LITMIR.BIZ

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all this had been a major blow to her confidence in her ability to make good choices. She had thought Jeff was the perfect man for her and she’d been wrong. She’d thought a baby would help give her what she was missing from her life and her marriage, and it wasn’t. She loved Eva more than anything and didn’t regret having her, but a baby hadn’t been the answer to their problems. In the end it made them worse.

      Being attracted to Luca Moretti was another bad decision. Even as she could feel his gaze raking across her skin, she knew it was a terrible idea. And yet, she hadn’t felt that alive in years. He hadn’t even touched her and she’d reacted to him like no other man before him.

      “Claire, are you okay?” Stuart came up behind her, placing a soothing hand on her shoulder.

      “Yeah, I was just ready to get out of there.”

      He nodded, looking out at the passing cars. “Let me take you to lunch.” They turned and started walking down the sidewalk. “All things considered, I think it went okay today. Edmund’s not filing an emergency visitation petition, so that buys us some time. He’s willing to work with us to come up with an agreement before we go to the judge. It isn’t going to get any better than that.”

      “Yes, but it cost me four weeks of my life.” She would pay more than that for Eva and her well-being, but she was still a little shell-shocked from everything that just happened.

      “Claire...it could be worse. You’re going to spend a month at a beach house on Martha’s Vineyard.”

      “With Luca Moretti,” she pointed out. Somehow that made it seem like less of a vacation and more of an obstacle course she needed to survive.

      “So what? Between you and me, I think you need the break. Get out of New York, sit on the beach and breathe in the sea air. It’s beautiful up there this time of year. It’s early in the season, but that means it won’t be too crowded or hot. Let Luca take care of Eva under your watchful eye and be grateful for the time off. How does Japanese food sound for lunch?”

      This trip sounded good on paper, but she was certain that the reality would be very different. She’d barely made it through a half hour with Luca with both their lawyers present. What would she do when she was alone with him for a whole month?

      * * *

      Luca strolled down Park Avenue, heading toward his apartment. He could’ve called a car to pick him up, but he needed the walk. It helped him focus, or in this case think about something else. It took about ten blocks before he could get the sound of Claire’s sigh from his mind. Her steel-gray eyes haunted him.

      He hadn’t expected to have a reaction to her like this. He didn’t want to, either. That woman had been nothing but difficult, despite how politely he’d tried to handle this mess of a situation. And yet, he couldn’t help pushing her buttons just to see the fire in her. Under that prim suit and tightly wrapped bun was a passionate woman, he was certain of it.

      Of course, what did it matter? He was pretty sure that Edmund would advise him strongly not to get romantically involved with Claire. He knew it was the smart thing, but Luca didn’t always follow the advice of others.

      Turning the corner, Luca finally reached his building. Standing beneath the dark green awning was Wayne, the second-shift doorman.

      “Good afternoon, Mr. Moretti. You’re home early today. I hope everything is okay.”

      Luca smiled at the doorman who had worked here longer than he had owned the apartment. “No worries, Wayne. All is well. I’m actually home a little early to start planning a vacation.”

      “You, sir? I don’t think you’ve had one of those since you moved in.”

      Was it that obvious that he was a workaholic? “Probably not. I’ve been working pretty hard lately. I’m going to be gone for a month, though, up to Martha’s Vineyard if all goes to plan. Will you let the building manager know I’ll be away? I’ll need my mail and packages held until I return.”

      “I will, sir. May I ask if you’re doing something fun on your trip?”

      The thought of the rosy blush running over every inch of Claire’s porcelain skin instantly came to mind. That could be fun. Or it could be four weeks of bickering by the beach. “Maybe. It depends on how it goes. I certainly hope so.”

      Wayne pulled open the shiny brass door and took a step back. “Well, I hope you enjoy your time away. You’ve certainly earned it, sir.”

      “Thanks, Wayne.”

      Luca crossed the marble lobby floor to his private elevator. He smiled as he pressed the button that would take him up to his apartment. Claire thought she knew so much about him, but she was wrong on several counts. For one thing, he didn’t live in the penthouse. He lived on the tenth floor of his building. The penthouse apartment was just too large for his needs. His apartment had three bedrooms and an unused maid’s quarters. That was more than enough.

      When he’d purchased the place a few years ago, he was pretty certain he would live there alone for the rest of his life. Despite the fact that he had bent to the will of his doctors and his mother as a teenager by storing the potential for future children at the clinic, he had no intention of ever using it.

      A wife and a family were the furthest thing from Luca’s mind. He’d found that people who lived through what he had reacted one of two ways—they were either desperate for family or terrified by the idea of it. Luca fell into the latter category, although he hadn’t always felt that way.

      The doors of the elevator opened to the marble foyer of his apartment. He unlocked the door, stepping into his living room. Luca slipped out of his coat and headed for his study. There, he poured himself a finger of Scotch and settled down in his favorite leather chair.

      As the oldest of six kids, he’d presumed he’d have a family of his own someday. He enjoyed the camaraderie and the chaos of his childhood home. Then, at age sixteen, those presumptions went out the window when his whole life was derailed by an unexpected illness. The illness turned out to be testicular cancer. The treatment for his cancer was aggressive—surgery and several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation. The majority of patients who went through the treatment were sterile when it was over. Although the idea of it was mortifying, he’d made several donations to be frozen at the fertility clinic for the future. His mother paid the clinic big money for them to hold on to it for as long as Luca might be in need of it.

      Luca knew when he was doing it, however, that he would be storing, but not using it, forever. Despite assurances to the contrary, he knew he was a damaged commodity. At any time, the cancer could come back or spread. Physically, he wasn’t the complete man he’d once been. Plastic surgery had corrected the aesthetics, but he knew the truth. He couldn’t knowingly go into a relationship with a woman knowing that he was limited in what he could offer her.

      And he was limited. He knew that in his heart. The one time a woman had claimed to have given birth to his child, he’d let himself get his hopes up. His whole family got their hopes up. When the miracle baby turned out to belong to someone else, everyone was disappointed, including the baby’s gold-digging mother, Jessica. He had always been adamant about using protection, just for safety reasons, but after that he was almost militant. He didn’t want another woman to even get the idea that she could have his child.

      Sipping his drink, he looked around his study. It was a part of his perfect bachelor pad, decorated with masculine touches of leather and dark wood. The shelves were lined with books he’d never read. On one wall was a framed portrait of the world, reminding him of all the places he’d never been. He’d gone from being a child, to a cancer patient, to a college student, to a CEO. That didn’t leave room for much else.

      It was just as well that Jessica’s baby hadn’t been his. Even if he wanted a family, he didn’t have time. From the day he was born, he’d been groomed to take over Moretti’s Restaurants. His great-grandfather had started the company eighty years ago with a small restaurant in Little Italy. By the time his grandfather took over, they had

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