LITMIR.BIZ

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thought, only what was right for her and her son. Sooner or later she hoped she’d be able to greet him with a genuine air of indifference but for now she didn’t trust herself not to burst into noisy howls of sorrow and to tell him how much she was missing him.

      With the money he’d settled on her, she was renting a house. A house with a garden and a front door which wasn’t shared—the kind of house in Notting Hill where she used to drop off her prep-school charges when she was working at Luxury Limos. And she’d bought a dog, too. A scruffy little thing with a lopsided ear and the saddest eyes she’d ever seen. The staff at the rescue centre had told her he’d been badly beaten and was fearful and shy, but he had taken one look at Keira and hurled himself at her with a series of plaintive yelps. Charlie was the best thing to have happened to them since they’d returned to England and had reinforced her intention to give Santino a proper childhood. The kind she’d never had—with a dog and a mother who was always waiting for him when he got home from school.

      Pulling off her rain-soaked coat, she went upstairs to the nursery where Claudia was just putting Santino down to sleep. The nursery nurse straightened up as Keira entered the room and she found herself wondering why Claudia’s cheeks were so pink. Walking over to the crib, Keira stared down into the sleepy eyes of her son, her heart turning over with love.

      ‘He looks happy,’ she murmured as she leaned over to plant a soft kiss on his silken cheek.

      ‘He should be!’ said Claudia. ‘After you took him out for such a long walk this morning.’

      ‘Good thing I did. At least we missed the rain,’ said Keira, with an idle glance out of the window as she drew the curtains.

      There was a pause. ‘Would you mind if I went out earlier than planned?’ asked Claudia.

      ‘Of course I don’t mind.’ Keira smiled because she knew that Claudia had struck up a close friendship with a man she’d met at the Italian Embassy. ‘Hot date?’

      Claudia smiled as she put her forefinger over her lips and Keira was so preoccupied with tidying up the nursery that she barely registered the nursery nurse leaving the room, though she did hear the distant bang of the front door. She turned the light out and was just about to make her way downstairs when her mobile phone began to ring and she pulled it from the pocket of her jeans, frowning when she saw Matteo’s name flashing up on the screen.

      Fury began to bubble up inside her. She’d asked him not to write and he had ignored that. She’d asked him not to call her and he was ignoring that too! So why now, coming straight after yet another unwanted letter from him? She clicked the connection.

      ‘This had better be urgent,’ she said.

      ‘It is.’

      She frowned as she registered a curious echo-like quality to his voice. ‘And?’

      ‘I need to see you.’

      She needed to see him too, but no good would come of it. Wouldn’t it make her hunger for what she could never have and certainly didn’t need—a man who had lured a woman into marriage just because he wanted to inherit a house? ‘I thought we’d decided that wasn’t a good idea.’

      ‘No, Keira...you decided.’

      Still that curious echo. Keira frowned. Shouldn’t she just agree to see him once and get it over with? Steel her heart against her own foolish desires and listen to what he had to say? ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘We’ll put an appointment in the diary.’

      ‘Now,’ he bit out.

      ‘What do you mean...now?’

      ‘I want to see you now,’ he growled.

      ‘Matteo, you’re in Italy and I’m in England and unless you’ve discovered the secret of teleportation, that’s not going to happen.’

      ‘I’m downstairs.’

      She froze. ‘What did you say?’

      ‘I’m downstairs.’ The echo began to get louder. ‘Coming up.’

      Her heart slamming against her ribcage, Keira rushed from the nursery to see Matteo with his mobile phone held against his ear, making his way up the stairs towards her. His face was more serious than she’d ever seen it as he cut the connection and slid the phone into the pocket of his jeans.

      ‘Hi,’ he said, the casual greeting failing to hide the tension and the pain which were written across his ravaged features.

      She wanted to do several things all at once. To drum her fists against his powerful chest, over and over again. And she wanted to pull his darkly handsome face to hers and kiss him until there was no breath left in her body.

      ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded.

      ‘I need to speak to you.’

      ‘Did you have to go about it so dramatically? You scared me half to death!’ She looked at him suspiciously. ‘You don’t have a key, do you?’

      ‘I don’t,’ he agreed.

      ‘So how did you get in?’

      ‘Claudia let me in before she left.’

      ‘Claudia let you in?’ she repeated furiously. ‘Why would she do something like that?’

      ‘Because I asked her to.’

      ‘And what you say goes, I suppose, because you’re the one with the money,’ she said contemptuously.

      ‘No.’ He sucked in a ragged breath. ‘I’m the one with the broken heart.’

      It was such an unbelievable thing for him to say that Keira assumed she’d misheard him, and she was too busy deciding that they needed to move out of Santino’s earshot in case they woke him to pay very much attention to her husband’s words. ‘You’d better come with me,’ she said.

      Matteo followed the denim-covered sway of her bottom as they went downstairs, watching her long black ponytail swinging against her back with every determined stride she took. Her body language wasn’t looking promising and neither was her attitude. But what had he expected—that she would squeal with delight when she saw him again? Welcome him into the embrace he had so missed—as if that whole great betrayal had never happened? His throat thickened. He had tried playing it slow and playing by her rules but he’d realised she would be prepared to push him away for ever if he let her.

      And he couldn’t afford to let her.

      They reached a beautiful, high-ceilinged sitting room dominated by a tall Christmas tree, which glittered in front of one of the tall windows. Fragrant and green, it was covered with lights and tiny stars and on the top stood an angel with gossamer-fine wings. A heap of presents with ribbons and bows stood at the base of the giant conifer and Matteo thought it looked so homely. And yet he wasn’t connected to any of it, was he? He was still the outsider. The motherless boy who had never really felt part of Christmas.

      So what are you going to do about it, Valenti? he asked himself as she turned to face him and they stood looking at one another like two combatants.

      ‘You wanted to talk,’ she said, without preamble. ‘So talk. Why did you sneak into my house like this?’

      ‘You’ve been ignoring my letters.’

      She nodded and the glossy black ponytail danced around her shoulders. ‘I told you I wanted to keep all written communication between our respective solicitors.’

      ‘You really think that my lawyer wants to hear that I love you?’ he demanded, his breath a low hiss.

      Her lips opened and he thought she might be about to gasp, before she closed them again firmly, like an oyster shell clamping tightly shut.

      ‘And that I miss you more than I ever thought possible?’ he continued heatedly. ‘Or that my life feels empty without you?’

      ‘Don’t waste my time with

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