LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER FIVE

      BENEATH MAX’S INTENT, measuring gaze, Tia had lost all her natural colour and her bright eyes veiled as she studied the highly polished wooden floor instead of him. He realised instantly that Tia was not receptive to the idea of marrying him and it was a shocking wake-up call for a man who had spent years on the social scene being relentlessly pursued by ambitious young women in search of a rich husband. Tia had slept with him but she didn’t want to marry him.

      It was a revelation and it hit Max’s ego hard because, he realised angrily, he had placed too much importance on her obvious attraction to him. Very possibly right now she did not feel much different than he did after a one-night stand. She might have enjoyed herself but that didn’t mean she was eager for a repeat.

      ‘You have a very expressive face,’ Max murmured grimly.

      ‘That’s why I’m trying not to look at you!’ Tia protested with emphasis. ‘Mother Sancha always knew what I was thinking almost before I did. It’s just...what you said about getting married startled me. I wasn’t expecting that.’

      ‘As I see it, we don’t have much of a choice,’ Max intoned, his delivery bordering on curt in tone. ‘Bringing you home to Andrew unmarried and pregnant would be a disaster, possibly more for me than you I’ll admit. I fully believe that your grandfather would forgive you for anything but he has higher expectations of me...and I’m not a member of his family.’

      The gruff note on which he completed that very honest little speech unexpectedly touched Tia’s heart. For possibly the first time she appreciated that, while he might not be a relative, Max was undeniably fond of Andrew Grayson.

      ‘I have no idea how you even know my grandfather or what your relationship with him is,’ Tia reminded him uncomfortably. ‘Do you work for him? Are you a neighbour? A friend?’

      Max breathed in deep, already inwardly monitoring what he was willing to tell her and all the many things that he planned to take to the grave with him. ‘I was born in a small Italian village. My background is poor and rather sleazy,’ he admitted starkly. ‘When, for reasons I won’t go into, my parents were no longer able to look after me, my mother’s sister, Carina, who worked in England for Andrew, agreed to give me a home. She became my guardian when I was twelve. Your grandfather generously paid for my education. I lived under his roof during the holidays, not as a guest, though, but as the housekeeper’s nephew in the housekeeper’s apartment.’

      Tia was taken aback by all that he revealed, having assumed that Max came from much the same sort of privileged and financially comfortable background as her father. Her lashes fluttered rapidly as she absorbed that new information, for it did put a different complexion on their situation. Clearly, Max felt he owed Andrew Grayson a debt for his kindness and did not feel that he could afford to rely on the older man to forgive or overlook any mistakes he made. Did Max think that getting entangled with Tia counted as a mistake? Suddenly, she was very much afraid that that was exactly how he viewed their passionate encounter.

      ‘Everything that I am today I owe to Andrew’s generosity,’ Max confessed harshly. ‘I don’t want to do anything that distresses him. He’s eighty and he’s...’ unusually he hesitated ‘...frail.’

      ‘Our getting married could distress him,’ Tia suggested.

      ‘No. Don’t forget that Andrew is from an earlier generation of men. He still sees marriage as the best source of happiness and security for a woman,’ Max told her flatly.

      ‘So, you’re willing to marry me simply on the off chance that I could conceive,’ Tia recapped. ‘I understand that but I would prefer a husband who wanted to marry me for a more conventional reason like love.’

      ‘I won’t lie to you,’ Max murmured in a tone of frustration. ‘I can’t offer you love. I was only in love once in my life when I was very young and I hated the effect it had on me. But I can promise to be caring and supportive...and, assuming it’s a normal marriage, faithful.’

      Inwardly reeling from that declaration, Tia plonked herself down in a corner armchair and gazed back at him. Her body still ached from his possession and that spur of recollection sent a snaking coil of heat down into her pelvis when she studied his lean, strong face. She respected his honesty even if she didn’t like his embargo on love because she strongly suspected that, given sufficient time, she could fall for Maximiliano Leonelli like a ton of bricks. After all, he was offering her almost everything that she would eventually want...only she hadn’t wanted to find it quite so soon after leaving the convent.

      She should have thought of that reality before she’d shared her body with him, she reflected guiltily, should have thought of who he was and who she was and how her grandfather might react to that intimate connection. But she hadn’t thought one sensible thought since Max had exploded into her safe little world, she conceded. He was lean and dark and beautiful and his sophistication and charisma had stolen her wits. She suspected

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