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He had never slept with a woman so intimately—never allowed himself to gather anyone into his arms and simply hold them. He had never wanted to—until now. Such intense intimacy was not something he felt comfortable with. His parents had lived with a great deal of formality. They had always had separate bedrooms. But right now holding Lily so close to him was exactly what he wanted. He drew her closer and felt the tightening of an unfamiliar ache around his heart. Now he knew why he had always rejected this kind of intimacy. He had rejected it because it was dangerous. Because it made you vulnerable to the woman you were holding. Because once you had known it you would never want to be without it—or without her.
Soft morning light filtered in through the room’s curtains, caressing the faces of the two people sleeping together in the centre in the large bed. Lily was held within the protective curve of Marco’s body, his arm round her. She was oblivious to the intimacy she had sought—and found—during the night hours whilst she had slept.
Marco woke first, his senses enjoying the knowledge that he was holding Lily before he was properly awake and his brain kicked in to tell him what that meant. When it did, though, he still didn’t release her or move away from her. He was trying to work out exactly what it was about holding her that made the intimacy seem not just right but also necessary, he told himself, defending his reluctance to put any distance between them.
She looked so beautiful. She was beautiful—inside and out. She was everything any man could ever want in a woman, and the man who had let her go was a fool to have done so. Marco’s heart slammed into his ribs, and the small involuntary movement he made, as though in denial of his own thoughts and the reality of what they meant, woke Lily from her sleep.
If she kept her eyes closed perhaps she wouldn’t have to wake up, and then she could hold on to her wonderful dream of being held safe in Marco’s arms. Mmm … In her imagination she was there still, and she could feel his heart beating against the hand she had placed on his bare chest. She could feel his heart beating beneath her hand. Lily’s eyes flew open. She was in bed with Marco and he was holding her. How had that happened? Had she somehow sleep-walked into the bedroom and got into bed beside him? She hoped not.
She looked at Marco, who immediately released her and removed himself from the bed, reaching for his robe as he did so, telling her with a dismissive shrug, ‘You didn’t look very comfortable sleeping on the sofa, so I brought you here. I thought there was more than enough room in the bed for both of us.’ His voice was terse, his manner distant. He disappeared into the bathroom before she could say anything.
Thankfully, Lily realised she was still fully dressed. She was uncomfortably aware that she must have been the one to initiate their sleeping intimacy, given the way she had been dreaming about him. Why hadn’t he demanded an explanation of her behaviour? Perhaps because he was so used to sleeping with eager women—women he couldn’t love because he loved a girl who was now lost to him for ever—who longed to be close to him that what she had done had barely registered with him.
Lily’s heart felt very heavy indeed.
They’d had a very busy full day, visiting two more villas in the morning and stopping briefly for a light lunch before continuing on to visit a private villa on one of Lake Como’s small islands. Yet no amount of busyness was enough to push out of her thoughts everything that she’d felt on waking up in Marco’s arms this morning. It was like holding a special golden treasure whose existence was enough to fill her with happiness. Her treasure, though, was fool’s gold—because it meant nothing to Marco. She meant nothing to Marco.
It was now late in the afternoon, and they had stopped in a pretty lakeside town for a cup of coffee at Marco’s suggestion, prior to their return to the villa.
Marco had just gone inside the café to pay their bill, and she was sitting drinking in the relaxing scene around her, when to her horrified disbelief she saw Anton Gillman on the other side of the road. She had assumed and hoped that he had left the area, with the rest of the fashion pack and returned to Milan, but obviously she had been wrong. Lily shrank back in her chair, hoping that he wouldn’t look across the road and see her. For a moment she thought that he wouldn’t, and that she was safe, but then the woman seated at a table close to their own got up, her small lap dog barking shrilly. The sound caught Anton’s attention so that he glanced towards the café. There was nowhere for her to hide, no hope that he wouldn’t see her, and Lily knew that he had when she saw him start to cross the road and come purposefully towards her. It was the worst kind of cruel coincidence.
