‘No, of course not. There is nothing I want more than to marry you. It is for your sake that I wanted you to know. Don’t you see, Raphael? Your mother’s letter changes everything. Now you are free to marry and have children, to have an heir, you can marry anyone you wish—someone far more suitable to be the mother of your son than I am.’
‘More suitable? How could that be possible? There is no one more suitable to bear my children than you. How could there be when it is you that I love?’
‘Oh, Raphael.’
She was in his arms, holding him as tightly as he was holding her, kissing him as passionately and hungrily as he was kissing her.
‘You are my life,’ he told her fiercely. ‘My love and my life.’
They kissed again, sweetly and tenderly this time, their kiss a shared vow, a shared commitment to their love and their future together.
‘When the garden is finished, could we name it for your mother, do you think?’ Charley asked Raphael as he released her.
She could see the sheen of emotion in his eyes when he looked down at her.
‘Yes,’ he told her. ‘We will name it for her in remembrance of the gift of love she gave to me when she gave me life.’
‘How long do you think it will be before we are in Florence?’ Charley whispered against his lips as she kissed him again.
‘Far too long for the way I feel at the moment,’ Raphael answered. ‘Far far too long.’
Only it wasn’t, and by the time the sun was setting they were standing together in the privacy of the bedroom where Raphael had first made love to her. The scent that was the only covering Charley was wearing filled the evening air.
‘This was what I wanted when you gave it to me,’ Charley told Raphael. ‘I wanted to lie in your arms wearing only the scent and your touch.’
A delicate quiver of erotic pleasure ran through her when Raphael gathered her naked body against his own, and her love for him filled her when he told her huskily, ‘I love you more than I can find the words to say. You have made me complete and brought light to the darkest places of my life. Now that you are mine I shall never let you go.’
‘And I shall never want you to,’ Charley promised him.
*****