Page 35 of Pregnant in the Italian's Palazzo

‘I’m not trying to change your mind about marrying me. You’ve made it very clear why you don’t want to. I did this for me. I did this because you made me realise where my true passion lies. I never actually wanted to be the man that my father raised me to be. I never cared all that much about being a Bacchetti. You made me remember the person I had once wanted to be until my guilt forced me back into a role I felt duty-bound to accept. I don’t think I truly knew who I was for a very long time.’

‘I know who you are,’ she said gently.

‘When you came to my rescue on that street in Manhattan, I thought at first it was just attraction, lust. It was easy to disregard the raw need within me that refused to let you go, easy to brush it off as amazing chemistry but nothing more.’

‘To be honest, I felt the same thing.’

‘I thought I was rescuing you, the day we met. You were abandoned, alone and afraid and yet...you wound up being the one to rescue me. You brought something back to life in me the moment you commanded me to look in your eyes and breathe. That was the moment I felt that shift within me from simply existing to wanting more. That was the moment I fell in love with you, Aria Dane. I think a part of me has felt it all along and it terrified me. I brought you to my palace like a prize that I feared someone would come along and take away. I have made so many mistakes with you,tesoro. I cannot undo the things that I’ve said that have made you feel trapped. I never want you to feel trapped, Aria, never. I love you too much.’

Aria felt a burst of emotion choke her, the weight of his revelations pressing down upon her as her hand instinctively dropped to cradle her stomach and the precious cargo that nestled within. While she had been lying in her hospital bed feeling slightly sorry for herself, he had been busy acknowledging the cracks in his foundations and setting about doing the work to make himself whole again.

She remembered what he had told her of his life, the man he’d been raised to be. She knew that he’d never truly wanted it, had seen how much it took from him every time he played the part that had been assigned to him. She had witnessed his passion when they were in Sardinia, his love for the wine and the people who made it, but she had never truly believed that he would listen to her. That he would finally choose balance for himself.

‘I haven’t done any of this in order to convince you to marry me. You helped me to see that our children would be more affected by me remaining here...in this palace, than by being born in or out of wedlock. I don’t know how else to explain it, I’m just...’

‘You’re choosing the path that will make you the best version of you,’ she finished for him.

‘Yes...that’s exactly it.’ He blinked, then a smile transformed his face. If the smile he’d given her that night when she’d played the piano for him had been like fireworks...this one was a full-on explosion. His eyes shone and gone were the shadows that she’d grown so used to trying to coax away. He didn’t need her to coax them away, he was shining through his own darkness just fine. The realisation made a little part of her ache. But the thought of him living that life to the fullest without her being the woman standing by his side was suddenly utterly ridiculous.

She closed her eyes, fear and uncertainty clogging her throat as emotion finally won the battle and put an end to her composure. Tears filled her eyes and she shook her head, turning away from him, trying to hide her own weakness.

He moved towards her in an instant, as she knew he would, strong hands encircling her shoulders and pulling her back tightly against his chest.

‘Damn hormones,’ she gasped, grateful that he was still behind her and that he couldn’t see her ugly cry.

‘Why do you insist on hiding your vulnerability from me? Do you fear that I can’t take it? Because I assure you I can. I will be here to support you over these next months, no matter how hard it gets. That was never an option. You may have refused my proposal, but I never intended to walk away from you. Never,tesoro. I only want your happiness, whether that is being with me as my wife, or simply as the two primary caregivers for these two incredibly lucky children that are growing inside you.’ His hand drifted down, covering hers gently, reverently.

‘I know I hurt you when I refused your proposal,’ Aria said. ‘And once I’d realised what a mistake I had made, I was worried it was too late. I knew I’d messed up but had absolutely no idea how to put it right.’ She felt his breath on the crown of her head and could hear the steady thump of his heartbeat directly behind hers. He was holding her so tightly, but not inappropriately so, she could feel him holding back from crossing that line. A line that seemed so utterly ridiculous to her now that she could see what she needed to say and do so clearly.

Honesty. Trust. A leap of faith.

She turned around in the circle of his arms, realising that she had run from her own feelings long enough and her children deserved for her to be brave. To believe that he loved her. To fight for their family, the one that she truly wanted for them.

Aria met his gaze, her voice shaky. ‘There is more I need to say, so much more that I want to say... I just can never seem to get the words out the right way when it’s important. When I have you looking at me, all the words pile together and I...’

‘How about if I close my eyes?’

She gasped, stunned once again at how easily this man took care of her. How ridiculous it had been for her to run away from his natural protective nature when it lit her up inside like this. His eyes fluttered closed and it took all of her strength not to just rush past the words that needed to be said and simply kiss him until neither of them could breathe. But kissing had never been something they needed to work on together.

Communication first, she reminded herself. Kissing later.

‘Nysio, I think I’ve deliberately kept you at arm’s length because I was afraid of my own feelings after what Theo did to me. I also thought that what I needed to gain self-respect was to push myself as hard as I could to succeed at a career. I wanted to feel capable and worthy of the life growing inside me. Both of them.’

She stopped for a moment and he smiled encouragingly at her, still with his eyes shut.

‘The past few days have just become a haze of brain fog. The scare that we had, worrying that something terrible had happened to the babies... It made me realise that I was running in entirely the wrong direction.’ Once again she placed a hand over her stomach where the tiny lives within her were growing steadily and healthily. ‘I don’t think that I truly processed what was actually happening until I thought it had been taken away from me. I’ve always been different from the rest of my family, and I’ve felt ashamed that I’ve struggled so much. I’ve always judged myself far more harshly than anyone else ever has. And when you proposed to me...when I said no to you, and it felt like my heart was breaking in two... I knew I was in way deeper than I’d thought I ever could be.’

‘I know Theo destroyed your trust,’ he said gently.

She winced. ‘I didn’t think I’d ever be able to trust anyone again enough to marry them.’ She forced the words out past the lump in her throat. ‘I figured I’d only be setting myself up for failure and abandonment. That I was better off alone. But then you came into my life and for the first time I found myself actually wanting more...and it terrified me. So when we found out about the pregnancy, it was the easiest thing in the world to put on my armour again. It’s so much harder for me to be vulnerable...to allow myself to hope. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that I wanted nothing more than to be married to you. To wake up in your arms every morning and be surrounded by our beautiful children, wherever that may be.’

He opened his eyes and smiled down at her.

‘I love you too,’ she said, meeting his gaze and not letting go. ‘I want everything that you have to offer me, Nysio. I really don’t care where we are living, or what life looks like, so long as we’re together.’

‘Dannazione, I don’t have the ring on me.’ He looked flustered, a small blush appearing on the tops of his cheeks, something that made her smile wide and soft and lean even further into him. She wanted to draw pictures of this man and take photos of him and just stare at him all day. Hardly believing that he was truly hers, that he truly loved her as deeply and unconditionally as she loved him. Because she could no longer deny that that was the truth. He had given up more than anyone she had ever known; he had walked away from a fortune and a status that had given him a riches and power beyond most people’s dreams.

‘I don’t need a ring,’ she said, emotion forcing the words out in an unsteady cadence. ‘So long as I have you in my heart and in my arms, I need nothing more.’

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