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Despite her elegant London grooming, she looked slightly dishevelled. Her gorgeous copper toned hair was caught up inside her collar, as if she’d thrown her coat on hurriedly, and his fingers longed to slip under its silken weight and ease it free.
Then, as she lifted her gaze to meet his, he found himself looking down into her golden brown eyes.
‘Marco.’ Claudia repeated his name out loud this time, hardly able to believe it as she stared up at his face. Her heart was racing and it was impossible to think straight.
It truly was him—Marco De Luca.
He had filled her thoughts for four long years and now he was really here, transported out of her dreams on to the London pavement beside her—except everything about the flesh and blood man was more vivid than the memory.
‘I thought it was you,’ he said. His voice tingled down her spine, deliciously deep and sexy, setting her quivering inside. ‘I saw you walking.’
Claudia opened her lips and tried to speak again, but all she could think was how badly she’d missed him. He’d hurt her terribly when he’d dumped her four years ago, but he’d been in her thoughts every day since then. And now he was here, completely out of the blue, on what had seemed like the worst day of her life so far.
‘Are you all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’ Curiosity glittered in his dark eyes as he looked down at her startled face. ‘Have I caught you at a bad time? You appeared to be hurrying somewhere.’
All of a sudden, a wave of anger rose up and crashed through Claudia’s initial shock at seeing him again. She drew in a deep breath, finding her voice at last.
‘A bad time?’ she demanded incredulously. He had broken her heart when he’d left her, but she’d never discovered the reason why he’d finished their relationship so abruptly. He hadn’t even had the decency to tell her he was leaving. ‘When would be a good time to run into an ex-lover—a man who dumped you without even bothering to tell you it was over?’
‘Well…when you put it like that…’ Marco paused, his wide expressive lips curling into a smile that took her breath away and swept through the ache that had filled her heart since the day he’d disappeared from her life.
‘How would you put it?’ she challenged him. ‘Considering you walked out on me four years ago, without even telling me you were going.’
‘I’d say how wonderful to see you, despite everything,’ Marco said, holding her transfixed with his dark gaze. ‘And what a fantastic opportunity to put things right between us.’
Claudia drew in a breath and tried to speak. She wanted to say that she wasn’t naive enough to fall for his charming ways a second time. But she was caught by the power of his gaze. A sizzling, sensual energy was flowing between them, just as it always had. She felt it in every cell of her body. Every inch of her skin longed to be close to him. It was impossible to ignore.
‘Then I’d say you’re four years too late.’
Her voice sounded steady, but her body and mind were a churning mass of conflicting feelings. She took a hasty step away from him—as if putting a little distance between them would help her get a grip.
Making a sudden sideways move on the busy street was foolhardy and she felt someone crash heavily into her back almost immediately.
‘Sorry!’ A stocky man in a dark overcoat grunted as he put out his hands to steady himself.
‘No…sorry…my fault,’ Claudia gasped, trying to catch her breath. Then Marco’s arms closed around her as he pulled her out of the flow of pedestrians into a shop doorway.
She stared up at him, thinking that he was still the most amazingly good-looking man she’d ever seen. From the moment they’d met, her attraction to him outstripped anything she’d ever experienced before.
When he’d turned his fathomless espresso coloured eyes on to her, it was as if she were the only woman in the world. She’d felt beautiful and special.
But she’d been a fool to let herself think that—things between them hadn’t been what they’d seemed. He wasn’t her soul mate. In fact, he’d shown just how little he cared for her when he’d discarded her so heartlessly.
‘You seem out of place here, in all this hustle and bustle,’ he said, tugging her closer to him as a group of people pressed past them into the London store they were sheltering beside. ‘I’d rather be with you somewhere quieter—more private,’ he added, tightening his hold on her.
Claudia looked at him, her heart beating erratically. He was holding her so close that she couldn’t think clearly.
Secure in the powerful circle of his arms, her senses were going into overload. She could feel the warm strength of him, even through her winter coat, and her legs were brushing against his, sending little darts of awareness shooting through her.
The chemistry between them had always been incredible, but now she knew that chemistry was all it had ever been. If she’d known their affair had been meaningless to him—a casual fling that he could easily cast aside—she would never have got so deeply involved. She’d never have told him her secrets.
And she would never have fallen in love with him.
‘I’m sorry,’ Marco said. ‘I’ve unsettled you by turning up like this.’
He moved to the side, breaking the contact between them to let another group of Christmas shoppers past. When he let go of her it felt like a rejection.
‘It’s not turning up unexpectedly that you should be apologising for,’ Claudia said, the sting of losing physical contact with him making her voice sharper than she’d intended. ‘What about the way you left me in the middle of the night, without bothering to tell me why? You didn’t even have the decency to tell me to my face that it was over between us!’
