Page 37 of His Wedding Day Revenge

‘I need to make some calls.’

She nodded and told herself the bubble of disappointment was irrational. She had made the rules after all.

‘Enjoy your day,’ he said, levering himself from the pool.

Jane averted her eyes from the tall dripping figure as he slicked back his dark hair. ‘We will,’ she promised.

‘You have plans?’

‘I’m playing it by ear.’

It was mid-afternoon when the prickle on the back of her neck alerted her to the fact she was no longer alone.

‘He’s asleep?’

Without turning, Jane put a finger to her lips and tiptoed out of the room, aware that Draco had followed her. She felt his hand on her shoulder and found herself leaning back against him.

‘Is this,’ he began, the throaty rasp of his voice against her ear sending electric shudders through her body, ‘when I am allowedmymoment?’

With a deep sigh, her green eyes glowing with slumbrous invitation, she turned in the circle of his arms, straining up to brush her lips against his. ‘You are allowed anything and everything,’ she husked, her lips moving across his mouth before she slid her tongue between his lips, pushing away the thought that there was a time limit on this bliss. These moments were too few, too precious—she wouldn’t allow anything to spoil them.

Her fellow attendees seemed an eclectic bunch and during the introductory talk several came over to say hello to Mattie. At the coffee break Jane sat at an empty table and positioned Mattie’s buggy at her side, catching the toy he threw before it hit the floor. She gave it back to him and turned back to her coffee and the screen of her phone, scrolling through the bewildering list of classes on offer, glancing up when a young couple approached.

‘Mind if we join you?’

Jane smiled.

‘I’m Luciana, this is Joe.’ Before Jane could respond she added, ‘And we know this is Mattie, he really is a star, and you are...’

‘Jane.’

‘You made your choices on classes yet?’ Luciana asked, casting a knowledgeable eye at the screen of Jane’s phone.

‘So far I haven’t even figured out what most of them are... I really think I might be out of my depth,’ she admitted ruefully. ‘What does NZSD stand for?’

It was the young man who responded. ‘Net zero and sustainability development.’ He saw Jane’s surprised expression and grinned. ‘I know I look Latin but I’m Liverpool through and through. When in doubt I use the “close your eyes and stick a pin in” methodology. Or, better still, get engaged to a local like I did and let her decide for me.’

‘Are you calling me bossy?’ Luciana retorted, extending her hand to show the sparkling ring on her finger.

Jane made the appropriate admiring noises.

‘So you are staying in the palazzo?’

Jane nodded and wondered if that was her role for the next three weeks.

The woman staying in the palazzo.

‘I think the idea is Mattie doesn’t keep people awake at night.’

Into the second week of the course, on what had been scheduled as a free day Jane sat down to breakfast. When, for the first time, Draco did not appear to share breakfast with her and Mattie, she realised that without intending to they had settled into a kind of routine.

Recognising that his no-show left her feeling a sense of something approaching loss, Jane realised that her rules were not a guaranteed method of protecting her heart from damage.

‘Rules aren’t much use if you don’t follow them, are they, Mattie?’ she told her uncritical audience as she popped him in his stroller, struggling to retain her cheery attitude when she realised that very soon there would be no breakfasts and no anything else with Draco.

She took Mattie for an early morning swim alone, determined that she would enjoy the day, which she had not planned to spend with Draco anyway. She had signed up for the trip to the local town.

It would be more relaxing without Draco around, she told herself. Their shared sexual awareness could make even the most mundane action breathtakingly intimate and made it hard to remember the rules were there for a reason, let alone what they were.

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