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dad is going to freak.”

      “Because you are pregnant?”

      “We aren’t married. Not that I expect you to marry me. We can take our time, make this work. He might not understand, but I do.”

      “Why should we take our time? I have known I wanted you for the rest of my future since you walked away from me that morning in Palermo.”

      “How could any guy be more perfect than you?”

      “Well, this perfect guy has the perfect solution.”

      “What?”

      “We elope. Tonight. My family has a house in the Caribbean. The island has no waiting period on a marriage license. The local priest and magistrate are indebted to my family. We can be married by tomorrow afternoon.”

      “Isn’t that crazy?”

      “Isn’t love?”

      “But—”

      “If we don’t elope, our families will get ahold of this and it will become a circus. It will stop being about us, about the family we’re starting, and be about the families we come from.”

      He was so right about that. Relief-driven euphoria and adrenaline poured through her. “Yes, let’s elope.”

      She’d never wanted the huge wedding. Had dreaded the day her mother and father got their teeth into that milestone event.

      “You know I always wanted something small on the beach. No reporters, no business or political allies. Just me, the man I love and our immediate families.”

      His espresso gaze said her dream sounded wonderful to him. “We’ll share our happiness with them after the event.”

      “Yes.”

      Kiki was so glad she’d prepped her family for meeting Mich in a couple of days, not tomorrow like she’d led him to believe. She’d known she and Mich needed time to formulate a plan in response to the pregnancy. Now she’d have that time to elope before her dad sent the troops after her.

CHAPTER FOUR

      THE SAND ON the beach outside Mich’s borrowed Caribbean villa was golden, fine and moister than what she’d grown up knowing in either California or the pebbly beaches of Spain’s eastern coastline.

      A gentle breeze, heavy with humidity, lifted her hair, and Kiki was glad she’d foregone the sun hat she’d worn the last time with this dress.

      She was getting married in the white Oscar de la Renta sundress she’d worn the day she had met Mich in Palermo. But she’d left off the hat and her sandals. She’d added the white gold diamond teardrop necklace and earrings her parents had given her for her graduation.

      It helped her to feel as if they were there with her, witnessing the vows she spoke on the beach with the man she’d fallen in love with so quickly and deeply.

      Mich was barefoot too, wearing a pair of Calvin Klein chinos and a white Spanish-style shirt of fine lawn, embroidered in traditional patterns around the hem and neckline in white silk thread.

      When Kiki had asked him to wear the shirt her dad had left behind on a visit, Mich had given her a strange look.

      “It’s a connection to my Spanish heritage. It will make my parents happy to see it in the pictures later,” she’d explained.

      Mich had shrugged and taken the shirt. “I will wear it. Our future will hold a multitude of opportunities for us to bow to my own heritage.”

      She was so relieved he’d agreed to her request, she hadn’t questioned the odd wording of his answer. Kiki didn’t know why it was so important to her to feel as if her parents were there, even though if they were, she just knew the wedding wouldn’t be happening. Her dad would insist on investigating Mich to the nth degree and forcing him to somehow prove he wasn’t marrying Kiki for her father’s money.

      Miguel Menendez would never believe that Mich didn’t know anything about Kiki’s family background. But their name was a common one, and she didn’t make it a habit of getting her picture taken by the press.

      One of the reasons she’d gone to university in New York had been to maintain her anonymity.

      All thoughts of family and past choices flew out of her head when the priest asked her to speak her vows. Mich’s eyes flared when the priest said her full name.

      But she figured he would understand why she didn’t use her stuffy first name, Constanza.

      She spoke her vows while looking directly into Mich’s eyes, meaning every syllable of the promises with every fiber of her being.

      The priest turned to Mich and started to say, “Prin—”

      “Father,” Mich cut him off with a serious glower.

      The priest nodded and began again, his voice more nervous than when he’d led Kiki in her vows. “Vittoro Micheli Scorsolini, will you take this woman...”

      Ah, so he had a first name he didn’t like or use, either.

      The vows were traditional, but Kiki felt she was the first woman in the world to hear the promises uttered in such a determined, rich masculine voice. Mich’s words were thick with a Sicilian accent, one she had never heard outside of lovemaking with him.

      When he slid the diamond-encrusted platinum band on her finger, it was accompanied by a second ring with a diamond that rivaled her mother’s in a gorgeous setting of rubies and more diamonds.

      She stared up at him, questioning how he’d managed to produce such a dazzling wedding set for their unplanned elopement.

      “I had it overnighted,” he mouthed.

      The priest still gave them a disapproving look but continued with his blessing at a nod from Mich.

      Kiki dipped her head to hide her smile and the happy tears filling her eyes. Her ring for him had a ruby too, set in antique white gold. It was her grandfather’s, an heirloom that he’d given to Kiki when she had turned sixteen to save for her future husband.

      Kiki took the fact that the two rings both bore the stones of passionate love as a good sign for their future.

      That passion was very much in evidence when they returned to the master suite in the villa. Mich couldn’t keep his hands off her, and Kiki didn’t mind at all.

      They were naked together in every way as he poised to slide inside of her, no condom, no security of birth control. Just her and him and the baby they’d made together.

      He looked down at her, his expression so intense she shivered. “We are a family now.”

      “Yes.”

      He surged inside her, sending her nerves skyrocketing.

      “Oh, yes,” she moaned, the sensations different in an undefinable way.

      She didn’t know if it was that they were man and wife, committed to a lifetime, or that she was pregnant, or simply that they’d both admitted their love. But laced with the overwhelming passion was a primal and profound connection they had never achieved before.

      And although he made love to her with undeniable sexual urgency, there was a new tenderness and care to his movements.

      They came within a second of each other; she couldn’t even tell which one had climaxed first. It didn’t matter. Their bodies had just consecrated their union with as much power and worship as the priest’s final blessing.

      “And the two shall become one,” Mich said, still inside her and proving that their thoughts were on the same page.

      “Forever,” she promised.

      “Invece.” His beloved was a vow all on its own.

      *

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