Harlequin Presents: April 2022, Box Set 2 of 2 by Dani Collins

Author:Dani Collins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2022-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

When Massimo returned to his office a large yellow envelope stood out amongst the mail on his desk.

Private and confidential.

The sender stamp showed it was from the lawyer. He’d need to contact the guy and talk about how they could safely progress Carrie’s residency status. But for now Massimo ripped the edge and tipped the envelope up. Several official documents scattered out. Their wedding certificate. Ana’s birth certificate. The results of the DNA test. A glance at each showed what he already knew. Carrie was his wife. Ana was named for Sereana. And Ana was his daughter. Mere pieces of paper that were meaningless. Only serving to smooth the process of keeping Carrie in the country.

But he stared at the letter confirming his paternity. No, it wouldn’t have mattered what that damned DNA test showed. Ana was Carrie’s child and as such she was precious to him. But there was more than that. He’d had only a week with her in Fiji, but Massimo knew Ana, and he adored her. He loved the snuffling noises she made in her sleep...the way she made a small fist, like a prize fighter, the softness of her hair, her unutterably sweet smile.

Massimo wanted to be there when she took her first steps and said her first words. He wanted her to turn to him when she was tearful. He wanted to make her laugh. He didn’t want to miss a thing and he couldn’t wait to see how she grew as a person. He wanted to be right alongside her—to encourage, guide and just love. He loved her—Carrie’s child—as who she was, as she was, as she would be. He couldn’t love her more and there was nothing she could do to make him love her less. What he felt was infinite, yet utterly complete, and he had no problem admitting any of that.

That was love, wasn’t it? Unconditional, unending, freely given and, now he’d realised it, utterly liberating. It was the kind of love he’d never been given.

Maybe his mother would have done, but she’d died before she could. His father—incapable. But, in seeing the destructive ashes of his parents’ relationship, Massimo had learned to keep people distant and intimacy frankly transactional. It had been safer to stay alone.

Carrie was the only person ever to tell him she loved him and he hadn’t believed her. He’d been too stunned. Too scared. Afraid that, once she really knew him, she’d want to leave him. Everyone else had, right? He’d thought he didn’t have whatever it was he needed to keep people close—that he was missing something. He realised now that he wasn’t. All that was wrong with him was fear. Because Carrie had offered him the one thing he’d been too afraid to admit he’d ever want.

I love you, Massimo. All of you. Flaws and all. Fears and all.

He’d taken only what had felt safe. Had limited them to sex. But he’d been unable to resist stealing more. The marriage that had been for convenience was so much more.

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