Maureen Child - One-Click Buy: October Silhouette Desire

Her breath caught.

His eyes were bright, unguarded. The love shone from them. “The baby was an excuse, a way of getting what I really wanted. You.”

Gemma’s breath left her in an audible whoosh. Warmth filled her, her body softened, leaning into him. He felt warm and solid against her. Permanent. “I love you, too.”

“At last!” He yanked her into his arms. The kiss that landed on her mouth held a touch of desperation.

And she realised that Angelo had been nervous. He hadn’t been sure of her at all. “I was getting cold feet at the idea of being married to someone who didn’t love me.”

“And I have to admit I wasn’t thrilled at marrying someone who wanted me only for my body. Wench.” He sat up and grabbed her hand and slid the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly.

Gemma giggled. “It could’ve been worse. I could’ve told you that I was marrying you for your money. To settle my credit-card debt.”

“I knew that wasn’t a factor.”

“How?”

“The offer of the contract to sing in Australia would have taken care of your debt.” He slanted her a look. “That’s a resort I’ve recently acquired. I wasn’t intending to let you get too far away. Once I got over the shock of your revelation that you weren’t Mandy…and the even bigger shock that I wanted you back. I had to make a plan to get you back.”

“I should’ve known!” Gemma laughed with joy. “I almost turned it down. Because I’d discovered I was pregnant. I wanted to work in New Zealand so I could be close to my parents. But the chance to get rid of that debt was too good.”

A kiss landed on the top of her head. “Now we’ll spend our honeymoon there and I’ll spend the four months I have you under contract overseeing the developments I have planned for those resorts.”

She cuddled closer. “And speaking of work. I still want to sing. But something Daphne said struck a chord with me. She’s talked about starting a foundation to educate young people about the dangers of drugs. I’d like to get involved with that.”

“Do anything you want. I will support your decision.”

No longer his way. But their way. Gemma smiled to herself. “I’d like to feel that someone like Mandy could be saved. Or someone like Daphne’s son, Chris.”

He hugged tightly to him. “You have my support, on one condition: we get married before the new year.”

She lifted her face to his, hooked her arm around the back of his head and pulled his mouth down to hers. “Deal!”

Angelo had one final surprise for Gemma. He flew her parents out to Strathmos for the wedding and watched her stunned delight as they walked into the penthouse to surprise her.

He put himself out to charm her parents. Two nights before the wedding the four of them had dinner in the Golden Fleece and afterwards they strolled down to the Apollo Club.

Later they shared a nightcap in the penthouse. By the time her parents were ready to call it a night, it was ten o’clock. After kissing her mother good-night and giving her father a hug and seeing them to the door, Gemma turned to Angelo with a gleam in her eyes that made his throat tighten and said, “I fancy a long, hot soak.”

They wallowed in the huge spa tub in his bathroom. Angelo lounged across from her, his damp hair had darkened to bronze but his eyes were as startling, as vivid, as ever.

“Tired?” Angelo’s tone was gentle.

She opened her eyes. His gaze held a tenderness she’d never seen before. “More like lazy. I feel like I never want to get out the water.”

He smiled. “Oh, I guarantee you’ll want to.”

Her heartbeat bumped up. Her skin prickled, every inch of her instantly awake and energized.

“Angelo-”

Under the water his hand slid over her belly. “Our baby.”

She smiled at him. “Our baby.”

His gaze very intent, he said, “I love you, Gemma. Only ever you.”

“I know,” she murmured. “And for me there will only ever be you.”

His eyes started to smoulder. “I believe you. I know you will never betray me.

“Come.” He pulled her over him and water washed around them both at the sudden movement.

Gemma became intensely aware of the supple strength of his chest against her back, the hard length of his erection against her buttocks, ready and waiting.

Her head fell back into the crook of his shoulder where it joined his jaw, uncaring that her hair would be soaked.

When his other hand came up to play with her nipple, locking her in the circle of his arms, Gemma made a frantic, keening noise in the back of her throat and bucked her hips.

Angelo laughed softly in her ear. “More?”

The sound she made was barely coherent. One of his hands left her breast, snaked downward and slipped between her thighs.

There was something so intimate about being spread over Angelo’s body, unable to see him, but aware of every arch and muscle of his flesh. She felt surrounded by him. He was under her, his arms around her, and all the while the wild flames licked between her legs.

She started to pant. She closed her eyes, focusing on the desire that burned through her.

When Angelo moved, her eyes snapped open. The next instant he hoisted her up onto the lip of the bath, parted her knees and knelt in front of her. She cried out as he entered her.

Heat ripped through her, wild and ferocious.

He moved again, Gemma’s hands closed around his head, her fingers digging into the dark gold hair, and then she felt herself give.

“Angelo!’ It was a cry of desperation, of satiation.

Angelo stood at the door of the church he’d been baptised in, waiting for his bride.

Connie, along with her latest husband and Gemma’s parents, sat in the front row. From where he stood he could see Penelope dabbing the tears of happiness from her eyes. Tariq sat beside Connie, looking very grave, his white robes flowing behind him.

At the altar stood Zac and Pandora who’d agreed to be koumbaro and koumbara and crown him and Gemma in the wedding ceremony.

At last Angelo heard the drone of a motor and moved towards the entrance. A white limousine emblazoned with the resort’s crest came down the winding road and slowed as it reached the church. He narrowed his eyes against the light, trying to catch a glimpse of Gemma.

The village priest materialized beside him. “It looks like your bride has arrived, my son.”

Angelo started to move.

The priest’s hand caught his arm. “Wait, let her alight.”

The driver came around and opened the door.

One taut, elegant leg appeared. Then the other. Finally his bride emerged in a dress so white it dazzled him. He stepped forward, and barely noticed the priest’s hand falling away, all his attention focused on the woman ahead.

She smiled at him and offered him her hand. He took it in both of his and raised it to his lips.

“I love you. I honestly do.”

She rewarded him with that radiant smile that he knew would brighten the rest of his life.

“What are you doing here?” A commanding voice and a pair of black eyes pierced the evening gloom from inside the tiny cottage.

It was him.

She’d known she’d see Reynaldo De Leon sooner or later-it was his estate, after all-but she’d wanted to be psyched up and dressed for success, not sweaty, disheveled and emotional from a day of sorting through her beloved mother’s belongings.

Anna Marcus’s fingers tightened around her bag of greasy take-out food.

He stared down at her from his impressive height. A crease appeared between black brows. “Have you come to clean?”

He looked huge in the cramped kitchen, the single dim bulb illuminating his arrogant features, his wide, sensual mouth tilted with disdain. “If you’re getting paid by the hour I’ll reimburse you for tonight, but you must tell your employer to get in touch with me before any property is removed.”

He thinks I’m a cleaner? Did he not recognize her?

Suddenly it was all too much to bear. Her gentle mother dead at only forty-eight, with no warning at all, just a late-night phone call about an accident on a Florida interstate-

“Well?” He crossed his arms over his expensive shirt.

Tears welled in her eyes. Don’t cry now. In the last year she’d survived bankruptcy, divorce and now the loss of the one person in the world she could always count on. She’d made it this far…

The bag in her hand crinkled as she clutched it tighter, biting hard on the inside of her mouth.

“No habla inglés?” He raised a black brow.

“I speak English,” she blurted.

“That bag is leaking.”

“What?” She followed his gaze to the brown paper bag in her hand. “Oh, it’s my dinner.”

His hard expression softened. “Go ahead and eat it.” He gestured to the Formica-topped table. “No sense letting food go to waste.”

Maybe she could play along until he left? Let him think she really was some minimum-wage cleaner. What did it matter? Neither he nor his high-and-mighty father had bothered to come to her mom’s funeral, despite the fact that Letty Marcus lived on the estate and cooked all their meals for more than fifteen years. Working stiffs like her and her mom were nobody to these people.

Yes, she had a college degree, and had briefly owned a successful real estate company, but right now she was flat broke, with no place to call home, so his assessment of her wasn’t all that wide of the mark.

As she grabbed a plate off the counter and sat at the table, she could feel his eyes on her. Eyes that had haunted her teenage dreams and driven her into frenzies of pathetic hope that one day he’d…

Love her?

What a joke. She lifted her big Quarter Pounder with cheese out of the bag and plopped it on the plate.

She sat in the chair and picked up the burger, then realized her stomach had shriveled to the size of a peanut. His imperious gaze made her skin prickle. “Are you going to stand there watching me?”

“Of course. I can’t leave a stranger unattended on family property. Surely you understand.”

A stranger? She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry or scream.

Just one more insignificant person on a large estate. No one special. He probably hadn’t spared a thought for her since the last time they faced each other on the tennis court.

She’d thought about him, though. Far more than she cared to admit.

Dropping the burger on her plate, she rose onto unsteady legs. “I have to go.”

Naldo reached into his back pocket and took a twenty-dollar bill from his money clip. “Here. You can come back tomorrow.”

After I’ve found what I’m looking for.

“I don’t want your money.” She kept her head turned away from him. “And I’m not hungry. You can eat it.”

Naldo fought a smile at the thought of eating the cleaner’s greasy take-out dinner. There was a fresh-boiled lobster waiting for him back at the house.

Not that he had any appetite today.

He looked around for a piece of paper to write his number. If he could put off the cleaner for one more day he’d be fine. He’d find what he was looking for tonight. The cottage was tiny.

The girl hadn’t bothered to respond, so he simply scribbled the number on a heart-shaped notepad next to the phone and held it out to her. A bead of sweat balanced like a tiny pearl above her pursed pink mouth.

As she took the pink paper, her soft fingertips brushed his palm, sparking a strange sensation. Her eyes met his, wide and blue, and recognition swept through him like a clap of thunder.

“Anna.”

Her chin jerked up.

He stared at her for a moment, not quite able to trust his eyes. How could this skinny, nervous woman be the feisty tomboy he’d once known? “It’s been a long time.”

“Apparently so.” Her pale lips pressed together.

“You look so different.” The words flew out before he had time to consider their prudence.

“Time will do that to a person. To some people anyway. You look exactly the same.”

“You’re so thin.”

“It’s the fashion.” Her eyes narrowed.

“Your hair, it used to be red.”

“It still is, until I lighten it.”

“You dye your hair?” It seemed inconceivable that the tough and boyish Anna he remembered would do something so unabashedly feminine.

“Don’t look so shocked. Most women do.”

“You never were like most women.”

“Who says I am now?” Her eyes flashed.

The old fire was still there, just in a very different vessel. And it sparked more than curiosity.

“I hear you’re a big success.” Her mother’s pride had kept him well-versed in Anna’s accomplishments: magna cum laude graduation from a good college, a job with a top developer, a venture in commercial real estate.