The Mills & Boon Stars Collection. Cathy Williams

from beneath her fair skin.

      ‘Of course, nobody is perfect,’ Leo continued wryly. ‘But I did believe Marina was as near to the ideal as I could get because we had so much in common and were close friends.’

      Never ask a question if you aren’t tough enough to accept the answer and live with it, Grace told herself wretchedly. How on earth could she compete with his ideal of the perfect wife? Most especially when that ideal woman was still walking around? Was it possible that Leo felt more for Marina than he had ever appreciated? And that losing her might make him finally realise it? Not a productive thought train, Grace scolded herself, and she suppressed her crushing sense of insecurity with every fibre of willpower that she possessed.

      * * *

      ‘So, why don’t you want these blood tests the doctor has recommended?’ Leo demanded impatiently.

      Grace wrinkled her nose. ‘Because there’s nothing wrong with me.’

      ‘But the doctor—’

      ‘Dr Silvano is nice but he is a little old-fashioned, Leo. Why should he wonder if there’s something wrong with my hormone levels just because I’m not feeling sick all the time?’ Grace prompted impatiently. ‘A lot of women get morning sickness but there are a lucky few who don’t and I don’t plan to start fussing over myself and worrying without good reason. He’s one of those doctors who prefer to treat pregnancy as an illness and I don’t agree with that.’

      Leo surveyed her with unhidden annoyance. Grace went pink and looked across the cobbled square to the playground where small children were running and shouting. In a few years she would have a child of around that age, she ruminated fondly, wishing Leo would not make her pregnancy so much his business. Yet how could she fault a man for caring about her well-being?

      ‘I’ll go back first thing tomorrow for the tests,’ Grace surrendered with a grimace. ‘Will that make you happy?’

      The tightness of his superb bone structure eased and the hint of a smile softened the hard line of his sculpted mouth. They had been in Italy for four incredible weeks and even when Leo annoyed her, Grace still never got tired of simply looking at him, admiring the proud flare of his nose, the downward frown of his brows when anything annoyed him, the pure silk ebony luxuriance of his lashes when he looked down at her with eyes of pure gold in bed.

      ‘Yes, that will make me happy,’ Leo told her without apology and pulled out his phone to immediately book the appointment.

      Grace sipped her bottled water, reflecting that Leo had taught her a master class in the art of compromise and negotiation. His forceful personality and strong views made occasional clashes between them inevitable. He was much deeper and more of a thinker than he liked to show. Clever, shrewd and over-protective as he was, he was also wonderfully entertaining and her every fantasy in bed. He was willing to make an effort as well. Since their wedding night there had been no further flights from intimacy post-climax. She wouldn’t let herself think negative thoughts around him, wouldn’t let herself dwell on the awareness that she loved him and he did not love her. Unlike him, she wasn’t expecting the perfect marital partner.

      And in any case, Leo might say that he didn’t do romance but it was remarkable how often their outings were drenched in romantic views, surroundings and meals. He had taken her to see a candlelit religious procession in the streets of Lucca one evening and topped it off with dinner in a rooftop restaurant with the stars shimmering far above them. They had enjoyed a picnic below the ancient chestnut trees that overlooked the vineyards in the valley. With no road noise, no people around and virtually nothing in view to remind them of the twentieth century, it had been timeless and peaceful and she had dozed off, probably because she had eaten far too much from Josefina’s fantastic picnic dishes. There had been sightseeing trips and scenic drives and a couple of casual dinner engagements with friends Leo had, who lived locally.

      And then there were the shopping trips and the gifts. Grace tilted her chin, green eyes reflective as she glanced at the gold watch on her wrist and thought about the pearls in her ears and at her throat, not to mention the gorgeous handbag she had foolishly admired in a shop window. Leo was very generous and his giving wasn’t soulless or showing off. If he noticed she lacked something like jewellery he provided it without fanfare and so smoothly it was impossible to politely refuse. No, she couldn’t fault his intellect, his company, his generosity or the high-voltage excitement of his sexuality.

      Furthermore after a month of living with Leo round the clock she could no longer credit the belief that he had blackmailed her into marrying him.

      ‘When you threatened my uncle and aunt’s careers, you were bluffing, weren’t you?’ Grace condemned very drily.

      Leo rocked back in his chair, lashes low over gleaming dark eyes. ‘I was wondering how long it would take you to work that out.’

      Temper hurtled through Grace like a rejuvenating blast of oxygen. ‘You mean you wouldn’t have done it?’

      ‘Of course I wouldn’t have done it. I’m not an unjust man. Your uncle gave you a home when you needed one and I respect him for that because I doubt very much that he received much support from your aunt.’ Leo studied her. ‘But from certain things you have let slip quite without meaning to, I think your aunt should be burnt at the stake as a witch...and possibly your cousin with her.’

      That cool rundown of her upbringing snuffed out Grace’s annoyance as though it had never been and provoked an involuntary laugh from her lips. ‘Oh...dear.’

      ‘But in one sense you have done me a favour. Your position in your uncle’s family closely resembled Bastien’s when my half-brother and I were children and that has enabled me to see that Bastien was often excluded, set apart from my parents and I by his birth and parentage and made to feel like an outsider,’ he imparted grimly. ‘It was wrong when that was done to you and it must follow that it was equally wrong when it was done to him.’

      Grace nodded, impressed by that deduction and his willingness to admit fault on that score. The level of animosity between Leo and his brother had disconcerted her. She suspected they never met without one trying to score points off the other.

      ‘Sadly, that reality won’t make me like Bastien but it is why I was ready to allow you to believe that I would blackmail you into marriage. I was prepared to use any weapon you put within my reach,’ Leo confessed wryly. ‘I could not bear our child to experience the isolation which you and Bastien suffered as children. I don’t ever want a child of mine to feel like an outsider. And if you and I hadn’t married that is what he or she would have ultimately been.’

      ‘So, I’m supposed to forgive the blackmail threats because your goal was the greater good?’ Grace fielded very drily although grudging amusement was tugging at her lips. ‘With that kind of reasoning you could excuse murder, Leo.’

      A wolfish grin slashed Leo’s darkly handsome face. ‘But you like being married to me?’

      Grace rested her chin down on the heel of her hand and gave him an enquiring look. ‘And why do you assume that?’

      ‘You sing in the shower, you smile at me a lot...you even jump me in bed occasionally,’ Leo husked soft and low, dark golden eyes pure burnished gold with wicked amusement and that innate bold assurance that she found so outrageously compelling.

      Grace didn’t quite know how to react to that unexpectedly personal list of her mistakes. For smiling at him all the time was a dead giveaway of the kind of feelings he didn’t want her to have and she didn’t want to reveal. But it was a challenge to hide the simple truth that he made her happy, indeed happier than anyone had ever made her feel in her entire life. Because while he might not love her, he did care and he seemed to find her irresistible. Did she really need more than that from him? All that lovey-dovey stuff and wedding rings proudly worn on male fingers would really just be the icing on the cake, she reasoned: lovely to have but not strictly necessary.

      ‘You won’t be getting jumped tonight,’ she warned him, her lovely face flushed and self-conscious.