Chapter Eight #3
She wanted to hope a piece of his heart was willing to open up, and she knew that all it would take would be a chink, but to show how she felt now… How would he react? He thought he knew all the answers and, what he didn’t know, he could somehow predict and so control.
How would he react if he knew how she felt about him?
Would the marriage proposal come off the table?
Now that she had accepted it, she couldn’t face the thought of not being married to him.
She’d come full circle. From bitterness and scepticism, he had managed to prove himself to her and, his having done that, she had let hope creep in.
But hope and complete idiocy were two different things and she still had to have some safeguards in place.
‘What are you protecting yourself from?’
‘From landing up in a place where I don’t know the rules of the game and there’s no one to show them to me.’
‘Where do you think I’m going to be during all of this? Haven’t I proved to you that you can count on me?’
‘You don’t understand. It was easy for you to slide into my life, to charm my dad. But what I’m facing is completely different. I mean, have you even told your parents about…about everything?’
‘I’m going to break the glad tidings to them later tonight,’ Rocco said, rising to his feet and doing a half-hearted job of tidying the table.
He could feel the sudden tension in his shoulders because this was a blatant lie.
Or at least, a very creative way of dealing with the truth.
But he decided, without analysing it too deeply, it would be better to give her the final reassurance she needed that she hadn’t been manoeuvred into a marriage she hadn’t originally wanted.
And he hadn’t manoeuvred her, he told himself, without a shred of inner doubt. He’d just allowed her to see that he could be counted on. He’d allowed her to be persuaded by all the advantages she and their baby would have if she tied the knot with him.
If he’d presented the situation to his parents earlier as a fait accompli, then likewise he’d been smoothing the path for them. All told, it was the best way of handling everything, and he was accustomed to handling things in the most efficient way possible.
‘There’s dessert.’ He changed the subject as he fetched some bowls from the cupboard. When he turned round, he released a short sigh of relief, because her face had softened.
‘Sometimes I see life in black and white,’ he admitted.
‘A lot of people imagine that to be born into a life of privilege must be pretty amazing—holidays to far-flung places, the best of everything life has to offer—but in my case it was a rigid life without much scope for…moving too far outside the box. The very gilded box.’
‘And that’s why you felt so free when you didn’t have to be the person other people expected things from…when we met.’
‘We worked for one another, Ella. We just didn’t see this coming. All I’m doing is dealing with it in the only way I know how.’
‘Which doesn’t mean that I don’t have concerns. I mean…is there a timeline for going to see your parents? If they don’t know anything just yet, do they expect that you’ll be spending Christmas with them?’
‘I’ll arrange for us to see them before Christmas. I’m guessing you’ll want to spend Christmas with your dad and, if I’m honest, so would I.’ He shot her a crooked smile. ‘Now I’ve had a little bit of what Christmas should feel like, I’m hungry for more.’
Ella smiled and relaxed. ‘Just think of how much fun it’ll be when there’s three of us.’ She accepted the chocolate gateau and fork that he handed her on a small plate.
Doubts eased away. ‘I could get used to all this fussing even though, naturally, it’s not necessary, and on principle I object.’
‘I admire a woman of principle.’
Ella could feel her whole body react to his proximity as he dragged a chair over and waited until she’d finished the cake before dabbing some stray chocolate from the side of her mouth.
She sucked in her breath and had to resist the temptation to wrap her arms around him and bury her head against him.
‘Okay, guided tour…’ he growled against her neck and she started with dismay.
‘What now?’
‘To my bedroom. First and only stop will be my bed.’ He scooped her off the chair and ignored her half-hearted protest. He walked and kissed her at the same time, fired up by her tiny, little whimpers of pleasure.
Ella lost herself in her body’s urgent, driving needs.
She was on fire by the time they made it to the bedroom.
He laid her on the mattress, stepped back to look at her and she basked under his hungry gaze and was ready as he pushed up the top.
She wasn’t wearing a bra. She quivered as she clamped his mouth onto her nipple and sucked, his tongue rasping on the stiffened bud, driving her crazy with pleasure.
She was barely aware of him undressing her, not completely, but enough.
Enough to trace her no longer flat stomach with his hand, to ease off the loose trousers she was wearing, followed by her panties.
She was so wet for him. She flung back her head, closed her eyes and groaned with the anticipation of being pleasured, opening her legs to accommodate the mouth she knew would find the throbbing bud of her clitoris. Her body ached and yearned for him.
His tongue found the perfect spot and she moaned as he flicked it against her clitoris, over and over until she could feel the steady build of an orgasm.
She couldn’t hold back. She wanted him deep in her, but she couldn’t resist his demanding tongue, and she moaned and shuddered against his mouth as she came.
Shaken, satisfied and drowsy as desire slowly ebbed away Ella blinked like an owl and then sighed. ‘Rocco…’
She shot him a hooded glance as he straightened, still staring at her with a little smile, and in that smile she could read all sorts of very acceptable levels of appreciation. Ella shuffled herself back into something resembling a state of dress and yawned as exhaustion began creeping in.
‘You’re tired.’
‘I… I’m okay.’
‘You need a nice hot bath.’
‘You’re fussing again.’
‘You like it,’ he teased and she thought, a little uncomfortably, yes, far too much…
He scooped her up and took her directly to an en suite bathroom that was as big as a football field and very, very modern. There was no glass door concealing a shower cubicle but a huge wet room, a massive bath…and even a comfortable chair against the wall big enough for two.
He sat her on the chair while he ran the bath and tested the water. She thought, if, in a fortnight, you could find part of yourself you’d never accessed before, then over time, with a child uniting us, is it really so much to think that I could bring out the person I know you are?
She could have lost herself in that daydream for ever. Turning it into reality felt like a tiny heartbeat away.
‘You relax here for a bit,’ he said, pushing her hair back and helping her into the warm, deep, foamy water. ‘I’ll bring your bag up and then I have a couple of work calls to make. Climb into bed. I won’t be long.’
He was gone before she could reply and she did as told.
She enjoyed a long, lazy bath. Like the rest of the house, the enormous bathroom was in pale marble, only broken by a granite square defining the wet room.
The towels were big, fluffy white ones and beautifully warm from the heated towel rail.
She felt like a special guest in a very expensive five-star hotel.
When she’d had her bath, she clambered into bed and was nodding off when Rocco eventually returned.
‘Sorry I took a little longer than I expected. One of the calls I made was to my parents.’
‘Ah. How did it go? How did they take the news? They must have been shocked. Did they ask a lot of questions about us?’
‘Some, as to be expected. I’ve arranged for us to go and pay them a visit. It will be a fleeting one.’
‘You’ve actually arranged a date? Already?’
‘There’s no point delaying the inevitable,’ Rocco said wryly.
‘Why not? We could delay it for a bit longer. Let them get used to the idea of their one and only son getting married to the unsuitable girl he got pregnant.’
‘Getting used to that might take them a while.’
‘That’s not very reassuring for me.’
‘You have nothing to worry about. We’ll be there two days and, while we’re there, you can count on me to shield you from any awkward interaction.’
‘Awkward interaction?’ Ella laughed nervously.
‘Nothing that can’t be dealt with,’ Rocco soothed. ‘But you have to understand that they’re very traditional and they’ve had set ideas about the direction of my life. Including the sort of woman who might eventually wear my ring.’
‘And you’ve never led them to think that you might ever want to follow a different route…’
‘Like I said, my life was set in stone from a very young age.’
‘So when is this visit going to take place?’
‘Tomorrow late-afternoon. My private jet is on standby.’
Private jet? Standby? Just for a second Ella had a fleeting and vaguely uneasy vision of the life she had signed up to.
It wasn’t going to be anything like the one she was accustomed to living.
She’d known that, of course, but she’d been lulled into a sense of security because he’d been on her turf and in her territory.
Now, she would be entering a different world, and she had to fight the chasms between them opening up around the seeds of hope that had taken root.
He would be by her side. He’d assured her that everything would be okay. And she believed him because he had proved that he was the man she’d thought he was.