Page 24 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

‘You what?’ he questioned, more gently than usual, and he wondered if that explained her somewhat startled look as she came to a halt again and blinked up at him, almost as if she had forgotten he was there.

‘By then it was three years down the line and I didn’t feel like going back and being a student again. I’d seen too much that was…grim and…’ She shrugged her shoulders, her throat working convulsively. ‘I don’t know. Apart from the fact that we’d managed to accrue quite a bit of debt while Mum was ill, it just seemed sort of irrelevant to sit around discussing art and politics while everyone around me was getting drunk.’

‘And your father?’

Her eyes narrowed and he wondered if she would shut the topic down, but she didn’t and when she spoke her voice was very quiet. ‘I never knew my father.’

‘At all?’

‘No. He was a doctor, apparently—a very junior doctor at the hospital in London where my mother trained as a nurse. She’d come from a very rural area of Ireland and was pretty naïve about life in the big city.’

He flinched, but didn’t say anything, just waited for her to continue.

‘My dad was a bit of a charmer, by all accounts, and he and Mum hooked up. But getting pregnant had never been part of his plan. In fact, he was horrified when she told him and he dumped her.’ She swallowed. ‘She got in contact with him when I was a few months old but by then he was engaged to somebody else. Somebody quite posh. Somebody like him, of course. Apparently, he was quite rude to my mum. Told her to take him to court if she wanted money and, of course, she just crumbled at that. So she was on her own.’

‘And what about her family?’ he shot out. ‘Didn’t they support her?’

She pursed her lips as if choosing her words carefully. ‘They were very old-fashioned and concerned with what they perceived to be right or wrong. They told her they would never open their doors to a child born out of wedlock, and they meant it.’

‘So you’ve never met them either?’

‘Nope.’ She drew her shoulders back, the spill of her hair the colour of marmalade in the morning sunshine. ‘Most people don’t keep going back for more and more rejection, Romano,’ she added proudly. ‘It’s a survival thing. I think she was trying to teach me to be resilient, which was why she always used to drum in how awful men were at heart and how they would always try to take advantage of you. Now I can see that her attitude was extreme—but it definitely brushed off on me. I guess that must have been one of the reasons why I was so inexperienced…’

He shook his head as her words tailed off, angry with himself. Angry he hadn’t known about her sick mother and her purity and the fact that the ‘brittle party girl’ persona had been nothing but a mask. But he was angry with her too, for keeping this information to herself—because wouldn’t he have behaved differently if hehadknown? Almost certainly. He would have kept her at arm’s length. She would have remained a fantasy woman, not one who had the power to enter his dreams.

But he hadn’t been interested in delving into her past, had he?

He hadn’t been able to see past the lure of her lips and her tiny, shapely body.

‘I’m going to Turin,’ he announced abruptly, because hadn’t that been the reason he’d come out here to find her, to tell her that?

‘Oh?’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Why?’

Romano furrowed his brow. He could explain that he had business to attend to, which would be true. Healwayshad business to attend to—his punishing schedule ensured that. But evasion would serve neither of them well, and perhaps he was motivated by a need to make things clear to himself, as well as to her.

‘Because I’ve decided it isn’t going to work, us being here together,’ he said flatly.

‘Why not?’

‘Are you really so naïve, Kelly?’ And then he scowled, because yes, of course she was, and suddenly he knew he couldn’t bear to take advantage of her, not when he had misjudged her so badly. Wouldn’t leaving her alone be the best thing he could do for her? Because what was the alternative? ‘What do you think is going to happen if we stay here after everyone else has gone?’ he demanded. ‘How is that going to work? Me going out of my way to avoid you. Both of us trying not to think about what we did last night, with both of us unable to forget?’

‘It’s a big enough place for our paths never to cross,’ she pointed out practically.

‘And what about mealtimes?’ he continued, her reasonable tone only adding to his ire. ‘You think we’re going to sit chastely across the table from one another when there’s only one thing on our minds?’

‘Speak for yourself,’ she protested. ‘I’ll be so hungry after cleaning this massive great pile of yours that I won’t be able to look at anything other than my plate.’

He shot her a steady look. ‘Are you saying you don’t want me, Kelly? That you’re not wishing I’d pull you into the shade of that cypress tree and make love to you even now? No,’ he added grimly as he saw the molten dilation of her green eyes. ‘I thought not.’

‘So does this mean you’re going to sack me, before I’ve even started?’

He shook his head. ‘No, of course I’m not going tosackyou. But I’m not staying here. You’re too much of a temptation. I will arrange for some of my security people to stay on the estate to keep an eye on the place while you’re here. Graziana is the housekeeper. You will report to her—she’ll come in from the village every day. My assistant has arranged for your hire car to be returned and she will arrange your transport back to England once your employment is up. I think that’s everything.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘You’re not frightened of being here on your own, are you?’

‘Huh! It would take a lot more than being stuck in a billionaire’s fortifiedcastelloto scare me!’ she retorted, with a touch of her customary fire.

‘Good. Because let’s be clear about one thing.’ He glanced up and his voice dipped, as if the flock of flamingos flying overhead was capable of understanding his words. ‘I’m not having sex with you again, Kelly. Do you understand?’

CHAPTER EIGHT

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