home to her just how different his alter ego had been—the one with a small business concern in Madrid and an eye to elevating his position in life. The one who had rented a one-bed cottage to give her the illusion that that had been the most he could afford.
She knew it was stupid to dwell on those differences because the outward trappings didn’t reflect the inner man who was one and the same.
At least, they didn’t most of the time. Right then, as he stood restlessly next to the bed, she could almost believe that man was morphing back into the autocratic businessman she had first encountered in that boardroom.
‘Before we marry—and incidentally I feel that marriage should be as soon as possible—documents will have to be signed, preparations put in place. The usual paraphernalia of two people getting hitched.’
‘Documents?’
She watched him hesitate, but only briefly. ‘Financial stipulations. A pre-nup being top of the agenda.’
‘A pre-nup? I wouldn’t call that “the usual paraphernalia of two people getting hitched”.’
‘It is in my world. Would you be…amenable to signing one?’
‘Of course.’ But the atmosphere had changed subtly, even though she acknowledged that this was no different from what anyone with his kind of wealth would have suggested.
Especially bearing in mind that she didn’t come from the same place as him; didn’t share the same social standing. The rules of the game were completely different.
He hadn’t dwelled on those differences. When he was with her, he was relaxed, as at home in her dad’s house and with her dad as anyone could be, but those differences existed. She just had to think back to when he had described the sort of woman his parents would expect him to marry.
Love, though, overcame everything.
‘Rocco, I wouldn’t dream of trying to get money out of you if…if for some reason… No. I’m just not that kind of person.’
‘I’m not doubting you but…’
‘But rules are rules?’ She shrugged, choosing to give him the benefit of the doubt. ‘I get it. Just about. It’s a weird world you live in, but I suppose you always have to be on high alert for gold-diggers. Also, yes, I’ll come to London. When? And where do you want to meet?’
‘I thought you could come to my place.’ He moved towards her, leant over and kissed her gently on the forehead before pushing her hair back.
‘I’m looking forward to marrying you,’ he murmured.
‘I’m really glad you changed your mind. You’re doing the right thing—I know that—and so am I.
The right thing for our baby. I realise you feel you’re making a sacrifice, perhaps in ways that I’m not, and don’t imagine that I don’t appreciate that. I do.’
Beautiful words. Her heart softened.
‘Okay. I’ll sort a train out.’
At which Rocco had looked at her with amusement. ‘Consider public transport a thing of the past,’ he said with surprise in his voice. ‘Too uncomfortable in your condition.’
‘Really?’ Ella smiled. ‘Maybe you should try telling that to the thousands of them heading here, there and everywhere on buses and trains and tubes.’
‘I could arrange for my helicopter to get you. A driver can collect you from here and—’
‘No!’ Her voice was terser than intended because she had a sudden vision of letting go of the sort of life she’d always had, floundering in a new world order in which she didn’t belong. ‘I’d die of fright in a helicopter.’
‘I also have a private jet at my disposal.’
‘Rocco, a commercial flight will suit me just fine.’
It had felt like a small win for her world over his. But, she fleetingly thought, how long would that last?
It had taken a little longer than the original twenty-four hours planned for Ella to head to London.
Important meetings had demanded Rocco’s absence from the country, so it was five days after they had agreed the visit, at a little after six in the evening, that Ella stood in front of an impressive Regency house, one of about twenty that formed an imposing crescent that curved in a semi-circle around a private, gated park manicured to within an inch of its life.
The houses were fronted with perfectly symmetrical cream columns.
Even the lamp posts outside every three houses appeared to stand to attention, respectful of their grand surroundings.
There wasn’t a Christmas tree in sight, and certainly no inflatable Santas on sleds gaily announcing from the tops of the buildings that it was the festive season.
There were wreaths on the doors, however, with lush foliage and just the right shades of metallic accents to contrast nicely against the highly polished black front doors.
It was hard to marry the man who had joked around with her dad and been intrigued at the kids singing carols with the man who lived behind that imposing door.
It was deathly quiet. The cars parked outside were eye-wateringly high-end—cars that belonged to people who also had private jets and helicopters at their disposal.
Ella pressed the doorbell and, before she could remove her finger from the buzzer, the door opened and there he was, standing in front of her, and her heart leapt.
It was freezing outside but he was in a pair of loose, black jogging bottoms and a tee-shirt. Apparently it was summer in Belgravia, even if it was the middle of December everywhere else.
‘Ella…’
Rocco smiled and stood aside so that she could brush past him, pulling a small case on wheels behind her.
She smelled of a fragrant scent which, he suspected, was nothing more than the smell of her shampoo.
He was ridiculously pleased to see her because, even though it had only been a matter of days since he’d returned to London, only to jet off immediately to New York, she’d been on his mind.
He’d missed her and he put that down to the fact that they were on a completely different footing now.
Naturally she would be on his mind because their relationship had undergone a seismic change.
Plus, their love-making had been…sensational.
‘I still think you should have let my driver bring you to London,’ he said without preamble as she moved gracefully into his house and looked around her with an expression he couldn’t quite read.
‘This is an amazing place.’ She turned full-circle and then crooked her head at one of his paintings. ‘Is that a real Hockney on the wall?’
‘All the artwork in here is the real deal.’
Rocco went to relieve her of her coat and noticed she was wearing a million layers underneath.
He itched to get them all off. However, he’d had time to think, and he was going to play it cool.
Attraction or no attraction, this was first and foremost an arrangement that made sense and not a searing tale of high romance.
He didn’t want her getting the wrong impression.
He didn’t want her expectations to be built to levels he wouldn’t be able to meet.
He didn’t want her falling in love with him.
Of course, she wouldn’t do that, not when she was coming from a place of mistrust because of the circumstances under which they had met.
Not when he’d had to convince her to marry him.
Not when she had been through disillusionment with a partner and was wary of emotional involvement with the wrong guy.
But still… Right now she was independent, and wanted nothing from him beyond what he had put on the table, but that was right now.
He didn’t want her investing in him emotionally as time moved on.
He didn’t want her to become the sort of clingy, demanding wife who expected shows of devotion and was disappointed if they failed to materialise.
He didn’t have it in him to be that sort of man, even if he could fill in the blanks in all the other areas that mattered, and he knew it would be a fine line between disappointment and eventually filing for divorce.
So he would play it cool. Even though, right now, as he looked at her turn full circle in his vast hallway, he was anything but cool. In fact, he had never felt hotter.
‘You should shed the layers, Ella. I keep this place well heated in winter.’
‘So I notice. I never asked, but you must have been freezing when you stayed the night. There’s always been a strict policy at home of layering up in winter because only namby-pambies rely on central heating twenty-four seven to keep warm.’