St Piran's: Italian Surgeon, Forbidden Bride (20 page)

‘You don’t want me to?’

‘Yes. No. Not if you don’t want to.’

She frowned in confusion and he felt bad for teasing her, but now he could see to the root of her worries, it felt as if a huge weight had lifted from his shoulders. He understood her doubts. He deserved them after the way he had behaved. But this, he hoped, he could deal with.

‘Look at me.’ He cupped her face with one hand,
drawing her gaze to his. ‘It is true I had not planned on asking you to marry me in such a way, with so many people listening. But at the time a public declaration seemed right.’ Uncertainty remained in her eyes. ‘Can you pass me my jacket?’

‘OK.’

He held her steady as, her frown deepening, she reached out to retrieve the jacket of his suit, which he had discarded and left draped over the arm of the adjacent sofa.

‘Thank you.’ With his free hand he checked the pockets until he found what he needed. ‘The timing and the setting may have been unplanned, but I meant every word I said.’

He heard her indrawn gasp of surprise and she looked at him with a mix of warring emotions in her eyes. ‘Gio?’

‘I’m not surprised you doubted me. I deserve that after the terrible way I behaved last week,’ he told her, pressing a finger to her lips to silence her protests. ‘It needs to be said,
fiamma.
I was wrong. I knew how badly other people had treated you and yet I allowed my own momentary fears to rise up and my withdrawal, timed with my trip to Italy, must have felt like another rejection of you. I am so sorry.’

‘Don’t.’ She caught his hand, their fingers instinctively linking together. ‘I understand. And I don’t blame you.’

‘You should.’

She shook her head, her loose hair shimmering and dancing like living fire. ‘No. You went through so much with Sofia. I knew you were scared of going through
anything like that again. And, let’s face it, the odds could be less good with me.’

‘I do not care about odds, Jessica, I care about
you,’
he insisted. ‘I never imagined that I could fall in love again, that I would ever know happiness and peace again, but my life changed for the better the moment I met you. Thanks to you I stopped existing and started living again.’

‘Gio,’ she whispered, her eyes bright with unshed tears.

‘Please, I need to say this.’ He drew her hand to his mouth and kissed it. ‘I hate that I hurt you, that my withdrawal left you so lonely and uncertain. You deserved so much more from me and, if you will let me, I’ll spend the rest of our lives proving to you how much I love you and that I’ll never let you down again.’ He paused a moment, sucking in an unsteady breath, his heart thudding against his ribs. ‘I came back from Italy knowing what an idiot I had been and knowing what I wanted and needed to do. Events overtook us, and my plans went awry.’

Eyes wide with disbelief and hope, she bit her lip, her fingers clinging to his. ‘What plans?’ she managed, and he could feel the tremble running through her.

‘My plans to be with you alone, like this, to beg your forgiveness and to ask you properly to be my wife.’ Holding her gaze, he released her hand and reached into his pocket once more, drawing out the box. ‘I bought this in Italy. For you. I meant all I said this morning, I just meant to say it in private! So the timing may have been wrong, but the question was heartfelt and genuine, not something I made up on the spot.’ He placed the little box in her hand. ‘Jessica, I love you. I want to spend
the rest of my life cherishing you, being your friend and your lover. Please, will you make me the happiest and luckiest of men and marry me?’

‘Yes. Yes, yes, yes!’

Jess felt as if her heart had swollen so full of love and joy that it would surely stop beating. All day doubts had nagged at her, but now her fears had been allayed as Gio had laid his own heart on the line for her. Again. Her vision blurred by tears, her fingers shaking so badly she could hardly make them work properly, she did as he encouraged and opened the jeweller’s box.

‘Oh, my,’ she gasped. ‘Gio!’

‘You like it?’ he asked nervously, and she laughed through her tears that he could doubt it.

She gazed down at the gorgeous ring. Set in platinum were three stunning olive apatite stones that exactly matched those in the earrings her grandmother had given her and which she wore every day. The three stones were set on a slight angle with the shoulders of the ring overlapping each side, each sparkling with a row of tiny diamonds. It was the most divine ring she had ever seen. She didn’t dare imagine how much it had cost but it was not the monetary value that mattered, it was that Gio had chosen something so special, with such care, knowing what it would mean to her and giving it to her with love.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she murmured huskily as he took it from the box and set it on her finger. ‘Perfect. Thank you.’

‘You are perfect and beautiful.’

He cupped her face, bestowing on her the gentlest and most exquisite of kisses. Jess sank into him, wrapping
her arms around him, wondering how she had ever been lucky enough to know such happiness. As the passion flared between them, healing the past, uniting them heart and soul and full of promise for the future, she gave thanks for this very special man.

‘I love your home,’ Gio told her softly as they lay in bed later that night, replete after the physical expression of their love and togetherness. ‘I feel at peace here,’ he continued, filling her already overflowing heart with new joy as his feelings mirrored her own. ‘Any day the fences will be ready and our menagerie will come home.’

‘I thought maybe you’d arranged for that to be done so I’d leave your house and move back here,’ she admitted softly.

‘No!’ He sounded so shocked she couldn’t help but laugh, secure now in his feelings and her own. ‘That was not why at all,’ he insisted. ‘It was to make you happy but also, selfishly, because I wanted to come here and to care for the animals with you. Can this
be
our home,
fiamma?
Can we bring this beautiful shell back to life together and make it ours for ever?’

‘Yes, please!’

Snuggling into his embrace, she smiled into the darkness, knowing that they shared the same vision, not just for this place that would be their home but for their future. However long they were blessed with they would share together. And with the friends and colleagues who had shown them so much support and understanding.

It was not just the cottage that had been a shell that would be brought back to life. She and Gio had been shells, too. They had each been alone, rocked and ravaged by the events that had turned their lives upside
down. But fate had brought them together… two people who had needed each other so much. They had found their place. Had found each other. And together they had found the sunshine, new hope and a fresh joy of living.

Safe in Gio’s arms, Jess felt truly at peace, secure in a love, a friendship and a happiness that neither of them had ever expected to know again. They had been granted second chances and they had found their rightful place in this special part of Cornwall.

It had been a difficult journey but, finally, she was where she was meant to be… with Gio.