with you. Cristo, that is the first time I’ve said it out loud and it sounds as weird as it feels.’ He sank onto the edge of her bed and stared down at his hands. ‘Look at me—I’m shaking.’ He held out his hands as evidence but Taylor simply stared at him, stunned into silence by his raw confession.
Her mouth opened and shut but no sound came out and he looked at her helplessly.
‘I’ve never been shocked by anything before but I was shocked by this. I still am. I’m a guy who has never fallen for a woman. I never intended to fall for a woman.’ His voice was as shaky as his hands. ‘When you started this engagement farce I thought I was going to hate every minute of it. Instead I loved every minute of it. I loved every minute of being with you. You’re bright, sexy, funny, confident, sexy, strong, warm—did I say sexy?’
‘Wait a minute.’ It was Taylor’s turn to shake. ‘Are you really telling me you love me?’
‘Yes and last night you said you were sorry I felt this way which, by the way, was not the most sympathetic comment I’ve ever heard.’
‘Last night I thought you were shocked because there are going to be naked photographs of me everywhere. You’re shocked because you love me?’
‘Yes. And there won’t be photographs. That’s where I’ve been all night. With the Corretti family lawyers. We’ve stopped the photos being published.’
It was her turn to be shocked. ‘How can you do that? The Italian press are notorious for not caring about rules and regulations.’
‘There are some advantages to being a Corretti. We stopped it. That’s all you need to know. No one gets to see my wife naked but me.’
‘W-wife?’
‘You have to marry me.’ He was on his feet, his expression strained. ‘Until I met you I’d never spent a whole night with a woman and now I can’t stand being parted from you even for a moment. Even when I’m not with you I’m thinking about you all the time. I know you find it hard to trust people and I understand why, but I wanted to prove to you that you could trust me. I made sure those photographs won’t be used.’
‘But our engagement was fake. We did it because it gave us both respectability.’
He gave a humourless laugh. ‘And how did that work for you, dolcezza? Because I hated every minute of being respectable. I don’t care what anyone writes about you. I never have and never will.’
The fact he hadn’t sold her out to the press meant almost as much as hearing him say he loved her. ‘He told me I was beautiful. Rafaele…’ The tears were falling again and she brushed them away with her palm. ‘I was homeless and I had no one—my own mother had turned her back on me and my father had sold his story to the press, and he was there for me. Except that he wasn’t. I trusted him—’
‘Shh…’ Luca wrapped her in his arms. ‘He doesn’t deserve a moment of your time and he certainly isn’t worth your tears. Don’t cry.’
‘He’s held it over me for so long. He didn’t even tell me he had the photographs until after our relationship ended. He paid someone to take them from the garden of the house we were using in California. I had no idea. I thought it was just the two of us. I thought we were alone.’ She pressed her face against his shirt and felt safe. ‘And then I ended it and he told me what he had. How he’d use them. No matter where I went or what I did, he found me. And I always knew he was just waiting for the right time.’ She swallowed, relieved to finally be able to tell someone. ‘And the pressure got to me. Do you know how it feels to wake up every day wondering if this is the day the world is going to see you naked? It’s just horrible. And finally—well, I had a sort of breakdown.’
‘I know. I saw the pictures of you but no one knew what happened or where you went.’
‘It wasn’t drugs or drink. It was just the pressure. I wanted to get away. I flew out of LA and on the plane I met Zach.’
‘Zach the friend?’
‘That’s all he ever was. He served in Iraq. We got talking and in the end I went back with him to