Page 33 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

‘You look very washed out, that’s all.’

Oh, God. Wasn’t that a tell-tale sign? Should she tell him what was on her mind? No. That would be insane. Maybe if she was two weeks late, rather than two days. Kelly cleared her throat. Surely she wasn’t self-sabotaging her first sexual affair by being unnecessarily neurotic? ‘I’m not surprised I look washed out,’ she joked weakly. ‘I’m suffering from a distinct lack of shut-eye.’

‘But we have been having regular siestas,’ came his purring objection.

‘Which are also supposed to involve sleep.’

‘How can I sleep when I can’t keep my hands off you?’ he admitted huskily, tugging at the belt of her silken dressing gown, so that it fell open, her breasts already peaking towards him.

‘Good question,’ she mumbled as she homed in on his seeking lips and gave herself up to the rapturous touch of his hands. And this bit was easy, she thought. Almost too easy. Everything he did to her she loved.Liked, she corrected firmly, reaching for the zip of his jeans. Love had no place in a vocabulary where Romano Castelliari was concerned and if she told herself that often enough, she might finally get around to believing it. But the act of making love was pretty hard to beat. It could make your body feel as if it were soaring and that your heart was melting like marshmallow.

It could even temporarily remove all those nagging worries from your mind.

CHAPTER TEN

‘WE’RE GOING TOneed to go shopping.’

At the sound of Romano’s soft interjection, Kelly turned round, wearing nothing but the silk shirt he’d impatiently discarded within minutes of arriving at his Turin residence. She had been staring out of the window at the leafy garden square beneath his vast apartment, not quite able to believe she was really here.

It was all a bit much to take in. She had suspected he would live somewhere grand, but the reality of his home had surpassed all her wildest imaginings. Romano’s apartment was part of a converted eighteenth-century palazzo and she’d never seen anything like it. Domed ceilings were exquisitely decorated with intricate frescoes and the marble floors were strewn with silken rugs. It had several reception rooms. A gym. A kitchen you could get lost in. It even had its own library, with leather-bound spines which looked worryingly old. She kept expecting someone to ask her to produce her ticket to prove she’d paid to get in. She’d really had no idea that people lived like this.

But it wasn’t just the splendour of the building or the nearby city surroundings which were so achingly impressive—it was the evidence of Romano’s life. His real life. Because this wasn’t a castle he’d inherited, which he seemed to be conflicted about for perfectly understandable reasons. This was hishome. With paintings and cushions and velvet drapes and photos in solid silver frames and one photo in particular, taken at some Premio Mondo race, possibly in Monaco. In a blur of sprayed champagne, he was standing next a driver who was holding aloft a glittering trophy and Romano had his arm round a woman—a blonde, Kelly noted sourly—who was looking up at him, and laughing.

It wasn’t simply that the blonde was beautiful—which she was—it was just that captured moment of intimacy, as if she were completely dazzled by the gaze of the Castelliari racing tycoon. And her clothes. Oh, her clothes. She was dressed in the sort of outfit you might see within the pages of a glossy fashion bible, most of which probably wouldn’t have survived the celebratory champagne bath, thought Kelly a touch sourly before she realised that Romano was looking at her and was clearly waiting for an answer.

‘Why do we need to go shopping?’ she questioned, automatically enjoying the golden-olive gleam of his naked body as he lay sprawled against the snowy backdrop of the rumpled sheets. ‘I thought you said someone had been in and stocked the fridge.’

‘Not for food,’ he said impatiently. ‘I meant to buy something for you to wear.’

Kelly tried not to react negatively to his emphatic statement but she was already stiffening defensively. ‘I thought you said you liked me best when I wasn’t wearing anything at all,’ she objected.

His mouth gave a close approximation of a smile. ‘This much is true. Your body is much too delicious to be covered,’ he agreed silkily. ‘But you can’t stay naked all the time and I thought we might do a few things while we’re here in Turin. Go to the opera, perhaps?’

‘And my clothes aren’t good enough, is that it?’ she demanded, remembering the way he’d looked down his nose at her when she’d arrived at the church for the christening in her cheap, flowery dress.

There was a pause. ‘I think you know very well they aren’t,cara. You came to Italy with barely enough stuff for the weekend, and a pair of jeans which you’ve dried on the radiator, really isn’t going to work in this kind of environment. You will stand out for all the wrong reasons.’

His voice was almost gentle and wasn’t that in itselfpatronising? Once again, Kelly bristled. ‘I don’t want your charity.’

‘It isn’t charity, Kelly,’ he answered patiently. ‘You can leave them here when you go back to England, for all I care.’

‘What, so my replacement can wear them?’

‘I’ve never met anyone with your particular petite and curvy dimensions, but, if you must know, you’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted to dress as well as undress,’ he offered, his voice now tinged with a mild irritation. ‘But that’s all I intend to say on the subject and I certainly don’t intend to wrestle you into a dress shop on the Via Roma. I thought it might be fun, that’s all.’

Their eyes clashed in silent battle until at last she gave a shrug. ‘Okay,’ she sighed, because he did have a point. She definitely didn’t have enough clothes with her and, unless she was intending to hit Turin wearing her Ragno uniform, she couldn’t drag out her claret velvet dressagain. ‘If that’s what you want.’

‘There’s only one thing I really want right now. So take off that damned shirt and come over here,’ he instructed throatily, making no attempt to hide the hardening at his groin.

Undoing the buttons with trembling fingers and casting aside the costly garment, Kelly went into his waiting arms, wishing she weren’t constantly see-sawing between happiness and sadness. It was as if she’d been placed on an emotional roller coaster which was speeding out of control and she didn’t know how to get off. She knew why they were here, because he’d told her—supposedly to empty the well of their mutual desire.

But as far as she was concerned, Kelly suspected it would never run dry, especially as with every day that passed, her heart became more and more engaged and not just her body. She found herself wanting to press her face close to his and tell him she’d never believed anyone could make her feel this way. Romano was someone she just couldn’t get enough of, and she had convinced herself that as long as she kept that unwanted truth to herself, everything would be okay. In a normal world it might have been.

Except…

She swallowed.

Except that her period still hadn’t come, and now she was five days late.

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