LITMIR.BIZ

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      SABRINA WAS HOPING she wouldn’t run into Max Firbank again after The Kiss. He wasn’t an easy man to avoid since he was her parents’ favourite godson and was invited to just about every Midhurst family gathering. Birthdays, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, parties and anniversaries he would spend on the fringes of the room, a twenty-first-century reincarnation of Jane Austen’s taciturn Mr Darcy. He’d look down his aristocratic nose at everyone else having fun.

      Sabrina made sure she had extra fun just to annoy him. She danced with everyone who asked her, chatting and working the room like she was the star student from Social Butterfly School. Max occasionally wouldn’t show, and then she would spend the whole evening wondering why the energy in the room wasn’t the same. But she refused to acknowledge it had anything to do with his absence.

      This weekend she was in Venice to exhibit two of her designs at her first wedding expo. She felt safe from running into him—or she would have if the hotel receptionist could find her booking.

      Sabrina leaned closer to the hotel reception counter. ‘I can assure you the reservation was made weeks ago.’

      ‘What name did you say it was booked under?’ the young male receptionist asked.

      ‘Midhurst, Sabrina Jane. My assistant booked it for me.’

      ‘Do you have any documentation with you? The confirmation email?’

      Had her new assistant Harriet forwarded it to her? Sabrina remembered printing out the wedding expo programme but had she printed out the accommodation details? She searched for it in her tote bag, sweat beading between her breasts, her stomach pitching with panic. She couldn’t turn up flustered to her first wedding expo as an exhibitor. That’s why she’d recently employed an assistant to help her with this sort of stuff. Booking flights and accommodation, sorting out her diary, making sure she didn’t double book or miss appointments.

      Sabrina put her lipgloss, paper diary, passport and phone on the counter, plus three pens, a small packet of tissues, some breath mints and her brand-new business cards. She left her tampons in the side pocket of her bag—there was only so much embarrassment she could handle at any one time. The only bits of paper she found were a shopping list and a receipt from her favourite shoe store.

      She began to put all the items back in her bag, but her lipgloss fell off the counter, dropped to the floor, rolled across the lobby and was stopped by a large Italian-leather-clad foot.

      Sabrina’s gaze travelled up the long length of the expertly tailored charcoal-grey trousers and finally came to rest on Max Firbank’s smoky grey-blue gaze.

      ‘Sabrina.’ His tone was less of a greeting and more of a grim not you again.

      Sabrina gave him a tight, no-teeth-showing smile. ‘Fancy seeing you here. I wouldn’t have thought wedding expos were your thing.’

      His eyes glanced at her mouth and something in her stomach dropped like a book tumbling off a shelf. Kerplunk. He blinked as if to clear his vision and bent down to pick up her lipgloss. He handed it to her, his expression as unreadable as cryptic code. ‘I’m seeing a client about a project. I always stay at this hotel when I come to Venice.’

      Sabrina took the lipgloss and slipped it into her bag, trying to ignore the tingling in her fingers where his had touched hers. She could feel the heat storming into her cheeks in a hot crimson tide. What sort of weird coincidence was this? Of all the hotels in Venice why did he have to be at this one? And on this weekend? She narrowed her gaze to the size of buttonholes. ‘Did my parents tell you I was going to be here this weekend?’

      Nothing on his face changed except for a brief elevation of one of his dark eyebrows. ‘No. Did mine tell you I was going to be in Venice?’

      Sabrina raised her chin. ‘Oh, didn’t you know? I zone out when your parents tell me things about you. I mentally plug my ears and sing la-de-da in my head until they change the subject of how amazingly brilliant you are.’

      There was a flicker of movement across his lips that could have been loosely described as a smile. ‘I’ll have to remember to do that next time your parents bang on about you to me.’

      Sabrina flicked a wayward strand of hair out of her face. Why did she always have to look like she’d been through a wind tunnel whenever she saw him? She dared not look at his mouth but kept her eyes trained on his inscrutable gaze. Was he thinking about The Kiss? The clashing of mouths that had morphed into a passionate explosion that had made a mockery of every other kiss she’d ever received? Could he still recall the taste and texture of her mouth? Did he lie in bed at night and fantasise about kissing her again?

      And not just kissing, but...

      ‘Signorina?’ The hotel receptionist jolted Sabrina out of her reverie. ‘We have no booking under the name Midhurst. Could it have been another hotel you selected online?’

      Sabrina suppressed a frustrated sigh. ‘No. I asked my assistant to book me into this one. This is where the fashion show is being held. I have to stay here.’

      ‘What’s the problem?’ Max asked in a calm, leave it to me tone.

      Sabrina turned to face him. ‘I’ve got a new assistant and somehow she must’ve got the booking wrong or it didn’t process or something.’ She bit her lip, trying to stem the panic punching against her heart. Poomf. Poomf. Poomf.

      ‘I can put you on the cancellation list, but we’re busy at this time of year so I can’t guarantee anything,’ the receptionist said.

      Sabrina’s hand crept up to her mouth and she started nibbling on her thumbnail. Too bad about her new manicure. A bit of nail chewing was all she had to soothe her rising dread. She wanted to be settled into her hotel, not left waiting on stand-by. What if no other hotel could take her? She needed to be close to the convention venue because she had two dresses in the fashion parade. This was her big break to get her designs on the international stage.

      She. Could. Not. Fail.

      ‘Miss Midhurst will be joining me,’ Max said. ‘Have the concierge bring her luggage to my room. Thank you.’

      Sabrina’s gaze flew to his. ‘What?’

      Max handed her a card key, his expression still as inscrutable as that of an MI5 spy. ‘I checked in this morning. There are two beds in my suite. I only need one.’

      She did not want to think about him and a bed in the same sentence. She’d spent the last three weeks thinking about him in a bed with her in a tangle of sweaty sex-sated limbs. Which was frankly kind of weird because she’d spent most of her life deliberately not thinking about him. Max was her parents’ godson and almost from the moment when she’d been born six years later and become his parents’ adored goddaughter, both sets of parents had decided how perfect they were for each other. It was the long-wished-for dream of both families that Max and Sabrina would fall in love, get married and have gorgeous babies together.

      As if. In spite of both families’ hopes, Sabrina had never got on with Max. She found him brooding and distant and arrogant. And he made it no secret he found her equally annoying...which kind of made her wonder why he’d kissed her...

      But she was not going to think about The Kiss.

      She glanced at the clock over Reception, another fist of panic pummelling her heart. She needed to shower and change and do her hair and makeup. She needed to get her head in order. It wouldn’t do to turn up flustered and nervous. What sort of impression would she make?

      Sabrina took the key from him but her fingers brushed his and a tingle travelled from her fingers to her armpit. ‘Maybe I should try and see if I can get in somewhere else...’

      ‘What time does your convention start?’

      ‘There’s a cocktail party at six-thirty.’

      Max led the way to the bank of lifts. ‘I’ll take you up to settle you in before I meet my

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