LITMIR.BIZ

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message they’d exchanged and burned all her old-fashioned handwritten letters. The times he’d felt obliged to be in her presence he’d perfected the art of subtly blanking her in a way that didn’t draw attention to anyone but her.

      He should have just said no to Francesca. Lied and said he was returning home to Miami earlier than planned.

      Instead he’d nodded curtly and promised to drop round if he had five minutes over the next couple of days.

      So why had he driven here when he’d left the castello fully intending to drive straight to the hotel?

      * * *

      Natasha pushed Pieta’s study door open and swallowed hard before stepping into it. After a moment she switched the light on. After going from room to room in complete darkness, in the house that had been her home for a year, her eyes took a few moments to adjust to the brightness.

      She didn’t know what she was looking for or what she was doing. She didn’t know anything. She was lost. Alone.

      She’d stayed at the wake as long as had been decently possible but all the consolation from the other mourners had become too much. Seeing Matteo everywhere she’d looked had been just as hard. Harder. Her mother pulling her to one side to ask if there was a chance she could be pregnant had been the final straw.

      She’d had to get out before she’d screamed the castello down and her tongue ran away with itself before she could pull it back.

      The rest of the Pellegrinis were staying at the castello and with sympathetic but concerned eyes had accepted her explanation that she wanted to be on her own.

      At her insistence, the household staff had all stayed at the wake.

      This was the first time she’d been alone in the house since she’d received the terrible news.

      Feeling like an intruder in the room that had been her husband’s domain, she cast her gaze over the walls thick with the books he’d read. A stack of files he’d brought home to work on, either from his law firm or the foundation he’d been so proud of, lay on his desk. Next to it sat the thick leather-bound tome on Stanley and Livingstone she’d bought him for his recent birthday. A bookmark poked out a third of the way through it.

      Her throat closing tightly, she picked the book up and hugged it to her chest then with a wail that seemed to come from nowhere sank to the floor and sobbed for the man who had lied to her and everyone else for years, but who had done so much good in the world.

      Pieta would never finish this book. He would never see the hospital his siblings would build in his memory. He would never take delivery of the new car he’d ordered only the day before he’d died.

      He would never have the chance to tell his family the truth about who he’d really been.

      ‘Oh, Pieta,’ she whispered between the tears. ‘Wherever you are, I hope you’re finally at peace with yourself.’

      The sound of the doorbell rang out.

      She rolled into a ball and covered her ears.

      The caller was insistent, pressing the doorbell intermittently until she could ignore it no longer. Wiping the tears away, she dragged herself up from the study floor and went down the stairs, clinging to the bannister for support, mentally preparing what she would say to get rid of her unexpected visitor.

      Please don’t be my parents. Don’t be my parents. Don’t be my parents.

      Bracing herself, she unlocked the door and opened it a crack to peer through.

      Certain she must be hallucinating, she pulled the door wider.

      Her heart seemed to stop then kick back to life with a roar.

      Matteo stood there, shining like an apparition under the brilliance of the moon.

      He’d removed his black tie, his white shirt open at the throat, bleakness in his eyes, his jaw clenched, breathing heavily.

      Their eyes met.

      Neither of them spoke.

      Something erupted in her chest, gripping her so tightly her lungs closed.

      Time came to a standstill.

      There they stood for the longest time, speaking only with their eyes. She read a hundred things in his; variations of pain, misery, anger and something else, something she hadn’t seen since the beat before he’d taken her into his arms for the only kiss they had ever shared seven years ago.

      This was the first time she’d seen him alone since that kiss.

      She would never forget the look in his eyes from across the marquee when she had said yes to Pieta’s proposal only two hours later. That would be with her until the day she died. The regret at all that had been lost would live in her for ever.

      Her foot moved of its own accord as she took the step to him and placed her palm on his warm cheek.

      He didn’t react. Not the flicker of a muscle.

      Matteo stared into eyes puffy from crying but that shone at him, almost pleading.

      All the words he’d prepared melted away.

      He couldn’t even remember getting out of his car.

      Her trembling hand felt so gentle on his cheek, her warmth penetrating his skin, and all he could do was drink in the face he’d once dreamed of waking up to.

      A force too powerful to fight took hold of him, like a fist grabbing his insides and squeezing tightly.

      Suddenly he couldn’t remember why he hated her. All thoughts had evaporated. All he could see was her, Natasha, the woman he had taken one look at nearly eight years ago and known his life would never be the same again.

       CHAPTER TWO

      THE WORLD AROUND them blocked itself out and, without a word being said, Matteo crossed the threshold, kicked the door shut behind him and lifted her into his arms.

      Their eyes locked together. Her fingers burrowed in the nape of his neck and he carried her up the stairs and into a bedroom. There he laid her on the bed and, his heart hammering in his throat, closed his eyes and brought his lips to hers.

      Her taste...

      When she parted her lips and his tongue swept into her mouth, the sweet, intoxicating taste he’d never forgotten filled him and from that moment he was lost.

      In a frenzy of hands and heady kisses, they stripped each other’s clothes off, items thrown without thought, a desperation to be naked and for their bodies to be flush together. Then he speared her hair with his fingers and crushed her mouth to his, teeth and tongues clashing as if they were trying to peel the other’s skin and climb inside.

      There were no thoughts, no words, only this potent madness that had them both in its grip.

      He cupped her small perfect breasts then took them into his mouth, her moan of pleasure soaking right into his bloodstream. He ran his hands over her smooth belly and followed it with his tongue before going lower to inhale her musky heat.

      He devoured her, not an inch of her creamy skin with the texture of silk left untouched or without his kiss.

      Never had he experienced anything like this, this combustible, primal need to taste her, mark her, to imprint himself into her.

      To worship her.

      Natasha was adrift in a world she’d never been to before, Matteo her anchor, and she clung to him as if he were all that was left to hold onto, dragging her fingers through his hair, touching every bit of smooth skin she could reach with her needy hands. Every touch seared her, every kiss scorched.

      His kiss from seven years ago had flicked something on inside her, a heat that had briefly smouldered before the direction of her life had extinguished it.

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