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 your lies, Matteo.’
‘They aren’t lies,’ he said unevenly. ‘They’re the truth.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘I didn’t think you would.’ He sucked in a deep breath. ‘Which is why I wrote you the letters.’
‘The letters,’ she repeated blankly.
‘I know you got them, because I asked Claudia. What did you do with them, Keira—did you throw them away? Set light to them and watch them go up in flames?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I didn’t do that. I have them all.’
‘Then, I wonder, could you possibly fetch them?’
Was it the word ‘fetch’ which brought Charlie bounding into the room, his tail wagging furiously and his once sad eyes bright and curious as he looked up at the strange man? Keira glared as she saw Matteo crouch down and offer his hand to the little dog, furious yet somehow unsurprised when the terrier edged cautiously towards him. The shock of seeing Matteo again had shaken her and weakened her defences, making her realise that she was still fundamentally shaky around him—and so she nodded her agreement to his bizarre request. At least leaving the room and his disturbing presence would give her the chance to compose herself and to quieten the fierce hammering of her heart.
Slowly she walked into the hallway to retrieve the pile of envelopes from the drawer and went back into the sitting room, holding them gingerly between her fingers, like an unexploded bomb. By now Charlie’s tail was thrashing wildly, and as Matteo straightened up from stroking him the puppy gave a little whine of protest and she wondered how he had so quickly managed to charm the shy little dog. But the terrier had been discovered wriggling in a sack by the side of the road, she remembered, the only survivor among all his dead brothers and sisters. Charlie had also grown up without a mother, she thought—and a lump lodged in her throat.
‘Here,’ she croaked, holding the letters towards him.
‘Don’t you want to open them?’
