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Annah stiffened for a second and then, in her haste to stand, misjudged her clearance of the bench. With a loud crack, the top of her skull connected with solid wood. Pain knifed across her scalp. Clutching her head, she dropped back to her knees. ‘Ow!’
The man walked around the counter. ‘Are you all right?’
His deep voice floated somewhere above her in the flower-scented air.
‘Yes,’ she lied, not moving, her heart racing in her chest. ‘I’m fine.’
You’re not fine. You’re about to have one of those silly paranoia attacks. After all these years!
Lowering her hands to the floor, she took a deep breath and steadied herself. She mustn’t overreact. A man had walked into her shop. He had a sexy Italian accent. Those facts could mean nothing.
Or they could mean—
No.
She shut down the thought and clenched her teeth against the swell of panic. She would not become that woman again. The one who looked over her shoulder and flinched at shadows, seeing threats where none existed. It wasn’t fair to Ethan. Her son was an intuitive little boy who deserved better than a nervous wreck for a mother.
‘Are you sure?’ the man said.
She pushed to her feet. She would look at him and prove she was being ridiculous. With any luck he’d be short and rotund, nothing at all like the tall, dark-haired devil who’d seduced her with hot chocolate and a hint of torment in his deep brown eyes on a cold night in London five years before.
More importantly, he’d be nothing like Ethan’s paternal grandfather—a man she hoped never to have the misfortune of meeting again.
‘Yes, thank you,’ she said, placing the reel of ribbon on the counter. The top of her head throbbed, but she turned towards the man with a professional smile. He was probably passing through and had stopped to buy flowers for his girlfriend or wife. ‘How can I help?’
The lapels of a sleek, single-breasted camel coat worn over a black polo-neck jumper confronted her at eye level, along with a set of extremely broad shoulders. Although Annah couldn’t see the body beneath the coat, her immediate impression was of solidity and power.
Her smile faltered, and, in the same way people peek through their fingers at a scary movie, afraid to look yet helplessly compelled to do so, she lifted her gaze.
A pair of dark brown eyes, deep-set in a brutally handsome face, connected with hers.
‘Hello, Annah.’
She gasped, her heart lunging into her throat, and stumbled backwards, colliding with the workbench.
Luca Cavallari moved towards her. ‘Careful—’
‘Don’t touch me,’ she blurted, and grabbed the first object to hand—her florist shears—and stuck them out in front of her.
He looked down at the small pair of secateurs and then back at her, his expression more quizzical than alarmed. He spoke softly. ‘You would stab me, Annah?’
‘Maybe.’ She firmed her grip on the shears. Of course she wouldn’t stab him, but he didn’t know that. He didn’t know her. They were strangers, regardless of the fact that they’d created an amazing little person together.
Anyway, people were capable of all sorts of things when something dear to them was threatened. Annah would do anything to protect her son, especially from the people who’d wanted him gone long before he’d drawn his first breath.
The bell over the door tinkled and Annah glanced towards the entrance. Mistake, she realised as Luca Cavallari seized her wrist and deftly disarmed her, tossing the shears down the far end of the bench beyond her reach. ‘No!’ she cried, tugging her wrist, but his one-handed grip was too strong.
Annah cast a panicky look at the newcomer—a thick-necked behemoth dressed in black—and her stomach plummeted. She glared at Luca with false bravado. ‘Really? You brought reinforcements?’
He frowned as if her hostility perplexed him, and that incensed her. What had he expected? Not a warm reception, surely. If only she’d had the presence of mind to act as if she didn’t recognise him. She’d spent one night with him five years ago; it was entirely plausible that his face had faded from her memory.
Except the truth was it hadn’t.
How could she forget the man she’d recklessly given her virginity to—the only man she’d ever slept with—when every day she looked at a tiny, living replica of him?
Thoughts of Ethan spiked her anxiety. Her one chance to play it cool was gone. She’d overreacted. Tipped her hand by revealing her fear. If he hadn’t already known she had something to hide, he knew now.
She looked at the man in black, her heart beating so hard her chest hurt, then back to Luca, whose eyes narrowed as he scrutinised her face.
