The Platinum Collection

CHAPTER TEN

THE instant Jess laid eyes on her mother that evening she started to cry. Once she had let that flood of pent-up grief and despair flow freely there was no stopping it.

Shaken by the state her daughter was in, Sharon Martin took some time to grasp the situation that her daughter was describing between heartbroken sobs. When Jess had finally mopped her eyes dry, her eyelids were so swollen she could hardly see out of them. But she had only to think of Cesario and more moisture trickled down her quivering cheeks.

‘You’re the first person in my family ever to go to university and yet when it comes to a real crisis you act as if you’re as thick as two short planks!’ Sharon pronounced, shocking her daughter right out of her self-preoccupied silence.

‘How can you say that?’ Jess gasped.

‘The man you say you love is dying and you’re still whinging on about how he lied to you! What are you thinking of?’ the older woman demanded.

The man you love is dying. And there it was, the simple fact that had frozen Jess’s ability to reason at source. That news had torn her apart, both angering and terrifying her, for she did not know how to handle something so enormous and threatening that it affected her entire world and destroyed even the future.

‘Cesario lied to protect you and, by the looks of it, he knew what he was doing when he lied, because you’re sitting here being useless!’ Sharon scolded. ‘Where is your brain, Jess? He doesn’t want you to feel that you have to stay with him because you’re his wife and he’s ill. He knows you didn’t sign up for that and he clearly never intended to tell you. Obviously he thought he was going to have more time with you. He doesn’t want your pity. That’s why he told you that you could have a separation right now, so that you are free to do whatever you like.’

Blinking rapidly, Jess stared back at her mother. ‘What I like?’ she echoed.

‘A week ago you were in Italy with Cesario and you were both very, very happy, weren’t you?’ Sharon voiced that reminder gently.

‘Yes, but—’

‘No buts. Cesario can’t have changed that much in the space of a few days. He’s just giving you the chance to escape getting involved in his illness.’

‘You honestly believe he’s trying to protect me rather than get rid of me?’ Jess whispered shakily.

‘I think that’s the only reason he lied all along. He’s trying to be a tough guy and deal with his condition alone.’

Jess swallowed the thickness in her throat and stared down at her feet with glazed eyes. ‘I don’t think I can handle losing him,’ she framed gruffly.

‘Then don’t give up. By the sound of it, he’s already given up, so he doesn’t need more of the same from you. There may still be room for hope. You tell him he has to give the treatment a go—for your sake and the baby’s,’ the older woman proffered briskly. ‘With any luck, it won’t be too late for him to change his mind.’

Jess grasped that thought like a mental lifeline and held fast to it. ‘I’ve been stupid, blind, self-obsessed…’

‘You were in shock and now you’ve had the chance to think things through. You have to fight for most things in life that are worth having.’

‘I’ll go back to London…’

‘Tomorrow. Right now you’re exhausted and you need a good night’s sleep before you do anything,’ Sharon told her firmly. ‘You have to look after yourself and the baby now.’

The next morning Jess had a routine surgery to carry out and it was the afternoon before she had the leisure to think. A deep longing for Cesario’s presence clawed at her, filling her with fear of the future all over again, but also hardening her resolve to take action. She drove back to the hall, gazing out at the gracious old house, and while marvelling that it was now her home she frowned at the sight of the pair of vans already parked outside.

It was an unpleasant surprise to walk into the big hall and see a stack of boxes piled up. Looking beyond them, she could see the amount of activity going on in Cesario’s office, people moving about busily while desk and cupboards were cleared and packed. Her heart sank to the soles of her feet and she felt sick: he was already moving out!

Without any warning, Cesario appeared in the doorway, Weed and Magic at his heels. That he looked so healthy with his vibrant golden skin tone hit her like a slap in the face, while the cloaked and unrevealing darkness of his gaze simply hurt her. Once again she felt excluded, on the outside when she wanted to be involved in everything he did.

He strolled fluidly closer, as elegant as he always was in a pearl grey business suit, only the absence of a tie striking a less formal note. He looked gorgeous. In spite of the pain Jess was fighting to hold at bay, her heart started to pound very, very fast inside her.

‘I’m sorry—this isn’t how I planned this. I intended to be gone before you got back from work,’ he admitted levelly.

‘It won’t do you any good,’ Jess told him tartly. ‘I’ll just follow you to London and camp out on your doorstep.’

His brow indented and he gave her a bemused look. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘I want to be with you. I need to be with you,’ Jess said boldly. ‘Blame yourself for that. You dragged me into this.’

‘We’ll talk in the drawing room,’ he breathed tautly, lush ebony lashes lowering to screen his gaze from the intrusion of hers.

‘Nothing you could possibly say will change my mind,’ Jess warned him, lifting her chin as he closed the door on the hall and the bustle of the packers.

‘You’re taking an emotional view of this situation and that’s wrong.’

‘Maybe it would be wrong for you, but it’s not wrong for me,’ Jess cut in with assurance.

‘You’re thinking of me the way you think of your rescue animals—all starry-eyed compassion and do-gooding instincts to the fore,’ he condemned, his lean, strong face rigid with censure. ‘I don’t want that. I can’t live with that.’

‘And I can’t live with you dealing with this alone and away from me, so it seems that we’re at an impasse,’ Jess pronounced, taking in the disorientated look starting to build in his beautiful dark golden eyes and the anger that she was behaving in a way he had not foreseen. ‘We’re also about to have a major argument.’

A black brow lifted. ‘About what?’ he challenged, an aggressive angle to his strong jaw.

‘You have to go for that treatment you refused—’

‘No.’ The rebuttal was instant.

‘Stop thinking about you and think about this baby you decided to bring into this world.’ Jess shot that fiery advice back at him without hesitation. ‘Our baby deserves that you fight this by any means open to you. If there’s the smallest chance that you can survive this, you owe it to us to take it!’

Cesario gazed back at her with unflinching force but he had lost colour. ‘Strong words…’

‘Strongly felt,’ Jess traded, holding that look with intent grey eyes that willed him to listen, for she felt as if she was fighting for both their lives. When the tumour had first been diagnosed he had taken a stance and, in her opinion, he had taken the wrong one.

‘And what of the consequences if the surgery doesn’t go well?’

Jess squared her slim shoulders. ‘Then we’ll deal with that when and if it happens. We’ll manage. You’re luckier than most people in that you can afford the best medical care and support if you need it.’

‘But what if I’m not prepared to live with the risk of being maimed?’ Cesario pressed darkly.

‘Life is precious, Cesario. Life is very precious,’ Jess whispered vehemently, longing for him to accept that truth. ‘I can tell you now that our child would rather have you alive and disabled than not have you at all.’

‘I’m not going to ask you how you feel!’ Cesario shot back at her in a derisive attack that cut a painful swathe through her anxiety. ‘I’m talking to a woman with a three-legged, half-blind dog and a deaf dog and several others with what you might term a “reduced quality of life”, so I already know your liberal views. But I’m not a dumb animal and my needs are a little more sophisticated!’

‘But you are also putting your pride and need to be independent ahead of every other factor and you’re assuming that the worst case scenario will result,’ Jess condemned in a determined attack on his outlook. ‘Why so pessimistic? What happened to hope? What’s wrong with having hope? We have a child on the way. I’m asking you to think about what having a father will mean to our baby as he or she grows up.’

Cesario compressed his lips. ‘I’m not the right person to discuss that with because I had a rotten father.’

‘All the more reason for you to think this over now, because you could do the job better. I had a rotten birth father as well. He gave my mother the money for an abortion and considered his responsibility to us both concluded. But Robert Martin was a wonderful father to me,’ Jess declared with passionate sincerity. ‘He’s not educated and he’s not clever or successful like my birth father, but I love him very much for always being there to love, support and encourage me. What’s in your heart is what matters, not the superficial things.’

‘You were fortunate.’

Her face took on a wry expression. ‘But sadly I didn’t appreciate just how lucky I was to have Robert, until William Dunn-Montgomery had a solicitor’s letter sent to me warning me to stay away from him and his family.’

Cesario frowned, taken aback by that admission. ‘When did that happen?’

‘When I was a student of nineteen and I tried to meet my birth father. It was after I got out of hospital following the stalker attack. I was going through a difficult time emotionally and I was madly curious about my beginnings and rather naïve in my expectations. Sadly, William Dunn-Montgomery took fright at my first approach and made it very clear that he wanted nothing to do with me,’ she explained with a grimace. ‘It took that experience of rejection for me to realise how privileged I’d been to have a stepfather like Robert, who always treated me as a daughter he was proud of.’

‘I can understand the depth of your loyalty to him now,’ Cesario conceded heavily. ‘I wish I hadn’t taken advantage of it.’

‘Never mind that now. Having a father enriched my life. All I’m asking is that you try to give our child the same advantage.’

Dark eyes bleak and without a shade of gold, Cesario breathed curtly, ‘I’ll bear that in mind, but I have thought long and hard about this and I have already made my decision.’

Jess released her breath in a slow hiss, the ferocious tension holding her taut draining out of her again to leave her feeling limp and wrung out. ‘Decisions can be changed!’ she argued.

‘But that decision was made six months ago. Surgery may not even be an option any more.’

That risk hadn’t really occurred to Jess. Up until that point all she had focused on was getting him to change his mind and consider treatment. Now all she could think about was how cruel it would be if Cesario was destined to die because he had met her too late.

Cesario searched her distraught face. ‘You and that baby have me over a barrel.’

‘That’s not how I want you to feel.’

‘I’m meeting with my doctors tomorrow—’

Her eyes widened fearfully. ‘I’m coming too. From now on, you don’t shut me out any more.’

‘This was supposed to be a practical marriage. I never wanted you to get involved in this!’ Cesario derided in a sudden burst of very masculine frustration.

‘I decide what I want to get involved in,’ Jess responded squarely.

‘You’ll regret it,’ he told her grimly. ‘At any time, feel free to walk away from this and me.’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Jess informed him stubbornly. ‘And, by the way, I didn’t marry you to gain the right to live in this house because it once belonged to the Dunn-Montgomery family. Nor did I marry you purely to save my stepfather’s skin. I also wanted a child of my own—you and I had the same agenda.’

His lush lashes cloaked his gaze and the lean hands he had coiled into fists loosened again. He released his breath on a sigh. ‘I know that, but it doesn’t alter the fact that I used your stepfather’s plight to put you under unfair pressure to marry me.’

‘That’s not how you felt about it at the time,’ Jess reminded him. ‘And if we’re staying together, please tell your staff to put the office contents back.’

A faint touch of colour edging his high cheekbones, Cesario went to speak to his staff and the moving operation went into sudden reverse. Jess started to breathe a little easier when the first box went back through the office doorway instead of out of the house.

Taking off his jacket, Cesario strode back to her side, beautiful dark eyes lustrous, rousing a tiny scream of pain and fear inside her. How could he look so well and yet be so very far from well? Suppressing that negative thought, she sensed his uncertainty and she reached for his hand in an instinctive gesture of unity.

‘Let’s go upstairs where we’ll get some peace,’ he urged in the midst of the bustle around them, and he directed her towards the magnificent staircase.

‘There are things I have to say to you, mia bella,’ Cesario said very seriously before they reached the bedroom they invariably shared. ‘Things that I wanted to say weeks ago in Italy but which I felt then were better left unspoken.’

‘So, get them out of the way now,’ Jess urged, wondering in some apprehension what he had held back from saying to her. ‘We shouldn’t have any more secrets from each other.’

Cesario studied her intently. ‘I blackmailed you into marrying me, moglie mia,’ he intoned with regret. ‘I wanted you and I didn’t care how I got you. But no matter how you feel about it now, it was incredibly selfish of me to plunge you into this situation.’

‘You’d be surprised how resilient I am.’ Jess lifted her head high, her grey gaze soft and strong as it rested on him. ‘And, yes, you blackmailed me, but I was attracted to you as well and without the pressure you put on me I would never have done anything about it. Never mind what happens in the future; I’ll always be glad we did get together,’ she completed gruffly.

‘But I feel like I’ve trapped you now. You’re way too nice to put yourself first and walk away from a dying partner,’ Cesario derided in a frustrated undertone.

‘You may not die. You must look at the more positive angle,’ Jess breathed feelingly. ‘And I’m not too nice. If I didn’t want to be with you, I wouldn’t be here now because I couldn’t fake it, I couldn’t pretend…’

He touched her damp cheek with a gentle forefinger and looked down into her open gaze. ‘No. I don’t think you could fake what you feel either and it’s one of the things that I love most about you. What you see is what you get, but I’m still taking advantage of your good nature and loyalty—’

Jess was so tense that she might as well have been poised on a cliff edge. ‘Did you just say that you loved me?’

‘I am hopelessly in love with you—didn’t you guess?’ Cesario vented a rueful laugh. ‘I thought I was kind of obvious.’

Jess was trembling. ‘I can be a bit slow on the uptake sometimes,’ she said shakily. ‘When did you realise you felt that way?’

‘In Italy when it was a challenge just to be away from you for a couple of hours,’ Cesario confided huskily. ‘I’ve never felt like that before.’

‘Not even about Alice?’ Jess heard herself ask, and then she winced, wishing she had not let that petty jealous question escape her lips.

‘Jess, you have never had any reason to worry about the relationship I once had with Alice. I like and respect Alice a great deal but we were a mismatch. When I was with her, I was too young to want to settle down and even though I was unfaithful she never stood up to me.’ Cesario shared those uncomfortable truths and grimaced. ‘I’m not proud of the way I treated her. I only realised that I did care about her when she was gone from my life. But I never loved her the way Stefano loves her and I wouldn’t have married her because my feelings didn’t go deep enough for that.’

‘I’m sorry to keep on going on about Alice,’ Jess said ruefully as she linked her arms round his broad shoulders, her fears about the other woman finally laid to rest by his candour. ‘But when I overheard you and Alice talking the night before we left Italy it did make me wary of your friendship with her.’

Cesario frowned. ‘What did you overhear? ‘

And once Jess had explained, he heaved a groan of comprehension. ‘Alice and Stefano have known about my condition from the start, and Alice was correct when she said that I wasn’t being fair to you in not telling you. But those weeks we shared in Italy were some of the happiest of my life…and I didn’t want to sacrifice a day of that to the reality of my condition.’

That declaration made her eyes prickle with tears. But she swiftly blinked the betraying moisture back because she knew he would take the wrong message from it and return to believing that he was the worst thing that had ever happened to her when in fact he was the best. ‘I fell in love with you in Italy as well.’

‘I was ahead of you there,’ Cesario claimed, tipping up her chin with his fingers to look down into her silvery grey eyes. ‘I probably fell for you at the moment I saw you in your wedding gown at the church—you looked like my every dream come true. And that’s from a guy who never thought he was romantic.’

Jess had never felt that, for a thousand and one little and large romantic gestures had made their honeymoon special. But she smiled up at him with her heart in her eyes. ‘I love you so much…’

‘I’m never going to stop wanting you, amata mia,’ Cesario pronounced with driven sincerity, brilliant dark eyes pinned to her with adoring intensity. ‘But I didn’t want to do this to you. I wanted to make you happy, not sad.’

‘And whatever happens you will make me happy,’ Jess told him with confidence. ‘Every day we have together now is a day we wouldn’t have had, if you had succeeded in scaring me off yesterday.’

‘But it’s not fair to put you through this with me,’ Cesario groaned, unable to hide his guilty look of concern.

Jess smoothed gentle fingertips across the taut line of one high masculine cheekbone. ‘How would you feel if it was me that had the tumour? Could you just walk away?’

‘Infierno! Are you joking?’ Cesario demanded incredulously.

‘Well, then, don’t expect me to be any different. I love you too,’ she reminded him. ‘I want to be with you, whatever happens.’

And in a flood of passionate appreciation that he could not hide from her, Cesario covered her mouth with his and kissed her breathless. She trailed his jacket off in the midst of it, embarked on undoing his shirt buttons and spread loving hands over the warmth of his hair-roughened torso. His lean, strong body was urgent and aroused against hers and she shut out the negative thoughts that lurked ready to threaten her happiness.

The man she loved loved her back with the same heat and passion and, for now, that was enough for her. She would take happiness where she could find it and make the most of every moment with him.

Rio, named Cesario at birth after his father, kicked the ball and it hit a window with a loud thump followed by the noise of shattering glass.

‘Mamma!’ he yelled in dismay.

Jess, who had been sitting in the shade of the loggia, rose to her feet and hurried along the terrace to ensure that her son stayed well away from the broken glass while shooing away the dogs at the same time. She checked his clothing for tiny shards, moved him well clear of the debris and then smiled at Tommaso. Having returned the ball, the older man, a long look of calm resignation on his face, was already advancing with a brush and shovel to clear up the mess. It was expected that a lively little boy would practise his football moves and, at five years old, boys didn’t come much livelier than Rio.

He was blessed with his father’s lustrous dark eyes and his mother’s black curls; his decided appeal made it very likely that some day he would be a heartbreaker as well. Born a week after his due date in a straightforward delivery, Rio had delighted his mother from the first moment he’d drawn breath and motherhood had more than lived up to all her expectations, though been rather more tiring than she had appreciated. Although Rio had been a very good-natured baby he had also required little sleep and after more interrupted nights than she still cared to recall Jess had been glad to have the support of a good nanny. Having inherited his parents’ stubborn streak, determination and intelligence, Rio could be a handful.

Her entire family enjoyed a long summer holiday at Collina Verde every year. Her parents were currently attending evening classes in Italian and working hard to learn the language. Her half-brothers still worked on the Halston estate, but her father had surprised them all by finding a new job at a local garden centre where he was happily employed as a deputy manager. Jess was also in regular contact with her other brother, Luke Dunn-Montgomery, and the previous year he and his girlfriend had joined her for a winter break at Cesario’s opulent villa in Morocco. She had heard nothing more from her birth father but was content with that situation. Alice and Stefano and their children were regular visitors, and Alice had gradually become Jess’s best friend. The couples shared family events and celebrations.

Soon after Rio’s birth, Jess had opted to buy into the veterinary practice as a partner and she still worked part-time hours. That same year, her animal sanctuary had won charitable status. Full-time employees, assisted by a rota of volunteers, now kept the rescue facility running efficiently and many animals had been happily rehomed since the sanctuary had reopened on the Halston estate. Dozy, her narcoleptic greyhound, was asleep by the wall next to Johnson, her collie. Harley the Labrador and Hugs the wolfhound had passed away due to old age, but their places had since been filled by Owen, a lively Jack Russell, who acted as a seeing-eye guide to his friend, Bix, a blind Great Dane. Weed and Magic, however, were now scampering cheerfully in the wake of the two little girls running across the terrace.

Graziella, an adorable three-year-old, with her mother’s light grey eyes, rushed to show Jess the painting she had done at the summer playgroup she attended. Her little sister, Allegra, an apple-cheeked toddler of eighteen months with an explosion of black curls, bowled along behind Graziella like a shadow.

Jess gathered both girls into her arms with a grin but her whole face lit up when Cesario, her tall, dark and very handsome husband, strode out of the house. He bounced a new football across the terrace to Rio, who gave a whoop of pleasure and grabbed both ball and father in his enthusiasm, chattering in ninety-mile-an-hour Italian about the window he had broken.

‘Daddy didn’t play music in the car like I wanted,’ confided Graziella crossly. ‘We had football.’

From beneath the vine-covered loggia, Jess surveyed the man she loved with amused eyes. He made a special effort to take time off and spend it with his family during the long summers they usually spent at Collina Verde. Although she rarely thought back now to the period when she had feared she would lose Cesario, because she felt it was good to move on mentally, she valued the happiness she had found with him and her children all the more from the knowledge that she could so easily have lost him.

Having changed his mind and finally agreed to accept treatment, Cesario had benefited from the latest neurosurgical techniques. Stereotactic surgery, in which CT images were used to pinpoint the location of the tumour and target it with carefully controlled doses of gamma radiation, had been utilised and this noninvasive method had protected all healthy tissue from damage. He had spent only three days in hospital and, after a successful procedure, had experienced neither complications nor subsequent problems. The tumour was gone and follow-up scans remained reassuringly clear.

‘Do you think we’re spoiling Graziella?’ Cesario remarked as their nanny, Izzy, put in an appearance to take the children indoors for lunch. ‘She’s a real little bossy-boots.’

‘I wonder who she gets that from,’ Jess commented tongue in cheek, since she had noticed that her elder daughter could twist her father round her little finger with just the suggestion of tears or disappointment. ‘Or do you think it could be that maybe she just doesn’t like football radio commentaries?’

A wickedly appreciative grin slashed Cesario’s wide sensual mouth. ‘She takes after her mamma then, her very beautiful, very much loved—’

‘And very pregnant mamma,’ Jess completed, hopelessly conscious of the size of her pregnant body on such a warm day. She was within weeks of her delivery date for their fourth child. She already knew that she was carrying a second boy, who would very probably be christened Roberto after his doting grandfather. Their children had given them both so much joy that they weren’t quite sure when they would consider their family complete.

Cesario splayed a protective hand across the proud swell of her belly. ‘Very beautiful, very pregnant mamma,’ he traded huskily as he pulled her back against him, ‘whom I was extremely lucky to find and marry in my hour of greatest need.’

Jess leant back against the support of his big powerful body and sighed in blissful relaxation, enjoying a moment of perfect peace without the children providing a distraction. ‘We found each other and once I had had a taste of you and Italy I knew you were the man for me. I love you so much.’

Cesario turned her slowly round in the circle of his arms and looked down into the silvery grey eyes he still found so enthralling. ‘The love of my life,’ he breathed and kissed her with tender loving care…