* * *
After they reached the mountains, there was still some sun. They changed into their swimming gear and walked out on the sandbar. So much had happened since the moment Enrico had left their apartment last evening that she could hardly believe it.
He leaned over her to give her a long, sensuous kiss. “This afternoon we achieved détente.”
“Incredible, isn’t it? She told me to call her Mamma.”
“I knew she would in time.”
“Did you honestly think that dangling the ‘queen’ carrot in front of me was what it took for me to say yes to you?”
Enrico let out a deep sigh. “I didn’t know, but I wasn’t about to take the chance of losing you if it would convince you to say yes to me.”
“When you kissed me the first time, my sixteen-year-old heart knew I wanted to marry you. If you’d asked me to visit you at Cambridge, I would have been on the next plane and never gone home.”
“Donetta—”
“It’s true. Yesterday was a revelation to me when you introduced me to the leadership in your office. In my naivety growing up, I thought that changing the law of succession in Domodossola would be a snap and all I had to do was get my father to present it to the legislature.
“But with every word of that speech you gave your legislature, I saw their shock and consternation, not just your mother’s. For the first time I understood for myself that you don’t change a law that has run a country like yours or my family’s for centuries without bringing on a civil war. That’s what would have happened with your cabinet.
“Do you have any idea how much I love you for trying to do that for me? But I don’t want to run your country with you. I never did! What I want to do is be there with you and for you when you need me.
“I’ll always help you in any way I can, but you’re the acting king. Your people love and respect you like I do. The only reason I married you is because I love you. Can we start over again, amore mio?”
At this point Enrico was having trouble taking this all in. He had no words, only love he needed to lavish on her. He took her inside and followed her down on the bed where he could devour her. His sweet, passionate wife showed him so much love that by the time they became aware of their surroundings hours later, the rain had started.
“It’s a good thing we came in when we did and missed the cloudburst,” he whispered against her throat.
She burrowed against him. “There’s been another kind of burst in here. I’m so in love with you. There’s no one like you in this whole world and I can’t do enough to show you how I feel.”
He crushed her to him. “I owe Giovanni for bringing us together so fast.”
“I love him. We have to do something wonderful for him.”
“Tomorrow we’ll go back and free him of all responsibilities for a good month. We have an apartment in London where he can stay. He has friends there he enjoys.”
“Girls, too, I hope.”
“Of course. There was one I know he liked. What he needs is the chance to get something going with her.”
“I agree.”
“Right now I need the rest of the night to believe that you’ve come back to me. Give me a minute to raid the cooler. We need something to eat before I have my way with you again.”
Her laughter was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard.
Three months later
Donetta was in their apartment getting ready when Lanza and Fausta knocked on the door and came in.
“Oh—” They both gasped in awe at the same time.
“Your coronation gown is perfection itself,” Lanza cried out.
“It’s the same gown
I was married in. Enrico asked me to wear it, but we had it altered to add the train.”