LITMIR.BIZ

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even know. Such as what you want out of life. What you value. What you believe.’

      ‘What do you want out of life, Mia?’ He spoke quietly, knowing the question was important, the answer even more so.

      She looked up, her expression serious, her eyes bright. ‘First, I want to keep Ella safe and healthy and happy.’

      ‘Of course. I want that, as well. Utterly.’

      ‘After that, I want to be independent. With my own money, my own choices. That’s…very important to me.’ Alessandro sensed a wealth of memory and meaning behind her words, and he nodded.

      ‘Understandable.’ He’d seen that all along, how she chafed against any autocratic commands…which, he acknowledged wryly, he had a tendency to give. But they could work on all that.

      ‘What do you want out of life, Alessandro?’ She glanced around the spacious kitchen, the sunny garden visible through the French windows. ‘It seems like you have everything already.’

      ‘I am thankful for what I have,’ Alessandro allowed. ‘But what I’ve wanted…what has driven me, as you’ve said…’ He hesitated, feeling his way through the words. ‘First, I want to protect and care for my family.’

      ‘Yes.’ The word was a soft assent.

      ‘And second…it is similar to what you want, in a way, I suppose. I want to be in control. I don’t want to have my life dictated by other people’s whims or poor choices, as it was for all my childhood.’

      ‘I can understand that.’

      ‘Yes, it seems you can. So once again we are in accord, Mia. I think you will find we are far more compatible than you once feared.’

      ‘Perhaps.’ She didn’t sound convinced, but Alessandro knew he could convince her. He had to.

      ‘I mean it, Mia. I want this to work.’

      ‘That’s something, then,’ Mia said with a small smile, and as their gazes met and tangled Alessandro found himself remembering a whole host of pleasurable things. The feel of Mia in his arms. The taste of her lips. How sleepy and warm she’d been that morning, snuggled up against him. And he thought how much he wanted to experience all of those things again, over and over.

      Yet as his own blood heated, Mia’s seemed to cool, for she looked away, her hair sliding in front of her face. Alessandro felt her emotional withdrawal like a physical thing.

      ‘I should unpack,’ she said as she brought Ella to her shoulder, pulling her robe closed with her other hand. ‘And get dressed…’

      ‘Your things will have been brought up to your room by the staff by now, I am sure. Alyssa and Paulo are the couple who run this place. They’re very kind.’

      ‘I look forward to meeting them.’ She rose, clutching Ella to her a bit like a shield. ‘Will you be…returning to Rome? For work?’

      ‘In a few days.’ Alessandro couldn’t help but be stung by the question. Did she want him gone already? Resolve hardened inside him. He would break down her defences. He would get to know her…in every possible way. ‘Shall we have dinner together tonight? Alyssa is happy to sit with Ella.’

      Her eyes widened and then slowly, seemingly reluctantly, she nodded. ‘Very well.’

      It was a grudging acceptance, and one that irked him just a little. Why was Mia so guarded? Why couldn’t she enter into the spirit of what he was trying to do?

      But what was he trying to do? Alessandro asked himself after Mia had gone upstairs and he headed to his study to check his work emails. Mia had asked him a host of serious questions that he had answered honestly, if not fully. What did he want from life? What did he want from this marriage? And how was he going to get it?

      Already being with Mia was drawing emotion from him like poison from a wound. He felt it stir inside him, and it alarmed him. He did not want to be ruled by his emotions the way his mother had been, tossed on the turbulent waves of relationships that never delivered what they’d seemed to promise, and left destruction in their wake.

      He’d always vowed he would never expose himself to that kind of horrible, humiliating risk. He would never need someone that way, let that need rule and ruin him. He would always stay in control—of himself, and of his emotions.

      And he could be in control, Alessandro reminded himself. He wasn’t that lost little boy, hiding in the cupboard while his mother screamed and fought with one of her many boyfriends, or curled up on a narrow bed, wondering when she’d finally come home after a night out.

      He was a man in control of his destiny and his family. His relationship with—and eventual marriage to—Mia would be on his terms. And they would be favourable terms for her, undoubtedly. He would be generous, thoughtful, kind. But they would still be his.

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

      ‘AREN’T YOU HAPPY?’

      Laughing, Mia tickled Ella’s tummy as her daughter grinned and giggled back at her. They were sitting on a blanket in the villa’s garden, enjoying the warm spring sunshine. It had been two weeks since Mia had come to Italy, and she was finally starting to relax into this strange and amazing new life of hers. She just wasn’t sure whether she could trust it…or Alessandro.

      He’d been a model of kindness and consideration since she’d arrived; she couldn’t fault him for that. The first night he’d arranged for Alyssa to watch Ella while they’d had a candlelit supper out on the terrace, eating delicious food, drinking fine wine, and enjoying each other’s company.

      And Mia had enjoyed his company… Alessandro had kept the conversation light and sparkling, without any of the heavy issues that seemed poised to drag them down.

      She’d even enjoyed the heat she’d seen in his eyes when she’d appeared, having changed into one of her few dresses that fitted her post-pregnancy figure, and when he’d taken her hand, butterflies had risen in a swarm from her stomach to flutter through her whole body and send her senses spinning.

      It would be so easy, she’d reflected, to let herself fall. To forget her worries, her fears, her choices. She could just gently bob along on the overwhelming sea that was Alessandro…

       And then what?

      Fear had knotted in her stomach at the thought. She’d pictured her mother, looking so worn out and defeated, the wedding album open on her lap.

       ‘He was so charming, Mia. So forceful and yet so caring. I fell for him hard… I loved him…’

      No matter how many times she told herself Alessandro was not like her father, Mia knew, from both his behaviour and his admission, that he was man who liked to be in control. And that would always be a cause for alarm and even fear.

      At the end of that candlelit dinner, Alessandro had brushed a gentle kiss across her lips, like a whisper of a promise.

      ‘For now,’ he’d said, and there had been so much intent in his voice that Mia had shivered. It had taken all her strength not to sway into that kiss, not to ask for more. Plead, even, and that scared her along with everything else. She wasn’t ready…and she didn’t know how long Alessandro would wait.

      A fortnight on, Mia still slept alone and Alessandro did no more than kiss her goodnight. The kisses had become a bit more lingering, and last night Mia had found herself clutching his lapels, on her tiptoes, straining for more before she’d finally had the strength of will to wrench herself away.

      Alessandro had smiled wryly as he’d cupped her cheek. ‘Why are you fighting me so hard, cara?’ he’d asked gently.

      Because I don’t know what else to do. How to be. I’m afraid of giving you

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