Harlequin Presents January 2015 Box Set 3 of 4(215)

But now that Lottie was back in his life he realised that the feelings he had thought were dead—had been sure were dead, in fact—were just buried, deep down inside him. Seeing her again, spending time with her, had brought them all back up to the surface, leaving them exposed to the elements like blind earthworms, ready to be pecked at by a circling crow.

Well, that was not going to happen. No matter how alluring she might be, how the turn of her head or the tilt of her chin might take him straight back to the lovely young woman he had fallen in love with, how unconsciously sexy, how damned infuriatingly, grabbably gorgeous she was...he was not going to open his heart to her again. After all, hadn’t she spelled out her feelings clearly enough to him? Or lack of them, at any rate. What sort of fool would go back for a second helping of that?

* * *

Upstairs in the cream and white-painted bedroom, Lottie, wearing the sensible cotton nightie that had been mysteriously laid out for her, slipped into the freshly made bed, propping the pillows up behind her. Her head felt as if it might explode with everything that had happened that day. Pulling the duvet under her chin, she drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them tightly, trying to find some rational logic, something to justify the crazy madness of it all.

Except, of course, there was none. Rational logic would have screamed at her not to do this, to get straight back on a plane to England and flee the deadly cocktail of longing and torment that was Rafael Revaldi. Rational logic would have saved her from the way she felt now, her whole body churning with impotent resentment and powerlessness.

How dared he come over all caveman like that? What right did he have to challenge her about her love-life when she knew for a fact that he had scores of beautiful and eligible women throwing themselves at his finest leather handmade shoes? She had had to accept it, even if it did still hurt like a knife stabbing her in the gut.

It wasn’t as if she had actually been seeing anyone—not seriously. There had been dates—nice young men who’d wanted to take things further, with earnest declarations of love, even, but none of them had come close to affecting her. She simply couldn’t relate to them. Not after a real man. Not after Rafael. She was quite resigned to the fact that he had been the one and only man for her. She had always known it.

It was what had made leaving him the hardest thing she had ever done in her life.

But she had had to find the strength to walk away. Their future together had died along with Seraphina—despite or maybe because of Rafael’s obsession with getting her pregnant again. It had been as if a baby would be the only thing to validate their marriage, that without a child he would have to face up to the reality of the situation. That he should never have married her. That she was a mistake.

Her bed was positioned opposite the window, with views over the lake and the mountains beyond. Lottie had left the shutters open, and now she slipped out of bed and padded over to the window to look out. She could just make out a dark figure locking the iron gates down by the water, then moving purposefully up the terrace pathway towards the villa.

Retreating into the shadows of the room, Lottie watched as Rafael’s imposing shape came closer until he stopped abruptly and looked up at her window. Gripping the window frame, Lottie stared back at him. Their eyes locked for a moment. Then with a curt nod of his head he started walking again, until the villa hid him from view.





CHAPTER FIVE

FOR A SECOND when Lottie opened her eyes the next morning she couldn’t remember where she was. Light was streaming into the room, and the picture-perfect view of the mountains and sky was like a painting, hanging on the wall before her.

But mad reality soon flooded back, nudging aside the blissful ignorance of sleep and replacing it with a checklist of worries. The embryo transfer, being here at Villa Varenna, two whole weeks closeted with Rafael, not to mention his boorish behaviour last night... They had almost come to blows within hours of being here, for heaven’s sake. That hardly boded well for the rest of their stay.

Slipping out of bed, she went into the bathroom, stopping as she caught sight of herself in the full-length mirror. Her long blonde hair fell about her shoulders in sleep-ruffled chaos and her eyes, still drowsy with sleep, squinted back at her. Stepping back, she surveyed herself from the side, smoothing down the fabric of her nightie over her very flat stomach.

What was going on in there? Could she be pregnant? Was it really possible?

The realisation of how much she wanted this baby was shocking, dizzying. An outsider might have assumed she was doing this for Rafael—her final gift to him, a last attempt to atone for the brutal way she had walked out on him. Why else would she consider condemning herself to a loveless marriage solely for the sake of bearing him a child? But the outsider would be wrong. She wanted this baby—wanted it with every fibre of her being. Not to help Rafael out of his predicament, not out of guilt or selflessness, and certainly not because she cared about providing an heir for Monterrato. She wanted this baby for herself. It was her chance of motherhood. To be the mother she had always wanted to be.