Chapter Eleven
IT HAD BEEN a week since Lily had agreed to marry Rocco.
In that time, it seemed as if they’d barely left his bedroom.
Rocco had promised that their relationship would be one of passion, and he’d delivered.
Each muscle in her body was deliciously sore.
When she showered in the morning, she relished the grazes from his stubble against her skin.
His marks, like a claim on her body. In the bedroom, the intimacy was everything she could have dreamed.
She luxuriated in his sensual attention.
It was all consuming, breathtaking. Every night an erotic fantasy.
If they hadn’t had their discussion establishing his views on relationships, she might have felt loved.
Luckily, love wasn’t entering the equation.
That emotion made you foolish. It let you fall for lies.
She’d been there before and she didn’t ever want to be there again, which was why she’d agreed to this arrangement.
Rocco had promised her nothing more than what he could give, and made the parameters clear. There was no chance for confusion.
And yet a little kernel of warmth still bloomed in her chest when she first opened her eyes in the morning next to him, when he smiled at her across the breakfast table.
When he pinned her against a wall and kissed her or dropped to his knees in the shower and teased her until she wept.
Each day it seemed to grow bigger and bigger, filling her till she might burst. Her body too small for this huge thing it required she hold inside of her.
She pushed those thoughts aside. It was desire; that was all. In many ways this engagement was like she’d hoped her first might have been, even though Rocco was definitely not Richard.
Her ex had always reminded her of the behaviour clause in her trust fund.
More like golden handcuffs, she realised now, than the safety net her family had claimed.
With Richard, she’d diminished herself. Rocco didn’t impose any similar strictures.
He relished her wild and untamed, screaming his name to the heavens.
And the times when she fell back on demure as a kind of shield like she’d been taught, he asked whether she was well.
Instead of silence, Rocco encouraged her to laugh loudly, to be herself. It was freeing, liberating.
Though out of the confines of the bedroom, Rocco was like another man entirely.
All practicality and business. He’d asked his solicitors to put together a prenuptial agreement to send to her own lawyers, so they could look over it and advise her.
There was to be a generous payment to her nominated bank account as a gesture of goodwill on signing.
Lump sums for each year married, children born, financial splits on divorce.
He’d arranged for her lease to be broken in London, and her possessions packed.
Rocco said his aim was to ensure that she felt protected.
Telling her there was nothing she needed to do but to sit back and grow their child.
Otherwise, he locked himself in his office or his studio.
Working, she’d presumed. To allow her to rest, he’d claimed, since their nights were consumed with making love.
The only difficult thing had been calling Maxine to tell her she wouldn’t be coming back to London. Resigning from her job. Then, Max had made Lily a promise …
‘If it doesn’t work out, there’ll always be a place for you here.’
But it would work. What she and Rocco had was formed by clear boundaries and no surprises. The interactions between them seamless. Easy. Even if he did hold himself back. Passion in the bedroom, practicality elsewhere.
Perfect.
A gentle knock sounded at the door of her room, in name only.
She kept her clothes here because they hadn’t yet reorganised Rocco’s space to include her things.
Earlier in the day Rocco had sent her a cryptic message: Be ready at 9.
Wear practical black. No other explanations.
She dressed as he’d asked—fitted black top and cargo pants, although they were getting a little tight around her middle.
She smiled, placing her hand on her gently increasing bump.
The rest, fluids and nutrition seemed to be working.
‘Come in,’ she said.
The door cracked open and she turned. Her breath catching.
Like on the day she’d first seen him again in Italy, he stood dressed in all black himself.
His dark shirt lovingly gripping the planes of his strong, broad shoulders.
Tucked into similarly dark trousers at the narrow taper of his waist, accentuating the powerful vee of his torso.
If she was a poet she’d write sonnets about how his body consumed her thoughts during the day, owned her pleasure in the night.
How the intensity of his dark chocolate gaze melted her.
His coaxing lips crumbled all of her resolve.
The man was fire, and she adored the burn.
He raised an eyebrow. His appraisal of her slow and seductive. It snagged at the hand still on her belly. His nostrils flared.
‘Are you ready?’
She nodded. ‘Where are we going? You’re being very mysterious.’
The corner of his mouth turned up in an incendiary smile that had her curling her toes. Did they have to go out at all? She enjoyed the idea of staying in, reaping the erotic reward that was an engagement to Rocco Silvestri.
‘It’s a surprise,’ he said. ‘Come, our driver’s waiting.’
He placed a solicitous hand on the small of her back as they walked down the stairs to the front of the house, where his car sat idling. Sliding into the back seat with her, he spoke in Italian to the driver and the car eased away from the curb.
‘Are you able to give me some hints?’ she asked.
‘You’ll enjoy it,’ he replied with certainty, giving her nothing else. ‘I’m told most women do.’
She got the clear impression that the conversation was over so she didn’t press.
Let him be an enigma if he wanted. She settled back into the comfortable leather seats.
Breathing in the earthy and elemental scent of Rocco that filled the small space.
Familiar, enticing and even settling. Round him, her nausea had eased.
It was like her body could relax. Not fighting the hormonal onslaught that was her pregnancy, but simply growing their baby.
It was a blissful relief, allowing her to enjoy small moments rather than feeling at war with herself.
She looked out the window of the car, letting the atmosphere of the aptly called Eternal City seep into her bones.
Their child would grow up with a history and a legacy of an old family behind them.
It filled her with some comfort, having lost her own because they hadn’t supported her.
Even though she knew it was for the best if they couldn’t respect her, it still left a hole.
Yet she wondered, with all that history and legacy of his family, what did his parents think of her pregnancy?
‘Have you told your mother and father about the baby? How we’re getting married?’
There was a slight hesitation. Rocco pulled his phone from his pocket. Checked it.
‘Not yet,’ he said, his tone flatter than usual.
‘When are you going to?’
Maybe it was only a stereotype, but she’d heard about Italian mothers, and Rocco was an only son …
‘Soon. I want this time for us. To learn each other, to settle together. It’s still early and you know how families can be. Everyone has an opinion and wants to interfere.’
Lily absolutely did, but in her case her family interfered in a way that was against her interests.
All she wanted for the baby she carried was a life full of love and happiness.
Her own family had tried to consign her to one of obligation and misery.
The contrast was stark. Something queasy curled in her belly, but this wasn’t like the morning sickness that had plagued her. This was more like trepidation.
‘Do you think they’ll like me?’ She hated the hint of insecurity in her voice, that craving for approval. She shouldn’t, yet it burrowed into her like an errant splinter. What if they didn’t? What would it mean for them? Their child?
She turned to look at him, and his gaze was already focussed on her. His eyes glittering in the warm city lights.
‘Nobody who meets you could help but like you, farfallina.’ His voice was strong and sure, yet with a hard edge. Goosebumps showered over her skin at the certainty in his tone.
The car turned from the main thoroughfare to a narrow back street, pulling up beside a gleaming green door of what appeared to be a shop.
The glass windows, barred. Blinds pulled down inside.
It almost looked closed except round the edges of the blinds were slivers of light suggesting someone was inside.
She tried to get an idea of what this place was, but there was only a name and number, printed on an awning above the entrance.
Grossi. 1884.
‘Come, let’s see what they have for us,’ Rocco said cryptically, opening the door of the car and getting out.
Holding his hand for her. Helping her out of the car, even though she didn’t need it.
He led her to the door of the shop and pressed the buzzer.
The door clicked. Rocco pushed it open and they were greeted by a stylish older man in a grey suit.
‘Signor Zanetti, it’s a pleasure and an honour. I’m assuming this is your fiancée?’
‘Sì. I’d like you to meet Lily Rutherford.’
‘Signora, it’s a privilege,’ the man said. ‘My name is Alberto Grossi and I’m hoping to help you today, find exactly what you desire.’
Lily frowned a little in confusion. She didn’t really desire anything.
Her dreams had been pretty much fulfilled over the last few weeks.
She cast her eye around the shop. Countertops covered in fitted blue velvet.
Antique glass cabinets lined the walls of the intimate space, but they were all empty.