LITMIR.BIZ

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told not to worry was the fastest way to make sure that someone got worried—especially when it came to her father, who was the master of understatement.

      Had her mother’s health scare not been quite as severe as it had been, Alexa was sure that her father would have not deemed it necessary to contact her and ask her to return to Italy sixteen months ago. She’d been protected and sheltered as a child and that was the way it remained.

      ‘What if something’s wrong with Mum?’ she asked in a quiet, wobbly voice.

      Theo crossed over to the bed and looked at her uncertainly for a few seconds. The Alexa he had first met had changed over the brief but intense time they had spent together. Having expected a frumpy little doormat, he had been presented with a firebrand...

      A feisty, outspoken, mutinous firebrand, who was also a ridiculous romantic...

      Who had been a virgin...

      He could sense her making a big effort not to cry, and he fought against his instinct to bracingly tell her to pull herself together.

      ‘He’d tell you,’ Theo informed her calmly. ‘When it comes to health, people tend to avoid beating around the bush.’

      ‘You don’t know my father,’ Alexa said ruefully. She suddenly realised that she wasn’t wearing anything, and she hurriedly dragged the duvet over her and slumped back against the pillows.

      ‘Fill me in.’

      Alexa paused. This was what it meant to be in love, she thought. She could no more fight the urge to confide in him than a starving man could have fought the urge to feast at the banquet. Her head was telling her one thing—telling her to protect herself and back away—but she was drawn to him like a moth to the flame that threatened to kill it.

      Being in love meant waving goodbye to common sense—to everything that had been her compass through her life.

      ‘He’s always hated the thought of worrying me,’ she confessed. ‘They wanted more kids, you know, but Mum had a terrible time when she was pregnant with me and was told that to risk having another would be endangering her life.’ Alexa sighed. ‘You could say that I’ve lived a pretty sheltered life. Not that I wasn’t allowed out of their sight, but I was always protected from what they considered too much information. I only found out just how bad Mum’s stroke was by cornering the consultant and demanding the details. Left to Dad, he would just have tutted and told me that everything was going to be fine. Which is why for him to call me here and say that he’s got something to tell me... Well...’

      Theo sat down on the bed, and she toppled a little towards him before steadying herself. For once he was with a woman, in a bed, and sex was not uppermost in his mind.

      ‘I can only think that he’s readying me for something big—that it’s serious. And the only serious thing I can think of is that Mum... Well...’

      Unaccustomed to soothing crying women, Theo pulled her towards him and smoothed her hair clumsily with his hand. She was crying against his chest but trying hard to stifle it, and that more than anything else touched him.

      He hadn’t had to dig too deep to find the soft-as-mush girl beneath the tough, outspoken exterior. And that was something he felt he should have sensed from the very beginning.

      ‘So chewing over it and coming up with lots of worst-case scenarios...is that going to alter the reality?’

      ‘Well, no...’

      ‘If your mother was seriously ill your father would tell you—however much he didn’t want to worry you—and if he wouldn’t, then my father would call me and say something. You forget—they’re back in touch now. And my father, I assure you, has never been backward when it comes to being brutally honest...’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      She was feeling better already. She liked the way he was holding her—as if she were a piece of fragile porcelain china. It felt good to be held like this, without sex being their final destination. It scared her how much she liked it...

      ‘That art teacher might have been a bit forthright with Daniel,’ Theo joked lightly, ‘and I may have passed the litmus test with her by painting nonsense and talking my way into an explanation, but I remember my father taking one look at one of my productions and bursting out laughing. He said that it was the biggest load of rubbish he had ever seen, and then he patted me on the shoulder and told me that if he couldn’t give me a few home truths then who could? So rest assured that he wouldn’t shy away from phoning me if there was a crisis over there...’

      ‘And has he?’

      Theo looked at her with a frown. ‘Has he what? Phoned me? To tell me about a crisis with your family? No.’

      Alexa breathed a sigh of relief—because she believed him. It was as simple as that. She would wait and see what the problem was when she returned. Hopefully it would be something to do with the wedding or the engagement party.

      Which brought her back to the thoughts that had momentarily taken a back seat.

      She edged away from him and shuffled out of bed. Just now, knowing what she knew about her feelings for him, she felt that a bit of distance between them would be a good idea.

      ‘So...’ she said, gathering herself. ‘It’s our last day...’ She was well and truly up and awake now, and the thought of trying to pretend to go back to sleep wasn’t going to work.

      What happened next? she wondered.

      The longer she carried on having sex with him, the more hurt she would be building up for herself. But how on earth was she going to last a year of wanting him and having to hide that want? How was she going to survive when he looked at her with polite indifference because what had started as lust for him had dwindled and disappeared?

      The stakes were never going to be even between them, and just thinking about that made her head ache.

      More than anything else she wished she could run away and take cover until this crazy love had blown over—except she knew that it never would.

      She might no longer be able to keep her heart intact, but she felt she could try and keep her dignity intact—and to do so she would have to guard her expression and never allow him to see just how much he had finally ended up getting to her.

      She wondered if this was the fate that had befallen all those women he had dated in the past. Having heard him give them his warning speech about not getting involved, had they, like her, found themselves being sucked into something that was bigger than them?

      Had that been the fate of the striking blonde who had confronted him in that restaurant?

      Alexa could only hope that, however hard she had fallen for him, she wouldn’t be one of those women who kept trying to grab his attention whenever they happened to bump into him—who let him think that what he had once taken from them was still on offer should he decide to pay them another visit.

      She had seen the way he had looked at that blonde, with veiled contempt in his eyes—the same contempt that had been in his voice when he had talked about her.

      There was no way Alexa would allow herself to become someone like that.

      ‘I think we should do some sightseeing,’ she said lightly. ‘I’ll just grab a shower and then we can think about heading out...maybe have breakfast at one of those bagel places by the hotel... Or we could go to Central Park... There’s still so much to see... The earlier we leave, the better, don’t you think?’

      Theo inclined his head to one side, his antennae picking up invisible signals and trying to decipher them. ‘Don’t rush,’ he told her with a little shrug, ‘I’ll have to wrap up these documents. It’ll take at least half an hour...’

      Alexa took longer than that, and emerged fully dressed an hour later. Theo, likewise, was in a pair of black jeans and a cream polo shirt that did amazing things for his athletic, muscular

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