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Vivien had intended to change into something a little fancier before Lucca arrived. Indeed for what remained of the afternoon, while cheerfully engaged in rearranging the nursery to her own satisfaction and playing with Marco, she strove to work out which outfits in her wardrobe most flattered her. From that dismally small selection she then endeavoured to decide which would strike that all-important note of careless indifference to male presence. The very last thing she wanted to risk was giving Lucca cause to suspect that she might have made a special effort to look good for his benefit.
As it happened, she didn’t get the chance to change out of her casual low-slung black corduroy trousers and lilac tee shirt. An evening meal had been left prepared in the fridge for them but Marco disliked salads and he grizzled so much that Vivien ended up making him something else. Although the larder was well stocked, it did not carry any of Marco’s favourite foods. By the time that Vivien managed to serve up toast and a boiled egg with the consistency of a bullet, her son was in a very cranky mood. Seated in his high chair, Marco refused to be hurried and kept on tossing down pieces of toast to an appreciative Jock.
‘Don’t do that,’ Vivien urged for about the sixth time and struggled to be really firm. ‘You’re teaching Jock very bad manners,’ she added, thinking that perhaps it would help if she explained why such behaviour was unacceptable. ‘Marco, please hurry up and finish your egg…I want to get changed!’
Ignoring her, Marco waved his toast at Jock and the little dog danced round the high chair.
‘Please don’t do that…’ Vivien urged plaintively, glancing at her watch with a groan of frustration because Lucca was due to arrive at any minute and he was never late.
Marco bumped his hand on the edge of the tray and accidentally let go of his toast. Jock snatched this unexpectedly generous offering from mid-air and raced off with his booty. Marco let out a roar of disbelief. ‘Mine!’ he yelled at the top of his voice.
At breathtaking speed that minor event built into a major incident. Marco was tired and cross and in a new house and, instead of instantly rushing to replace his toast, his mother lifted him out of his high chair and tried to fob him off with a piece of hastily buttered bread. He threw the bread on the floor. Jock took that too. It was the ultimate insult. In a tempestuous rage, Marco flung himself down on the tiles and screamed and kicked.
Vivien flipped herself upside down and walked on her hands in a desperate attempt to distract her son. ‘Look at Mummy, Marco!’
Letting himself into the house with his key, Lucca had a glossy perfect image in his mind of what life might have been like had Vivien not destroyed their marriage. His dream family composed of a smiling, elegant wife and a smiling son would have rushed to greet him whenever he came home. What greeted him instead and banished all fantasy was a wall of awful noise, composed of a wildly barking dog and a child screeching at the top of his voice.
Lucca was unprepared for the less-than-cosy domestic scene awaiting him in the kitchen. Marco was throwing himself about the floor in a passionate tantrum. But what took Lucca most aback was the sight of Vivien frantically walking round their son on her hands like an acrobat while simultaneously begging the enraged toddler to stop screaming.
‘Marco…stop it!’ Lucca ordered with icy authority.
For an instant a shattering silence fell. In the very act of opening his mouth wide on another ear-splitting howl, Marco turned his head in astonishment to focus big brown eyes on his father. Jock, having dropped the bread in his mouth, was striving to sneak up on Lucca from the side and was within an ace of sinking his teeth into a trouser leg.
‘No, Jock!’ Lucca rapped out, and he proffered the definitive insult to a watchdog who prided himself on his ferocity and took no account whatsoever of his own diminutive size: Lucca just stepped over the little animal to go to Vivien’s aid. Shamed, Jock slunk beneath the kitchen table.
Vivien, the last to note Lucca’s unannounced arrival, was so startled by the sound of his commanding voice coming out of nowhere that she collided with a kitchen stool and lost her balance. Lucca snaked out a fast hand to prevent the stool from toppling on her and then helped her back up onto her bare feet.
‘Oh, my goodness, you’re early!’ Vivien accused with a dismay she could not hide, both hands initially engaged in smoothing down her rumpled fair hair but swiftly faltering as the full effect of Lucca, sheathed in a black pinstripe designer business suit, took her self-possession by storm.
He was drop-dead gorgeous. It wasn’t her fault that she was staring, she told herself helplessly. Staring was the norm in Lucca’s vicinity. He never failed to attract female attention. Pure energy buzzed in the air around him. His height and sleek, powerful build were combined with an extraordinarily sensual grace of movement. His bronzed skin was moulded over fabulous cheekbones, a strong masculine nose and an aggressive jaw line. The dark gold allure of his deep-set eyes set below level black brows made her heart bounce inside her chest like a rubber ball. He lived and breathed raw sexuality.
‘It’s after seven,’ Lucca imparted. ‘Was there a particular reason why you were walking on your hands?’ Her brows pleated in apparent surprise at the question. ‘Didn’t you realise why I was doing that?’
Lucca looked apologetic. ‘I must be very slow on the uptake.’
‘It’s simple and usually very effective,’ Vivien assured him with enthusiasm. ‘When Marco gets in a temper, I try to avert trouble by providing him with a distraction.’
‘You have a wonderfully innovative approach to discipline,’ Lucca remarked, his slumberous gaze narrowing below lush black lashes as he studied her.
The self-conscious colour in her cheeks only enhanced the brightness of her sea-green eyes. Her soft full lips were a rosy, pouting invitation to a male who had always loved her mouth. Standing v
ery straight, she was breathing rapidly from her recent acrobatic exertions, firm little breasts thrusting pointed nipples against a tee shirt worn thin from frequent washing. Instantaneous lust gripped Lucca. Suddenly he felt hot as hell. For a millisecond, he fought his own powerful response, for he had planned to play it cool for the first visit at least. But at shocking speed that recollection sank in favour of a keen desire to live for the moment and his lean hand rose almost of its own volition to curve to her waist, which lay bare below the hem of the shrunken tee shirt.
‘I don’t like to be confrontational with Marco…if that’s what you mean.’ The feverish tension weighting the atmosphere lent Vivien’s voice a slightly nervous squeak but the immediacy with which he had reached out to pull her closer ran like a quicksilver burst of energy through her veins.
‘You still talk at the worst possible moments,’ Lucca growled in husky reproof.
‘Whereas you don’t talk at all,’ she mumbled.
‘Open your mouth for me, gioia mia.’
The long, sure fingers spreading across her sleek midriff felt like a possessive brand and she trembled when his other hand eased into the shallow indentation of her back to press her into electrifying contact with his lean well-built frame. A shiver of excitement coursed through her tummy and a kernel of heat ignited. She looked up at him, green eyes luminous. He brought his marauding mouth down on hers, his tongue slashing a carnal path of desire across the sensitive interior of her mouth. Her body flamed into almost painful life, a breathy little sound of fervent response wrenched from low in her throat. Her knees shook under her and when he crushed her slight length to him with hungry masculine force, she clung.
‘Wow…triple wow,’ she framed unsteadily with shining eyes, wildly conscious of the bold masculine proof of his arousal against her hip, her breath coming shallow and fast.
Shimmering golden eyes flamed over her in a provocative promise of more sensual delights to come. ‘I aim to please and I always deliver…’
A small hand yanked at Lucca’s trouser leg. He glanced down with a frown just as his son, whose presence he had entirely forgotten, hauled himself up into standing position and gave him a huge welcoming smile.
