Chapter 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

" J ESUS, DANTE." GEORGIA STOPPED, paler than a ghost. "You scared the bejeezus out of me." Colour returned to her cheeks. Angry colour. "What are you doing here? I told you, don't surprise me…"

"I know." Standing outside her apartment building on a quiet street in a little hamlet of the Thames, he wore a suit, no sunglasses despite the brightness of the day, and his hair, which had been long at his collar in Como, was trimmed and neat.

"What do you want?" Her voice had a hostility to it that she couldn't curb, but she was annoyed and she was tired. Tired of the way he'd taken over her thoughts and mind and heart and soul. Tired of feeling him inside of her, even when he was nowhere near her. Tired of wanting him and knowing he was forever out of her reach, that his heart belonged to someone who was out of his reach. It was all so exhausting.

"Actually, I wanted to ask if you're free for dinner."

He held up a paper bag with a label on it she recognized as belonging to an exclusive boutique .

"A date," he clarified.

Georgia's heart popped and she took a step backwards, a physical manifestation of her inward rejection. "No way."

His features tightened for a moment, and then he appeared to relax. "Okay. How about tomorrow night?"

"I'm not busy," she clarified. "But I don't see the point in going on a date with you."

"Don't you?"

"Please don't do this," she begged.

"Do what?"

"Don't make this harder. Don't pull me close. Not when we both know at some point you'll push me away again. I can't bear it. I can't. I can't." She rocked on her heels, her voice growing higher in pitch. He dropped the bag to the footpath, moved closer, pressed his hands to her arms, holding her still.

"I don't want to push you away."

"Yes, you do," she groaned. "That's what you do. You can't help it."

A muscle jerked low in his jaw. "What if I've changed?"

"You want me to believe you've changed," she muttered, refusing to let him into her heart again. "Because I'm pregnant, and just weeks away from giving birth to your baby. But that's not enough for me."

"No, I want you to see that everything has changed. I want to take you for dinner so I can show you. I want to take you for dinner tonight, tomorrow night, and every night this week, next week, just to sit across a table from you and stare into your eyes and know how lucky I am to have been given a second chance." He lifted a hand, as if to touch her cheek, then dropped it again when she flinched.

"There is no second chance here, not with me. I can't do this again, Dante."

"I have been fighting this, fighting you, every day since we met," he ground out. "I didn't want this. I didn't want to feel this, I didn't want to care about you, to want you, I sure as hell didn't want to need you, but I do. I need you."

She rolled her eyes, anger making her lips tighten. "Yeah? Well, it's too late. Because I needed you then ." A tear rolled down her cheek. "I needed you months ago. Months." She pressed a hand to her heart as though that would stop it from hurting. "I needed you to see me, not as someone who was taking Bianca's place, who you resented, who was unwelcome, but as a woman, a flesh and blood woman who was falling in love with you."

"I know that," he agreed, voice deep and husky. "I have messed everything up and you have been so patient, so forgiving. You waited for me to see what was right in front of me and the more I felt for you the harder I ran, until I didn't need to run anymore because you stopped waiting." He dragged a hand through his hair, eyes probing hers. "I know," he groaned. "I know how much I messed this up. I know how wrong I've been. I'm not asking you to love me again, I'm not asking you to move in with me. I know I can't just click my fingers and go back; I get that this will take time to fix. I'm just asking if you'll give me that—time. Just a little time."

She shook her head, her heart aching for him, loving him still, but her brain was chasing a happiness that she didn't know he could provide. Not without too much risk to her. "You can't fix it," she whispered. "I can't trust you not to hurt me."

"Because you love me that much," he said quietly.

"Yes." Why bother hiding it? "And that makes me…I'm vulnerable to you. I need to think with my head, not with my heart. "

"But don't you get it? That's what I've been doing. I've been thinking how wrong I was to want you, to care about you, to get on with living my life in a way that made me—deep down—deliriously happy. I thought about how wrong that was, and stopped paying attention to how I felt and what I—and my heart—wanted."

She angled her face away, nostrils flaring as she exhaled a rough, emotional breath. She needed to stay strong but his words were slipping inside of her, swishing around, whispering promises to her, begging her to be brave. To try one last time.

"Are you sure?" She asked eventually, jaw set in a mutinous line.

"Sure?"

"I'll come to dinner," she said after a pause, her heart dropping to her toes. "But I am begging you not to do this if you're going to push me away again. I can't keep doing this." A tear rolled down her cheek. "I will hate you forever if you hurt me."

His eyes flared. "That makes two of us."

Her heart lifted, fluttering a little, closer to the region of her chest in which it belonged.

"Fine," she said with a curt nod. "Dinner. But Dante? It's just a meal. I'm not agreeing to anything. This doesn't change a thing between us."

"It changes everything. Dinner is hope, even if just a little, and an hour ago, I didn't know if there was any." He leaned closer, his breath warm against her temple, but he didn't kiss her. "Thank you, cara. From the bottom of my heart, with all of my heart, thank you. "

She nominated a popular, brightly-lit restaurant around the corner from her flat because it wasn't remotely romantic. She did, however, wear the dress he'd bought for her, because it was too beautiful not to. A silky gold, it hugged her body like a second skin, showing the roundness of her baby bump, the fullness of her breasts, the rich gold of her skin, courtesy of lots of walks in the summer sun.

He was waiting at a table by the window—though he'd asked to pick her up, she'd insisted on meeting him there. She needed to maintain low expectations, to protect herself. When she entered, he stood, and her heart kerthunked against her ribs, low expectations be damned.

He smiled.

Really smiled.

In a way that made his eyes shimmer and his whole face change, so her body trembled in response.

"Hello." Her voice quivered.

"You look so beautiful."

His words were like warmed butter on dry toast, sinking right in. She wished she could ignore him, resist his charms, but he was under her skin, damn him.

She slid into the seat opposite, greeting a waiter with a tight smile.

"Would you like to hear our specials?"

"Could we have a minute?" Georgia asked. She still wasn't sure she'd stay. He'd made an excellent case for dinner that afternoon, but once he'd left, Georgia had nursed her broken heart, had remembered how awful she'd felt for months, and she wasn't sure she could just let it go and start over.

"Sure. Just wave when you're ready." The waiter left the table.

"How are you?" Dante asked, but there was a watchfulness in his eyes now.

"I need you to tell me what happened," she said with soft determination. None of this made sense and Georgia needed it to. "A week ago, when I was in Como, you didn't love me."

"I didn't know how to love you," he contradicted. "I didn't know how to love you in a way that wouldn't be a betrayal to Bianca."

She ground her teeth. "And now?"

"I know I have to work it out. I know that I did love her and that I still do love her. I know those feelings can coexist with what I feel for you. Because I love you too. You're different to her in so many ways, but the same in one very important one: you make me happy. You make me feel as though I've been doused in sunshine, as though I am breathing in solid gold. You make me feel as though I could do anything, be anything. I can't lose you, Georgia. I can't lose you and I especially can't lose you because I've pushed you away."

She glanced towards the window, not trusting herself to reply.

"Would you like some pasta?" There was uncertainty in his voice. He reminded her of the twins, when they'd done something wrong and weren't sure if she'd be cross with them or not. Not that she'd ever been cross, really, but they hated to disappoint her. "Or the chicken breast?"

She turned back to him, sighing. "What changed, Dante?"

He looked wary. He looked worried. Terrified, in fact. She was still summing him up, working out what to do, and he knew that. He understood that his whole future was hanging by a thread. In another situation, she might have enjoyed the rush of power she felt. After being pushed away by him so often, she could clearly see now how terrified he was of losing her for good. Worried that he'd already lost her.

"Nothing and everything," he admitted with a shake of his head. "I woke up and saw clearly."

"But why?" She pushed, needing more. Needing a reassurance that it might have been out of his reach to offer.

"I missed you," he admitted. "I missed you and I was so angry with you for leaving, even when a part of me knew you'd done the right thing."

She glanced away, her eyes moist.

"And I was miserable without you in my life. Every day I had to choose not to go to you, I had to remind myself why I couldn't have you; it has been a form of torture."

She blinked quickly.

"And then Portia got involved."

Georgia grimaced. The last thing she wanted to think was that the other woman had manipulated Dante into coming back to Georgia. Had guilt-tripped him into doing what he perceived to be the right thing.

"She called Rocco. You remember my cousin?"

She nodded once.

"I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but that's how I met Bianca. Her mother worked for his parents. She spent a heap of time with the family, became friends with Rocco, then best friends. They were inseparable. Until I came along, and we were suddenly an item. He was so angry with me, at first."

"Why?"

"Because he loved her like a sister and he thought I'd broken some kind of code. And because he was worried I'd hurt her. That I'd do the wrong thing by her in some way."

"But you didn't," she said simply.

"Yes, I did."

Her eyes widened.

"Not while she was alive, but after she died, every day since then, I have chosen to live my life in some kind of stasis out of grief, but you were right. And he was right. That's not how I honour Bianca, or Livvie. That's not the kind of tribute she'd want from me. She'd want me to be happy, and she'd want me to be happy with someone like you. God, she'd have loved you, Georgia."

A tear rolled down Georgia's cheek. Dante reached across and wiped it away, gently.

"You said you thought fate had brought us together. I think it's more than fate. I think it's them."

"Them?" She whispered, eyes scanning his. "Bianca. Livvie. Your mum and dad." Georgia sobbed. "I think the people who loved us most are up there, and that they got sick and tired of us being alone. I think they made damned sure a storm rolled over Como, that you lost your scarf high in a tree, that you rolled your ankle, that power lines came down and blocked the road. And yes, that you fell pregnant. It's more than fate. It's how it's meant to happen for us, cara. I get that now."

She sobbed again, then dropped her face into her hands, unable to stop sobbing.

"I love you. I think I started to love you that night, in Como. I sure as hell knew I was at risk of loving you—I couldn't get you out of the house fast enough. But I know now that I'd fallen in love with you even when you told me you were pregnant."

She gasped. "I don't believe it."

"Come on, Georgia. I wasn't taking any risks of letting you go. I needed you with me, in my house, close to me. "

"Physically sure, but you kept me at a distance emotionally."

"I was so scared of what you might mean to me," he admitted. "And when you told me you were leaving, I was glad. I felt as though I'd dodged a bullet. You were going, I'd been strong, I'd resisted you. But I hadn't. I loved you, and I let you go, and I have been in agony ever since. Georgia, my darling, you mean so much more to me than I can ever explain."

Her chest hurt.

He came around to the side of the table and crouched down, needing to be closer. "Dinner here was a terrible idea," he muttered, shaking his head, as if just realizing that they were in a crowded trattoria.

"I needed it to be here," she whispered, through the gaps formed by her fingers. "I needed bright lights and lots of people and noise to help balance out anything you might say. I thought that if the setting was like this, you wouldn't be able to get under my skin, that I might be able to think."

"I want you to think," he said quietly. "I want you to take time, to decide what you want and need, and I will give it to you."

She nodded slowly, eyes latched to his. She was on the edge of a precipice, the future right there, if she was brave enough to take one more step into the abyss. To risk being hurt again. Except, there was no risk. As she looked at Dante, and really saw him, and understood him, she knew that the torment of his past was exactly that: in his past. He'd accepted the loss and his grief and allowed those parts to fall deeper inside of him, leaving room for the possibility of a happy future, for the possibility of joy.

"I want pasta," she said, answering the question he'd asked much, much earlier.

He frowned, not understanding, and then his eyes widened a little.

"But tomorrow night, I might try the chicken. We'll see."

It was an agreement to date, to have dinner with him, but they both knew it was so, so much more. Dante pushed up onto his knees and uncaring about the restaurant they were in, and the fact they were surrounded by diners, he kissed her with all the love in his heart.

Five nights later, over their fifth shared dinner date, he began to speak to her about them.

Not in a way that made her jealous. How could she be? By then, she was so, so secure in his love, in the blessing that was their happiness, she felt only sympathy for the woman whose life had been extinguished far too soon, and the little girl she just knew she would have loved. In fact, she knew she would have loved both of them.

It was a complicated, strange thing, but from the very beginning, Georgia had understood that the only way to truly love Dante was to open her heart to Bianca and Livvie too. They were such a huge part of him, they were in everything he was, said, did, they were a part of his fears and his hopes, which made them a part of Georgia too, and she loved that. She loved knowing that the little boy growing inside of her had a big sister he would learn all about, and an angel mummy in the sky who would help guide and shape him.

Georgia, forever an optimist, who viewed life through a veil of love and positivity, couldn't see any alternative but to love Dante's family—even those who were no longer here—with all her heart .

She particularly loved Portia, and Rocco, for the part they'd played in showing Dante the error of his ways. Rocco spoke to her of Bianca too, and one evening, he confided in Georgia how much Bianca would have liked her. Georgia had felt warm to the tips of her toes. She loved them all, even before she really told Dante that not only did she love him, she was ready to live with him again, this time, secure in his love.

Only, she didn't get a chance. At least, not before her waters broke, at thirty five weeks pregnant, in the middle of Oxford street, while shopping for a cot with Portia.

"Ohmygod." Portia, her own tummy sweetly rounded now with the twins that were growing there, stared at Georgia in shock before leaping into action.

She fired off a quick text before dialing an ambulance. "They'll be here soon," she promised.

"I don't think I can wait," Georgia groaned, doubling down as a huge contraction wracked her body.

"Of course you can." Portia's confident words were belied by a slight tremble in her tone. "Oh, to hell with it." She flagged down a cab. The driver looked terrified. "It's illegal to refuse a fare, you know," she muttered, as she shepherded a very-much-in-pre-term-labour Georgia into the back seat.

They arrived at the hospital at the same time as Dante, who somehow had enough presence of mind to press a two-hundred-pound tip into the cab driver's hand before putting an arm around Georgia and half carrying her through the sliding doors.

"I'm okay," she moaned, in immense pain and through gritted teeth.

Dante took one look at her and felt like the bottom was falling out of his world.

It all happened so quickly. Not only had Georgia's labour come almost out of nowhere, their son was born barely an hour later. The pain was intense. Like nothing Georgia had ever felt, and the worry was almost as enormous, because it was too soon, too early.

Despite that, their boy was born a good size and with very healthy lungs, going by his indignant cry and shiny red face.

"Is he okay?" She demanded, squeezing Dante's hand.

The nurses patted the baby down, weighed him, ignoring Georgia.

"Please," she cried. "Tell me, is he okay?"

Finally, one of the older nurses turned around, smiling. "He's good, love, all good. Perfect, in fact," and she carried their little bundle of joy to Georgia and placed him on her chest. He was a shock of dark hair, dark eyes, cupid's bow lips and dimpled cheeks, just like Livvie's had been. It made Georgia cry with so much love and emotion for the little girl she'd never known but loved anyway.

"He's perfect," she whispered.

Dante kissed her forehead and their son. "You're perfect. You both are." His voice was heavy with emotion. She understood. Nothing in their life would ever be straight forward for him. Everything was shaped by what he'd been through. But that wasn't a bad thing; it made him appreciate what they had, all the more.

Their son had to be taken to the NICU, mainly for observation, they were assured, though he would likely stay there a week or two, getting up his weight a little. It wasn't the news Georgia wanted, but at the same time, just knowing he was safe was a huge relief.

Plus, she was tired. And in enough pain to know the best thing for her was to be knocked out on medication for a little while and sleep.

When she woke up, Dante was gone, but he'd left a huge bunch of flowers beside the bed, with a little polaroid of their son propped beside it, and a note. "I'll be back soon—just checking on our boy."

Her heart lifted.

He was right where she wanted him to be—with their child. She fell back to sleep with a smile on her face.

The next time she woke up, Dante was sitting at her side, his eyes closed. But the moment she stirred, he looked at her, and smiled. And she smiled back. Everything was perfect.

"He's doing great," Dante assured her, before she could ask. "He's passed all his tests." He hesitated. "There's someone here who wants to see you. Actually, there are a lot of someones."

Her eyes widened.

"My whole family." He grimaced, and she laughed. "They can wait though."

"No, no. It's fine. I'd like to see them."

He expelled a sigh of relief. "The twins are on their way. They had an exam to sit, but they're onboard the jet now. They'll be here by this afternoon."

Tears filled her eyes. "Thank you."

"What for?"

"For bringing them here."

He looked bemused. "You don't need to thank me for that."

"It's just so thoughtful."

"You're literally all I think about." He leaned down, kissed the top of her head. "I love you."

Before he could leave to summon his family, she reached out and caught his hand. "Wait a second," she said, squeezing his fingers. "There's something I wanted to tell you, before our little guy decided to join us in the world."

He waited, studying her.

"I love you too. You know that. But I mean…I mean I'm ready. I mean I'm ready for the rest of our life to start. Officially."

Her cheeks flushed, a little embarrassed.

He closed his eyes though and rocked back on his heels. "As in, you'll marry me?"

She startled, because it wasn't really what she'd meant. She'd been thinking she might move back in with him. Share a room. Be a couple that lived together. But the second he asked the question—albeit in a very to-the-point way—she nodded. "Yes. If you're asking, yes. I'll marry you. In a heartbeat."

It was the first thing Dante announced to his family, when they fell into the large, luxurious hospital birthing suite, and their cheers could have been heard all the way from the northern tip of Australia.

THE END

Keep reading for the next book in the Italian Rivals series, Cinderella's Fling with the Off-Limits Billionaire. And don't forget, if you get a chance, to rate and review this book once you're finished. Mwah!