Читать книгу Secret Heirs Collection - Кейт Хьюит, Коллектив авторов - Страница 74

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 thing Darcy had was her love—for her son and for her husband. And the chance to live her life without shame and without secrets.

‘Come here, mia caro,’ she whispered, practising her ever-increasing Italian vocabulary as she pulled him down onto the sofa next to her.

‘What did you have in mind?’

‘I just want to show you…’ she smiled as her fingertip stroked his cheek until she reached the outline of his sensual mouth, which softened as she edged her own lips towards it ‘…how very much I love you.’