The Italian's Secretary Bride (19 page)

BOOK: The Italian's Secretary Bride
10.75Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

He shook his head. ‘You've been ill…you are thin…'

‘Not ill, Luca, having a baby, your baby.' She pressed her hand to the gentle swell low on her belly and smiled. ‘Our baby. I really am pregnant this time.'

If she had had any doubts about his feelings, the look of sheer, incredulous joy and fierce pride that blazed across his face would have put them to rest.

‘I knew you'd marry me because of the baby,' she explained quietly. ‘I just wanted to know if you'd marry me for me, Luca.'

His electric-blue eyes darkened. ‘I'd marry you in a heartbeat.' He took her face between his hands and pressed a long, lingering kiss to her lips. When he pulled back he sighed. ‘I'm over the moon about the baby, Alice, but you're the centre of my universe and you always will be.'

Moved beyond words, she felt tears sting her eyelids.

‘Hormones…?' he queried, touching his thumb to a solitary tear rolling down her cheek.

She shook her head. ‘Happiness,' she corrected huskily.

With an instruction to, ‘Hold on tight,' he suddenly scooped her up into his arms. ‘Come on, let's go and tell everyone the news.'

‘You can't carry me all the way back.'

‘I can not only carry you all the way back, I can leap tall buildings.'

‘My superhero,' she sighed, looping her arms about his neck. ‘Luca, you're not really going to tell everyone now, are you?'

‘Of course I am. I want everyone to know how lucky I am.'

‘But, Luca, it's the middle of the night and they'll all be asleep.'

He looked unimpressed by this argument. ‘Not after I wake them up, they won't be,' he observed with a complacent smile.

‘I appreciate you want to shout it from the rooftops, but just for tonight can it be just you and me?'

‘It's going to be you and me for the rest of our lives, Alice.'

His blue eyes were filled with so much love that she gasped. Alice suddenly saw the future…their golden future together stretching ahead of them. Could one person have this much happiness…?

‘No, you're right,' she said with an impish grin. ‘Let's wake up the house!'

And they did. The O'Hagans were proud and stubborn, but wow did they know how to party!

ISBN: 978-1-4268-2507-1

THE ITALIAN'S SECRETARY BRIDE

First North American Publication 2008.

Previously published in the U.K. under the title LUCA'S SECRETARY BRIDE

Copyright © 2004 by Kim Lawrence.

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

www.eHarlequin.com

BOOK: The Italian's Secretary Bride
10.75Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Love and War by Sian James
A Life That Fits by Heather Wardell
Woman Beware by Tianna Xander
Hades Daughter by Sara Douglass
Music of the Spheres by Valmore Daniels
Passage by Night (v5) by Jack Higgins
Crusade by ANDERSON, TAYLOR