LITMIR.BIZ

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‘Because people don’t do stuff like that for people they don’t know.’

      Rio settled brilliant, dark, deep-set eyes on her. ‘Make your mind up.’

      Holly tensed at that demand. He was offering them a lifeline. A roof, a bed, no worries about food or the future for a few days. He was an incredible guy. He was just so kind. She could not believe how kind he was being when he had been so furious with her only minutes earlier. ‘OK.’

      ‘I’ll make the arrangements.’ Rio swept up the phone and watched Ezio answer from the front seat. At one point during that conversation, Ezio twisted round to frown in amazement through the glass panel separating him from his employer. Rio ignored that pointed reaction.

      That deep, dark, sexy drawl of his just seemed to shimmy down her spine, Holly thought absently. She loved his voice even though she hadn’t a clue what he was saying. Catching herself up on that mortifying train of thought, Holly reddened fierily.

      ‘As soon as I’ve been dropped off for my meeting, my security chief will take you to my town house. Any problems, speak to Ezio. He speaks English but most of my household staff don’t,’ Rio warned her.

      Holly nodded uncertainly, momentarily attempting to picture the kind of world where a person had household staff, and then watching the gold in Rio’s eyes reflect the light, her mouth running dry and her breath catching in her throat.

      Rio sprang out of the limo outside Lombardi Industries.

      Ezio cleared his throat. ‘Miss Kent won’t like another woman in the house, boss.’

      Rio froze. ‘The wedding’s off, Ezio.’

      Leaving the older man gazing after him in consternation, Rio strode on into the building, inclining his proud dark head in acknowledgement of the doorman’s respectful greeting and concentrating his mind on the challenging business meeting ahead with considerable relief.

      The limo nosed its way with all the arrogant assurance of its owner back into the flow of traffic. Holly breathed in slowly and deeply and then pinched the back of her hand. The stinging sensation of that small hurt convinced her that she was not dreaming. She was really and truly sitting in Rio Lombardi’s fabulous limousine. For potentially the next forty-eight hours she could stop worrying. He had taken pity on her.

      Inwardly, Holly squirmed, the self-esteem that had been battered to ground-level in recent months burning at the wretched awareness that she was just a charity case to a male like Rio Lombardi. Well, she had never let anyone do her favours for free. She would make herself useful round his house, repaying his generosity the only way she could. But at that moment the simple knowledge that she needed to worry neither about food nor shelter in the immediate future was like a giant weight rolling off her shoulders.

      Just how had she contrived to sink so low that she was prepared to accept such charity? It had happened by degrees, she conceded. But undoubtedly her biggest and worst mistake had been getting involved with Jeff Danby…

      Holly had grown up on a hill farm on Exmoor where her father was the tenant farmer. Her parents had married late in life and her mother had been forty when Holly was born. That her mother never conceived again had been a source of deep disappointment to her parents, for it had meant that there would be no son to help out when her father became too old to cope alone with the harsh winters and the lambing season and that eventually he would have to give up the tenancy.

      She had had a happy childhood and she had enjoyed school. But possibly, as an only and much loved child, she had been a little spoilt, she conceded with pained hindsight. For, while her parents had urged her to aim at a college education, Holly had been more eager to find a job so that she could have her own money and spend more time with her friends who lived in the nearest town.

      Working in a dead-end job that hadn’t struck her as a dead-end job had been fine the first couple of years when all that had been in her head was buying the latest cheap fashions and finding a boyfriend. But, although boys had made her plenty of offers, they had all come with the price tag of casual sex attached. And, for all that she had liked to pretend to be as cool in her outlook as her peers, Holly had been raised in a home where that kind of behaviour was just not acceptable and had shrunk from doing anything likely to distress her parents.

      And then Jeff had come along in her eighteenth year, Jeff, with his ancient sports car and cheeky grin and impressive aura of sophistication. He had been a pool attendant at the local leisure centre, much admired by all her friends and seven years older. So she had been thrilled when he had asked her out and infatuated by the end of the first week, but not so foolish as to jump into bed with him. In any case, if she was honest, the sex side of things had never appealed to her much, even with Jeff. She had liked the romantic stuff better, holding hands, just listening to him talk about his plans to become an instructor at some trendy fitness club in London and admiring the fact that he had a goal and ambition.

      ‘He’s too flash,’ her mother had said when she’d finally met Jeff.

      ‘He’s a big-head,’ her father had sighed. ‘He’s a lot older than you are too. You’d be better off with a boy your own age.’

      Jeff had ditched her a couple of times and gone off with other girls. Each time he’d come back to her, and she had been so grateful she’d repressed her hurt and forgiven him. Then he had got the job he had always wanted in London and, struggling to conceal her breaking heart, she had gone out with him and his friends for a last-night celebration. The drinks had been lined up in front of her and Jeff had kept on urging her not to be a killjoy and drink up. He had talked about how she was ‘his’ girl and how he would send for her once he got a place of his own. Hearing him talk like that, including her in his lofty plans, she had almost cried with relief.

      ‘I really do care about you, Holly,’ he had said fondly. ‘You’re the girl I want to marry, so surely you can come home with me tonight.’

      And she had, and she had gritted her teeth in the darkness, tears running down her face at the roughness, embarrassment and pain of the experience. She had wanted to please him, had so wanted to prove that she was not the silly little girl still tied to parental dictums he had often accused her of being but a real adult woman capable of loving her man and being loved.

      True to his word, Jeff had phoned her while city life was still strange to him. She had written great, long, adoring screeds to him and had been four months pregnant before she’d even realised that she had conceived. During his final phone call, she had begged him to visit for a weekend. She had needed to see him face-to-face to share her news. But he had complained that it would cost too much and he had not phoned again. Weeks afterwards, when she had been climbing the walls with panic over his silence and trying to conceal her changing shape from her parents, one of her many letters had been returned to her with ‘Not known at this address’ written across it. She had not seen Jeff again until she’d finally tracked him down in London many months later.

      Emerging from those unwelcome memories, Holly felt cool air on her face and only then realised that the passenger door was open. The chauffeur was waiting for her to vacate the limo.

      The most enormous house lay before her. It had a gravel turning circle in front and tall shaped evergreen trees in fancy metal troughs.

      ‘Miss Sansom…I’m Ezio Farretti.’

      Holly focused shyly on the heavily built older man with his steady dark eyes. ‘Nice to meet you.’

      Ezio engaged the employee positioned at the front door in a flood of foreign speech, and motioned Holly into the house. Feeling like a third wheel, Holly followed him inside and skimmed an intimidated glance round the huge hall, the fantastic staircase and the big pictures adorning the walls.

      ‘Come this way, Miss Sansom,’ Ezio urged.

      ‘What’s that language you speak?’ she asked to fill the silence.

      ‘Italian.’

      He showed her into what appeared to be a drawing room. Well, she adjusted, what she would call a drawing room, because the opulent

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