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She startled, looked into his eyes and he realised, just like yesterday, she’d been equally caught up in carnal memory. A little too pleased with that knowledge, he raised an eyebrow, watched her flush before she averted her gaze.
‘Don’t overthink this. You, me and Gianni. Together. We all get what we want. You also make an old woman you claimed to like immeasurably happy. Is that so bad?’
Her soft lips twisted. ‘You appeal to my better nature in the same breath you insult me. I never claimed to like your grandmother. I did.’
‘Then why break her heart by denying her whatever time she has left with her great-grandchild?’
She paled again and he felt another bite of guilt. ‘Whatever time she has left? Is she...ill?’
‘I told you she collapsed when she saw Gianni’s billboard. She hadn’t been too well before that. Her doctors think it’s her heart.’
She bit her lip, drawing Rocco’s attention to the plump curve he longed to taste one more time. And several times after that. ‘This is emotional blackmail.’
He firmed his resolve. ‘It’s the plain truth. I won’t allow her to suffer further. Not if I can help it.’
Her gaze shifted to the door. ‘I need time...to think.’
‘What’s there to think about? Don’t you want your career back?’ He couldn’t stop himself from sneering the word. From emphasising the only thing she’d cared about when she was with him. ‘You could be at your old desk in Milan as early as Monday morning.’
She inhaled sharply. ‘You think that’s all that matters to me. It’s not. Not now I’ve Gianni to think about. We’ve never been apart and... I...’
‘My grandmother and every member of my household will be devoted to his care when you’re at work. Since Alessandro passed, Allegra and her children have moved into the villa. Gianni won’t lack for anything.’
Another shadow passed across her face. ‘Allegra and her children live with you?’
He nodded, eyes narrowed at her carefully neutral tone. ‘Is that a problem?’
Long lashes swept down again. ‘No, of course not. Besides, it’s your house.’
‘It’ll be our house, when you accept my proposal.’
She swallowed, her eyes still not meeting his. Rocco wanted to ask why she was refusing him when most women within his social circle would turn cartwheels at the thought of bagging a man of his stature.
‘Why marriage? It’s not like you need a shotgun wedding to protect my honour or anything like that. Besides, you’re already listed on Gianni’s birth certificate as his father. Isn’t that enough?’
He finally gave into the insane urge and closed the gap between them. He slid his hand along her jaw to cup her nape. He revelled in the slight shiver that raked her frame. ‘It wasn’t enough for you, Mia, and it’s most definitely not enough for me. My parents abandoned me when I was a child. Had it not been for Nonna’s unflinching intervention, who knows where I would’ve ended up? She gave up a better life for me. She almost lost everything in the process. I won’t deny her this. Most importantly, I won’t deny myself.’
The depth of the words he hadn’t spoken to anyone else spilling from his lips shocked him. Perhaps he wanted to reach someone who didn’t exist. The woman he’d thought shared his values when he’d placed his ring on her finger three years ago. Whatever. They were said and he couldn’t take them back. Nor could he look away from the wide-eyed shock in her own eyes as she stared up him.
They stayed locked in that revealing little bubble. Not breathing. Not speaking. The only movement his thumb slowly tracing back and forth across her lower lip.
But eventually, that seemingly unquenching well of lust swelled, ebbing and flowing in stronger waves that threatened to consume them. A soft sound, which he deciphered as a moan a few seconds later, rippled the air between them.
As he’d yearned her to, she swayed into him, her lips parting, her warm breath caressing his thumb, sending a stronger wave of electricity through his body.
Rocco leaned down, unable to stem the tide consuming him.
A hair’s breadth away from tasting temptation, she swayed in the other direction, snatching in an audible breath as she ripped herself from his hold.
‘Like I said, I...need to think. I’m going to see Gianni.’
Without stopping for his response or to ask for directions, she flung her lithe, tempting body towards the door, leaving him standing there, a deep throb in his groin and the unsettling dread that he was falling under her spell...again...building in his chest.
For the second time in her life, Rocco Vitelli had proposed to her.
Only this time she wasn’t the wide-eyed innocent who’d believed a candlelit dinner and a husky, accented proposal in a flower-decked courtyard of his Palermo villa was the start to her happy ever after.
Perhaps she should be grateful he’d spelled out exactly what his intentions were. Which were all about him and his grandmother and zilch to do with her emotional needs.
