LITMIR.BIZ

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then in Rome, before she’d reached Pisa. Even flying first class, the trip had been exhausting and long.

      Maybe because she’d spent the whole time crying. Looking over her shoulder, half expecting the man to pursue her.

      But he hadn’t. She was still alone.

      So why didn’t that make her feel happier?

      Looking up at the medieval castle on the edge of the forested mountain, she took a deep breath. But she was home. The medieval Italian castle, carefully refurbished over fifty years and turned into a luxurious villa, had been Giovanni’s favorite retreat. Over the past ten years, it had become Lia’s home, as well.

      “Salve, Contessa,” her housekeeper cried from the doorway. Tears shone in her eyes as she added in accented English, “Welcome home.”

      Welcome home. Walking through the front door of the Villa Villani, Lia waited for the feelings of solace and comfort to rush over her as always.

      But nothing happened. Just emptiness. Loneliness.

      A fresh wave of grief washed over her as she set down her bag. “Grazie, Felicita.”

      Lia walked slowly through the empty rooms. The valuable antique furniture blended with the more-modern pieces. Every room had been scrubbed clean. Every window was wide-open, letting in the bright sunshine and fresh morning air of the Italian mountains. And yet she felt cold. She might have been enveloped in a snowdrift…or a shroud.

      The memory of the stranger’s kiss ripped through her, and she touched her lips, still remembering how his touch had seared her last night. How his warmth had burned her with a deep fire. And she felt a sudden sharp pang of regret.

      She’d been a coward to run away from him. From her feelings. From life…

      But she would never see him again. She didn’t even know the man’s name. She’d made her choice. The safe, respectable choice. And now she would live with it.

      She barely felt the hot water against her skin as she took a shower. She dried off with a towel and put on a simple white smock dress. She brushed her hair. She washed her teeth. And she felt dead inside.

      The loneliness of the big castle, where so many generations had lived and died before she was born, echoed inside her. As she went into her bedroom, she glanced down at Giovanni’s diamond wedding ring on her finger.

      She’d just kissed another man wearing her dead husband’s ring. Shame ricocheted through her soul like a bullet.

      Tears threatened her as she briefly closed her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered aloud, as if Giovanni were still alive and in the same room to hear her. “I never should have let it happen.”

      She looked back down at the diamonds sparkling on her finger. She didn’t deserve to wear it, she thought with despair. Slowly she pulled the ring off her finger.

      Going into Giovanni’s old bedroom down the hall from hers, she opened the safe behind the painting of Giovanni’s beloved first wife. Lia tucked the ring inside the safe and closed the door.

      After locking the safe, she stared at the pretty woman in the painting. The first contessa was laughing, sitting on a swing and kicking her feet. Giovanni had loved Magdalena so much. It was why he hadn’t minded marrying Lia. He’d said he already knew he would never love again. He’d loved a woman once, and he would love her forever.

      That kind of love was something Lia had never experienced—and never would. She took a deep breath. She felt cold, so cold.

      Would she ever feel warm again?

      “I’m sorry,” she whispered one last time. “I didn’t mean to forget you.” And she went outside into the sunlight of the rose garden.

      The riotous multitude of roses in red, pink and yellow filled the space, surrounded by ancient stone walls that were seven feet high. This had been Giovanni’s favorite place. He’d grown the roses himself. He’d spent hours carefully taming and tending the garden.

      But the garden had been neglected for months. The flowers were now overgrown and half-wild. The blooms now reached up into the warm blue sky, some as tall as the stone walls that had been built from the ancient Roman foundations.

      She leaned forward to smell one of the enormous yellow roses. Yellow for memory. No wonder it had the strongest scent. She missed Giovanni’s warmth, his kindness. She felt so guilty that she’d forgotten him, even for a moment. For the length of a kiss…

      She closed her eyes, breathing in the fragrance, listening to the wind in the trees above, feeling the warmth of the Tuscan sun on her skin.

      “Hello, Lia,” a voice said quietly.

      She whirled around.

      It was him.

      His dark eyes gleamed as he stared at her through the wrought-iron gate. Pushing it open, he slowly entered the garden. His black shirt and black jeans stood out starkly against the profusion of colorful half-wild roses. There was a predatory grace in his body as he approached her like a stalking lion. She felt the intensity of his gaze from her fingers to her toes.

      Somehow, he was even more handsome here than he’d been in New York. The man was as wild and savage as the forest around them. As unrestrained in his masculine beauty as the sharp-thorned roses.

      And they were alone.

      He stood between her and the garden door.

      This time there would be no taxi. No escape.

      She instinctively folded her arms over her chest, trying to stop herself from trembling as she backed away. “How did you find me?”

      “It wasn’t difficult.”

      “I didn’t invite you here!”

      “No?” he said coolly. He reached for her, twining a black tendril of her hair around his finger as his dark eyes caressed her face. “Are you sure?”

      She couldn’t breathe. Birds sang beyond the medieval stone walls once built to keep invading marauders out. The same walls that now kept her in.

      “Please leave me,” she whispered, shaking with desire for him. For his warmth. For his touch. For the way he made her feel alive again and young and a woman. She licked her dry lips. “I want you to go.”

      “No,” he said. “You don’t.”

      And, lifting her chin, he kissed her.

      His lips were so hard and soft and sweet, she could hear the buzz of honeybees in the medieval garden, their secret world hidden behind the crumbling stone walls. The fragrance of overgrown half-wild roses drenched her senses. And she felt dizzy. She was lost, lost in him. And she didn’t want it to ever end.

      He pushed her back against a wall that was warm with sunlight and thick with twisting vines of wisteria. He kissed her again, more forcefully. Teasing her. Taking. Demanding. Seducing…

      Giovanni’s chaste peck on her forehead at their wedding hadn’t prepared her for this. All night on the lonely plane ride across the Atlantic, she’d tried to convince herself that her passionate reaction to the dark stranger’s kiss had been a moment of madness, a one-off that could never be repeated. But the pleasure was even greater than before, the sweet agony only increasing with the hard tension of her longing. All her grief and loneliness and pain fell away. There was only the hot demand of his mouth, the pleasurable caress of his hands.

      What he wanted he took.

      She tried to resist. She really did. But it was like trying to push away Christmas or happiness or joy. Like trying to push away life itself.

      Though she knew she shouldn’t, she wanted him.

      She returned his kisses hesitantly, then with a hunger that matched his own. She trembled at the brazen force of her own desire as he encouraged her every tremulous

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