LITMIR.BIZ

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managing to keep her voice steady.

      Alessandro raked a hand through his hair. ‘You know it is not!’ He dropped his hand, tracing her cheek with his fingers. ‘But you are haunted, Meghan, by the past. This man—he is like a shadow. I can almost see him at your shoulder.’

      Meghan touched his fingers briefly with her own, her fingers winding around his, clinging. Pleading. ‘I don’t want him there.’

      Alessandro smiled sadly. ‘Neither do I.’

      He cupped her cheek and she closed her eyes, revelling in the touch, the tenderness. She couldn’t go yet. She couldn’t leave this man—this hold he had on her senses, her soul. Perhaps even her heart. It wasn’t love. She knew that. It was desire; it was need.

      ‘Don’t take me back yet,’ she whispered.

      His hand stilled. ‘Are you sure?’

      Meghan opened her eyes, swallowed audibly. Panic was fast setting in. ‘I don’t mean … I’m not …’

      Alessandro smiled. His thumb caressed her lips. ‘I know.’

      He drew her naturally to him, in an embrace that was gentle rather than passionate. ‘Stay,’ he murmured against her hair. ‘God knows, I don’t want you to go.’

      Meghan knew their time had been extended by only a day, perhaps two. Soon she would have to move on, and so would Alessandro. Their lives had never been meant to intertwine.

      This was going to end. It was just a matter of when … and what happened beforehand.

      The drive back to Tre Querce was quiet, both of them lost in their own thoughts. Meghan gazed out of the window at the fallow fields and bare vineyards, the sky above streaking lavender and gold.

      She’d never reacted to any man the way she reacted to Alessandro—even Stephen hadn’t affected her so profoundly, so deeply … as if he were stroking not just her hand or her body, but her soul.

      Her whole body—her whole self—yearned towards his touch, his understanding. The two, she realised, were intimately connected.

      He didn’t love her.

      He made no promises.

      And yet … she wanted him.

      She wanted him.

      More than she’d ever wanted anything in her whole life.

       More than your self-respect?

      Meghan closed her eyes against the setting sun now blazing over the hills and fields.

       I don’t know.

      As Alessandro turned the car up the twisting drive, Meghan wondered what the night would hold. She turned to look at him, and he sensed her gaze and smiled, reaching over to twine her fingers with his.

      ‘Don’t be afraid, Meghan. There don’t have to be any shadows.’

      Shadows. Meghan thought of Stephen. She could still see his face, hear his words.

       I thought this was what you wanted.

      How could he have thought that? How could he have twisted everything so horribly, so shamefully?

      Alessandro was nothing like him, Meghan told herself. She knew that. He’d proved it to her again and again over this day. No matter how they’d started—what she’d thought—what he’d thought—it was different now.

      Everything was different.

      Could be different … if she let it.

      If she let the shadows fade away.

      Alessandro’s hand tightened briefly on her own. ‘Ana has the night off.’

      So they would be alone. Meghan swallowed. ‘Alessandro, I want—’

      Meghan broke off, her heart still hammering, as Alessandro braked sharply in front of Tre Querce and cursed in Italian under his breath.

      There was another car parked in front of the villa, a racy red convertible, and the man leaning against its hood was one Meghan recognised.

      It was Alessandro’s companion from lunch at Angelo’s. As the man’s eyes flashed to Meghan her own stomach lurched. There was no mistaking his knowing, lascivious grin or what it meant.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      ‘WELL, well, well.’ Richard Harrison pushed himself away from the convertible and strolled towards Alessandro’s car. ‘You sly dog. Keeping her all to yourself.’

      Alessandro flicked a cool, contemptuous gaze towards Richard. ‘I don’t recall inviting you here,’ he replied, in a voice of dangerous silkiness.

      ‘I was bored, and I do believe it’s your job to entertain me.’

      ‘You’re not a child, Richard, as much as you behave like one.’

      Richard’s watery blue eyes blazed for a second. His mouth turned down sulkily. ‘You need my business, di Agnio.’

      Alessandro chuckled dryly, although his expression remained diamond-hard. ‘You should realise by now, Richard, that there are very few things I need. You and your string of second-rate department stores is not one of them.’

      Richard’s face suffused with colour, turning puce. He clenched his fists, half raised one. ‘You’ll regret that.’

      ‘I don’t think so.’

      Meghan’s hand was slippery on the door handle as she grasped it. She heard the men trading insults, but it sounded like no more than dogs snarling at one another. She couldn’t take it in. The one salient detail that had made its way into her numb mind was Richard’s careless sentence.

       Keeping her all to yourself.

      They’d discussed her. Talked about her.

      Richard’s gaze roved over Meghan with crude, insulting boldness, his eyes lingering on her breasts and thighs, sweeping over her as if he owned her, as if she could be bought. His thin lips turned up in a revolting smirk, and his watery eyes gleamed with lust. ‘She’s just as pretty as I said.’

      ‘I think you should leave, Richard.’ Alessandro’s voice was calm and dispassionate, but a muscle ticked in his jaw and his eyes were like black ice.

      Richard raised his eyebrows. ‘What was it you said? There are better amusements in Spoleto than a two-bit part-time whore? It seems there aren’t, my friend, and I think it’s time you started to share.’ He moved towards her, pale eyes glittering, and Meghan couldn’t move. Couldn’t think except to hear the sickening echo of his words.

      Alessandro’s words.

       Two-bit part-time whore.

      Just as she’d suspected and Alessandro had denied.

      Just as she’d known.

      She watched, transfixed, trapped, as Richard reached for her, his wet lips parted, his eyes glittering with lecherous intent.

      He never managed to touch her. Alessandro moved with swift, calm certainty.

      She heard rather than saw the crunch of Alessandro’s fist into Richard’s jaw. He staggered and fell onto the pavement by her feet.

      She stared down silently. She still hadn’t moved.

      ‘I could sue you!’ Richard choked. He clutched at his bleeding mouth, his face contorted with humiliated fury.

      Alessandro massaged his knuckles. There was a fierce, primal light of satisfaction burning in his eyes as he gazed down at Richard. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said calmly. ‘Now, you’d better get off my premises before I do something worse to that pathetic baby face of yours.’

      Richard

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