LITMIR.BIZ

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the city. After leaving abruptly the day before, when Mia had begun feeding Ella, he’d commanded she come to where he was staying to discuss their future arrangements…whatever those might be.

      Mia had spent a sleepless night, wide-eyed and worried, trying to decide how she was going to respond to Alessandro’s suggestion that she move to Tuscany with Ella. Everything in her resisted that notion, and particularly the high-handed manner in which he’d delivered it, as if he expected her to fall in with his plans without so much as a whisper of dissent.

      She did not want to be controlled by him, and yet she feared she had no choice. Just like with her father, Alessandro was calling the shots. Just like her father, he had all the power, all the money, all the cards. It had taken years from Mia to break free from her father. She desperately wanted to have the strength to break free from Alessandro now, even as she recognised that Alessandro was a different man from her father, and she’d sensed a kindness beneath his hard exterior that made her want to trust him.

      Still, it wasn’t enough to move continents for, surely.

      And yet… Ella. She couldn’t deny Alessandro the right to see his daughter. After witnessing him holding Ella, the obvious love in his eyes, surprising and powerful, she didn’t even want to. So where did that leave her? Them?

      In the car seat next to her, Ella stirred, blinking wide blue-grey eyes at the world, her thumb finding its way to her mouth, a new discovery. Mia gazed down at her infant daughter, her heart squeezing painfully with love. She hadn’t realised just how strong that mother instinct would be, how that natural love would rush in, from the moment she’d felt Ella’s first kick. The need to provide, protect, and nurture felt like an unstoppable force. It would make her strong enough to fight this battle with Alessandro…and win. She couldn’t contemplate the alternative.

      The limo pulled up to a tall, elegant skyscraper, and a white-gloved valet came to open her door. Mia unbuckled Ella’s car seat and heaved it out, straightening her tunic top that she’d paired with loose trousers. Three months postpartum, she was still working off the baby weight, something that made her feel self-conscious when she was in Alessandro’s hard, honed presence.

      Inside the hotel’s large and opulent lobby, all marble and crystal, a staff member met her at the door, clearly watching and waiting for her.

      ‘Mr Costa is waiting for you in the penthouse suite,’ she informed her crisply, and Mia followed her into a glassed-in lift that soared upwards, her hands slippery on the car seat handle. She wished he hadn’t asked—or, rather, commanded—that she come here, to this glamorous place, clearly his turf. It put her at a disadvantage for the battle she knew was coming, and she suspected Alessandro had arranged it for exactly that reason. Still, she would do her best to stand her ground and make her case.

      The lift doors opened directly into the penthouse suite, a soaring, open space with floor-to-ceiling windows on every side. As Mia stepped out onto the white marble floor, she felt as if she were flying—or falling. The sight of the city far below all around her made her feel dizzy.

      ‘Mia.’ Alessandro’s voice was a low, steady thrum as he stepped forward and took the car seat from her, smiling down at a now sleeping Ella. Mia relinquished it unthinkingly as she took a few steadying breaths to combat the sudden feeling of vertigo.

      Alessandro looked devastatingly handsome, as usual, in a crisp grey suit with a cobalt-blue button-down shirt and a silver-grey tie. He smelled amazing, too, the same sandalwood aftershave that Mia remembered all too well assaulting her senses and reawakening her memories.

      ‘Would you like a drink?’ he asked politely. ‘Coffee? Tea? Juice?’

      ‘Just water, please.’ On shaky legs she walked to one of the white leather sofas scattered around and sat down. ‘This place is amazing.’ She glanced around the huge space, noting the king-sized bed, the sunken marble tub, the glittering kitchen with top-notch appliances, all of it open plan, the different areas separated by elegant shelving and tall potted plants.

      ‘The view sold me on it,’ Alessandro said as he fetched her a glass of water. ‘I wasn’t sure about the open plan, but the architect insisted it was the way to go.’ He handed her a glass, which Mia took with murmured thanks before sitting opposite her, one leg crossed neatly over the other as he sipped his coffee. Ella sat between them in her car seat, fast asleep.

      ‘So,’ Alessandro said, his opening gambit. ‘I’ve arranged a flight to Rome for this evening.’

      ‘What?’ Mia nearly dropped her glass, and her surprised squawk made Ella stir in her seat before she settled back to sleep.

      ‘Is that so surprising? I told you what I intended last night. Why should either of us linger? There’s nothing for you here, Mia.’

      ‘How would you even know that?’ she demanded. She’d known Alessandro would have a plan, and even that he would insist on it, but she hadn’t realised he would enact it so quickly, and without even telling her. It made her furious—and it also made her scared. He had so much more power and money than she did. His will felt like a force of nature. How could she fight it?

      ‘You more or less admitted it yesterday,’ he answered evenly. ‘You’ve only been here for a year, and you weren’t sure about coming here in the first place. Why stay?’

      She’d stayed because it had been worth it financially, and she had no job waiting for her back in London or anywhere else. What friends she’d made in London she’d lost touch with over the last year, and none of them were in a position to help her as a single mother anyway.

      She’d been stuck, and Alessandro was right when he said there was nothing keeping her in California, but…that didn’t mean she wanted to go to Tuscany with him.

      ‘I’m not committed to LA, it’s true,’ she said carefully. ‘Although I’ve enjoyed my job here, and I was—am—intending to return to it in a few months. But that doesn’t mean I want to live in Italy. I don’t even know the language, Alessandro.’

      He shrugged, dismissive. ‘You’ll learn. And there’s no reason for you to return to work when I will be providing for you.’

      ‘I like working—’

      ‘Then perhaps you can return to it when Ella is a bit older.’

      Although she greatly disliked his high-handed manner, Mia wasn’t willing to fight that particular battle along with all the others. The truth was, she’d rather stay with Ella when she was so little. But she still didn’t want to go to Italy.

      ‘I think we both need to compromise,’ Mia said, trying not to sound desperate. ‘What if I returned to London? You go there fairly often for business. You could see Ella regularly…’ She trailed off at the dark look developing on Alessandro’s face, like a storm front coming in, of towering black clouds.

      ‘That’s your compromise? I see my daughter once a month, if that?’

      ‘Surely you come to London more often than that,’ Mia protested. ‘To check on Dillard’s…’

      ‘Dillard’s has been assimilated into Costa International, as I told you it would be. I come to London once or twice a year at most.’

      And for that he’d needed to put her on the other side of the world? It was not a point Mia could afford to make now. ‘But it’s not that far,’ she insisted, trying her best to hold on to the plan she’d come up with last night—her in London, living in familiar surroundings with some friends around, and Alessandro safely in Italy or wherever else he travelled, coming by once in a while. She could live with that. Just about.

      ‘Not far?’ Alessandro’s eyebrows rose in incredulity before drawing together in what could only be anger. Mia tried not to shrink back in her seat. ‘It’s a four-hour plane ride, Mia. How often do you think I want to see my daughter? How much do you think I wanted to be involved in her life?’

      She shook her head slowly, afraid to hear his answer. ‘I… I don’t

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