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to cry. At first it was the trickle of a solitary tear which streaked down her cheek and ended up in a salty drip at the corner of her mouth. She licked it away but then more came, until suddenly they were streaming her face but the crazy thing was that she didn’t care.
In the close confines of the car she stared at him through blurry vision and as that vision cleared the dark beauty of his face no longer seemed shuttered. It seemed open and alight with a look she’d always longed to see there, but never thought she would. It was shining from his eyes as a lighthouse shone out to all the nearby ships on the darkest of nights. ‘Yes, I believe you,’ she whispered. ‘And now you need to hold me very tightly—just to convince me I’m not dreaming.’
With a soft and exultant laugh Renzo pulled her into his arms, smoothing away the tangle of curls before bending his head to kiss away the tears which had made her cheeks so wet. She clung to him as their mouths groped blindly together and kissed as they’d never really kissed before. It was passionate and it was emotional—but it was superseded by a feeling so powerful that Darcy’s heart felt as if it were going to spill over with joy, until she suddenly jerked away—tossing her head back like a startled horse.
‘Oh, I love you, my beautiful little firecracker,’ he murmured as she dug her fingers into his arms.
‘The feeling is mutual,’ she said urgently. ‘Only we have to get out of here.’
He frowned. ‘You want to go back to Sussex?’
She flinched and closed her eyes as another fierce contraction gripped her and she shook her head. ‘I don’t think we’re going to make it as far as Sussex. I know it’s another two weeks away, but I think I’m going into labour.’
It was a quick and easy birth—well, that was what the cooing midwives told her, though Darcy would never have described such a seismic experience as easy. But she had Renzo beside her every step along the way. Renzo holding her hand and mopping her brow and whispering things to her in Italian which—in her more lucid moments—she knew she shouldn’t understand, but somehow she did. Because the words of love were universal. People could say them and not mean them. But they could also say them in a foreign language and you knew—you just knew—what they meant and that they were true.
It was an emotional moment when they put Luca Lorenzo Sabatini to her breast and he began to suckle eagerly, gazing up at her with black eyes so like his daddy’s. And when the midwives and the doctor had all left them, she glanced up into Renzo’s face and saw that his own eyes were unusually bright. She lifted her hand to the dark shadow of growth at his unshaven jaw and he met her wondering gaze with a shrug of his powerful shoulders. Was he crying?
‘Scusi,’ he murmured, bending down to drop a kiss on his son’s downy black head before briefly brushing his lips over Darcy’s. ‘I’m not going to be a lot of use to you, am I—if I start letting emotion get the better of me?’
And Darcy smiled as she shook her head. ‘Bring it on,’ she said softly. ‘I like seeing my strong and powerful man reduced to putty by the sight of his newborn baby.’
‘It seems as if my son has the same power over me as his mother,’ Renzo responded drily. He smoothed back her wild red curls. ‘Now. Do you want me to leave and let you get some rest?’
‘No way,’ she said firmly, shifting across to make space for him, her heart thudding as he manoeuvred his powerful frame onto the narrow hospital bed. And Darcy felt as if she’d never known such joy as when Renzo put his arm around her and hugged her and Luca close. As if she’d spent her life walking along a path—much of the time in darkness—only to emerge into a place full of beautiful light.
‘It’s not the most comfortable bed in the world, but there’s room on it for the three of us. And I want you beside me, Renzo. Here with me and here with Luca.’ And that was when her voice cracked with the emotion which had been building up inside her since he’d told her he loved her. ‘In fact, we’re never going to let you go.’
KICKING OFF HER shoes and flopping onto the sofa with a grateful sigh, Darcy frowned as Renzo handed her a slim leather box. ‘What’s this?’ she questioned.
He raised his brows. ‘Isn’t the whole point of presents that they’re supposed to be a surprise?’
‘But it isn’t my birthday.’
‘No,’ he said steadily. ‘But it’s Luca’s.’
‘Yes.’ The box momentarily forgotten, Darcy looked into her husband’s ebony eyes and beamed. Hard to believe that their beautiful son had just celebrated his first birthday. A year during which he’d captivated everyone around him with his bright and inquisitive nature, which at times showed more than a glimpse of his mother’s natural stubbornness.
Today, with streamers and balloons and a bit too much cake, they’d held a party for all his little friends in Sussex—while the mothers had each sipped a glass of pink champagne. Confident in her husband’s love, and freed from the shame of the past, Darcy had started to get to know people—both here in Sussex and in their London house, as well as the beautiful Tuscan villa where they spent as many holidays as they could. Invitations had started to arrive as, for the first time in her life, she’d begun to make friends. Real friends—though her best friend was and always would be her husband. She looked at him now with bemusement.
‘Open it,’ he said softly.
She unclipped the clasp and stared down at the necklace. A triple row of square-cut emeralds gleamed greenly against the dark velvet and there was a moment of confusion before she lifted her eyes to his. She remembered how, just after Luca’s birth, he’d gone to see Drake Bradley and persuaded the blackmailer to tell him where he’d pawned the diamond necklace. He’d got Drake’s confession on tape of course and, with the threat of prosecution and prison very real, Renzo had surprised everyone by refusing to turn him in to the police. Instead, he’d given Drake a chance—offering him a job working on the site clearance of one of his new projects in England. Employment Drake had eagerly accepted—possibly his first ever legitimate job and one which, against all the odds, he excelled at. For ever after, he treated Renzo with the dedication and loyalty a badly beaten dog might display towards the man who had rescued him.
Keep your friends close… Renzo had whispered to her on the night when the diamond necklace was back in his possession, after she’d finished remonstrating with him for putting himself in possible danger. But his expression had been rueful as she had held the dazzling diamond neckpiece as if it were an unexploded bomb.
‘I guess you wouldn’t get a lot of pleasure out of wearing this now?’
Darcy had shaken her head. ‘Nope. Too much bad history. And I’m no big fan of diamonds, you know that.’
The next day Renzo had returned the piece to the charity, telling them to auction it again. And he hadn’t mentioned jewellery since.
Until now.
‘Renzo,’ Darcy whispered, her gaze dazzled by the vivid green fire of the emeralds. ‘This is too much.’
‘No,’ he said fiercely. ‘It isn’t. Not nearly enough. If I bought up the contents of every jewellery shop in the world, it still wouldn’t be enough. Because I love you, Darcy. I love what you’ve given and shown me. How you’ve made me the man I am today, and I like that man much better than the one I was before.’ His voice dipped, his gaze dark as the night as it blazed over her. ‘And didn’t I always say you should have emeralds to match your eyes?’
Very wet eyes now, she thought, but she nodded as he kissed away her tears. And the jewels were suddenly forgotten because, when it boiled down to it, they were just pretty pieces of stone. The most precious