The Reluctant Surrender Read online

  ‘No.’ Saul immediately rejected her guilt, horrified to think of the mental pain and guilt she must have endured. ‘No. It was not your fault. It was an accident and you were not to blame.’ He smoothed her damp hair back off her face and commanded, ‘Look at me.’

  Silently Giselle did so.

  ‘Do you really think that fate would have wanted or allowed you to die when she had already promised you to me?’

  His words had Giselle’s eyes widening.

  ‘What…what do you mean?’

  ‘When I saw you plunge into that traffic and thought that I might lose you I realised the truth. I love you, Giselle. I think I probably fell in love with you in that wretched car park when you stole my parking space and then defied me. Fate brought us together there that day because she meant us to be together.’

  ‘No,’ Giselle protested, immediately panicking. ‘You can’t love me. You mustn’t. We mustn’t love each other.’

  ‘Because we might be hurt?’ Saul leaned his forehead against hers and kissed the bridge of her nose. ‘This is why you feel you shouldn’t love anyone and why you don’t want a child, isn’t it? Because of what happened to your mother and baby brother?’

  Giselle hesitated. Now was the time to tell him everything. She wanted to. She wanted to desperately. But somehow the words just would not come. She was too afraid to speak them, so instead she nodded her head.

  It was after all the truth in its way—even if it was not the whole of that truth. Surely she could have this sweetest of precious times with him? Surely she could have just a little longer before she had to give him up to a woman who would be able to give him what she never could?

  ‘I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want you to blame me and look at me the way my father did. I could have saved them, Saul, but I didn’t—I let them go,’ she told him emotionally.

  ‘No. You think that now, but you were a child—what could you have done?’

  He could so easily picture the scene—the dark wet road, the tired mother impatient to get home, her mind on other things, stepping out into the road, expecting the child whose hand she had released to follow her. The thought of what all the years of carrying the guilt she should never have been allowed to carry must have done to her brought a huge lump to his throat and a vow to his heart that he would love her so much that she would never again feel any pain.

  ‘I love you,’ he told her, knowing as he said the words that he meant them, and surprised only that he had been foolish enough to fight against the truth for so long with his mind, when his body and his heart had already recognised and given themselves up to their love for Giselle. ‘There is nothing you could ever do or be that could stop me loving you,’ he said softly. ‘Nothing. I want to marry you, Giselle.’

  Immediately she stiffened in his hold.

  ‘No. You can’t. You can’t want to marry me.’

  Saul was amused, and teased her. ‘Oh, I see—you’ve got a husband already, have you? Very well, then, that marriage will have to be annulled. After all, you were never properly his—not like you have become my woman, my love, my life,’ he told her, his voice thickening as he bent his head to kiss her.

  She couldn’t resist him any more than she could resist her own need.

  ‘Fate intended us to be together,’ Saul insisted firmly. ‘I am more sure of that than anything I have been sure of before. For us to meet, for us to love, for us to be together is our mutual and shared destiny.’ Every cell within him, inherited from the generations that had gone before, told Saul that. ‘Fate even gave us both a messed-up childhood, so that we could understand one another. Out of the cruelty of the loss we have known fate has forged a bond and a bridge for us which we can cross from our separate aloneness to a shared future.’

  ‘Those are lovely words,’ Giselle responded. ‘But…’

  ‘They are more than words,’ Saul assured her. ‘They are my promise to you for our future together—and we will have a future together, Giselle. What we have together is too special for us not to.’

  Every word he spoke was like a knife being driven into her heart. She so much wanted what he was offering her—but how could she trust him to love her as she was, for always?

  ‘Marriage usually means children,’ she told him huskily, ‘and I can never have your child, Saul. My feelings on that will never change.’

  His hand closed round hers.

  ‘Have I said that I want them to? The truth is, Giselle, that I am glad that you do not want children. My own feelings on that subject have not changed. You and I, we can travel together, be together, work together. Together we will construct buildings of great beauty, great power and passion wherever we are called upon to do so. We cannot do that, commit wholly to that and to one another, and have children. Our creations shall be our progeny, our gift.’

  He spoke so eloquently, so believably and so enticingly, that Giselle felt dazzled by the breadth of his vision and the depth of his commitment to her and to their future together.

  ‘Do you promise?’ she asked him. ‘Do you promise that you mean it, Saul?’

  ‘We don’t need children to prove our love for one another. I don’t need anything or anyone other than you, Giselle.’

  Such emotive, tender words—soothing her hurts, filling her with courage, feeding her own love for him.

  ‘I love you, Giselle.’

  ‘And I love you too.’

  There it was—said. A promise asked for and given. A commitment made. A love shared.

  Would it be wrong of her to take Saul’s love and give him her own? If they didn’t have children their love would be safe. He need never know about that…that other thing. He would surely turn away from her in revulsion if he did. But he didn’t need to know, did he? she pleaded inwardly with her conscience. If they were destined to be together, as he had said, then she must be destined not to have a child and not to have to tell him.

  The temptation was too much for her—especially when he was kissing her as he was right now…

  Epilogue

  THEY were married three months later, in the cathedral in Arezzio, in keeping with Parenti family tradition.

  Giselle wore a white Chanel bridal gown. Saul had insisted on her wearing white. Her great-aunt attended the ceremony, and Giselle saw in the old lady’s face how happy she was for her.

  Natasha, wearing one of her favoured too-short, too-tight dresses, glared at her when she walked back down the aisle on Saul’s arm as his wife, but Giselle didn’t care. She was too happy, too filled with love and gratitude to feel anything other than pity for Natasha.

  Saul had dealt with Aldo’s debts and discreetly restored the country’s finances to stability. Once they returned from their honeymoon work was going to start on the island, and the new resort was going to be Giselle’s personal project—a wedding gift to her from Saul.

  Now there was just time for a final few minutes with her great-aunt whilst Saul was with Aldo, before they left on their honeymoon.

  ‘I wish your father was here today to see you so happy, Giselle. He loved you so much.’

  ‘My father loved me?’ She was too shocked to hold back the words. ‘How could he when he sent me away?’

  ‘Oh, Giselle. He asked me to take you because he felt there were too many sad memories for you in being with him. He wanted you to have a fresh start. He felt so guilty about what had happened—and over your mother.’

  ‘He felt guilty? I thought he blamed me.’

  ‘Never.’ Her great-aunt shook her head vigorously. ‘He blamed himself. He worried that what you had witnessed would scar you, and that being with him would only make that worse. He would have been so proud to see you as you are today. You have married a good man, Giselle, a man who loves you as you deserve to be loved—and I can see that you love him in the same way. That is good. No one should marry for anything less than the very best love there is.’ She paused, and then asked gently, ‘You have told Saul everything, I expect?�
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  Giselle couldn’t meet her great-aunt’s probing look.

  ‘I’ve told him everything he needs to know,’ she replied.

  Her great-aunt squeezed Giselle’s hand.

  ‘I’m so glad. There should not be secrets between a couple who love one another. Secrets can cause such dreadful damage.’

  Saul was coming over. Giselle kissed her great-aunt’s cheek, and felt the now familiar quiver of achingly sweet need possess her body as she looked up at her new husband. Surely nothing could spoil her happiness now. Surely now she could finally put the past behind her?

  ‘It’s time for us to leave,’ Saul told her.

  Nodding her head, Giselle gave him her hand—just as she had already given him her heart.

  Now, finally, they were on their own—alone together in their bungalow on a luxurious and exclusive resort complex. Their butler had cleared away the remains of their evening meal, they had walked on their private beach and then swum naked together in the moonlight, and now they were celebrating their commitment to one another in the most intimate and private way possible.

  Saul was anointing her body with kisses so tender they were almost reverential, and the love they shared was surely as he had told her—meant to be, and strong enough to hold at bay even the darkest of fears. And the guilt? Could that be held at bay too?

  It must be. It must be consigned to the past. Because it had no place here in her life with Saul. Nothing could hurt her now that she had his love. Nothing could harm her. She was safe, their love was safe, and she had nothing to fear.

  ‘You are all I want and all I will ever want,’ Saul told her, as he had told her when she had committed herself to him. ‘Just you, only you, and nothing else.’

  She knew he meant it. Surely nothing could spoil things for her now? Surely fate had decided to relent and allow her to be happy? Could she be happy, knowing the secret she was keeping from Saul? Yes. Yes, because it couldn’t harm either of them now.

  ‘Love me,’ she begged Saul, clinging to him with fierce passion. ‘Love me, Saul.’

  Beneath his answering kiss she offered up a mental prayer for their happiness, before offering up herself on the altar of their shared love.

  Nothing could part them now. Nothing could damage or destroy what they had. Nothing.

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

  All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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  First published in Great Britain 2010

  Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,

  Eton House, 18–24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

  © Penny Jordan 2010

  ISBN: 978-1-408-91931-6

  Table of Contents

  Excert

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  Copyright