Modern Romance February 2020 Books 5-8. Natalie Anderson

she answered in what she intended to be a tart fashion, but which came out all breathless.

      She felt breathless. Tonino was the only man she had ever desired and it made her want to weep that the old feelings were still there inside her but impossible to fulfil.

      Eyes glittering, he brought her hand to his mouth and grazed a kiss against her knuckles. ‘I will count the hours.’

       CHAPTER NINE

      ORLA LOOKED OUT of the car window, eyes straining for the first view of Tonino’s home.

      Finn was beside himself with excitement. If her little trouper could have packed his own case, he would have done it within seconds of her telling him about their trip. Finn hadn’t immediately embraced Tonino as he’d done with Dante and she wondered if it was because Finn detected the threat Tonino posed to their family life. Whatever the reason behind it—and she wouldn’t ask unless it became a problem, as she didn’t want to feed ideas to him that might not already be there—she was glad he was excited to be back in Sicily and excited to be seeing his father.

      There was no point denying the butterflies rampaging in her belly were testament to her own excitement. The leaping of her heart at every alert from her phone these past three days was testament too. The few times the alerts had come from Tonino…quite frankly she was surprised to find her heart still secure behind her ribs.

      Hearing his voice down the line had had the effect of turning the thousands of miles between them into nothing. The deep tones would dive through her ears and heat her veins, sensitising her skin as acutely as if she were in the back of his car with him again, a recent memory that had had her clutching her cheeks in mortification so many times these past three days it was a wonder she hadn’t worn her cheekbones down.

      This was how it had been for her four years ago, Orla turning into a walking tinderbox of feverish heat and heightened emotions. Her emotions were far more yo-yo-like than they had been then. Nothing could come of these feelings. She wanted to trust him but how could she after all the lies? And even if she found a way to trusting him, Tonino didn’t want her. He wanted their son. He might still desire her, but one look at her naked body would extinguish it. If she could hardly bring herself to look at her own reflection how could she expect him to react to it with anything but horror?

      The winding, narrow road that they’d been driving on for the past five minutes, through fields of crops ready to be harvested, peaked. In the distance rose a salmon-coloured stone chateau.

      Orla cleared her throat and pointed. ‘Look, Finn. That’s your daddy’s house.’ She could not say where this certainty came from, but she would bet her own house that it belonged to Tonino.

      Finn strained against the restraints of his car seat, trying to get a decent view.

      The closer they got, the more the chateau—at least, that was what she called it in her head—emerged, but it wasn’t until they drove through a high stone arch into an enormous courtyard that she fully appreciated its vast magnificence. The chateau surrounded the courtyard, which could double as a car park if the need arose, in a square. In the centre of the courtyard stood a fountain with a trio of cherubs in it, the water squirting from a certain part of the cherubs’ anatomy that had Finn squealing with laughter when he spotted it.

      Baskets of flowers hung on the chateau’s walls, random palm trees adding additional colour, and Tonino…

      Orla blinked and looked again.

      Her heart soared and caught in her throat.

      Tonino had emerged from nowhere, as if he’d slithered out of the chateau’s walls or, as was more likely, become flesh from a marble statue, Adonis brought to life. Unlike the marble statue of the naughty cherubs, Tonino was dressed, insofar as a pair of black shorts and a lazy grin could be considered as dressed.

      The driver opened the door and, as Orla carried Finn out, Tonino walked over to them. The late afternoon sun beamed down and cast his bare chest in a hazy glow.

      She remembered pressing her lips to that chest and inhaling the musky scent of his skin. She remembered rubbing her cheeks against the thick hair spread across it and marvelling at the contrasts between them, his masculinity and her femininity, as different as night from day yet the two of them coming together…

      Their coming together was still a blank.

      His dreamy chocolate eyes caught hers. His lazy grin widened before he planted a kiss right on her lips. Immediately her senses were assailed with the scents of salt, muskiness and the faint remnants of Tonino’s cologne. The stubble of his unshaved face rubbed against her cheek and when he broke the kiss as abruptly as he’d formed it, she had to stop her fingers from pressing against her tender, stubble-assaulted skin. She had to stop herself from swaying into him and pulling him back for another.

      Before she had the chance to compose a greeting that didn’t make her sound like a brain-dead eejit, Tonino had lifted Finn from her arms.

      ‘How was the journey?’ He rubbed his nose against Finn’s in an affectionate gesture that sent her heart soaring all over again.

      Only the good Lord knew how she untied her tongue to answer. ‘Fine.’

      He looked back at her and shifted Finn on his hip. ‘My apologies for not sending my plane to you.’

      She forced her vocal cords to cooperate. ‘I cannot believe you’re apologising for making us travel first class.’

      ‘It is an inconvenience for you.’

      The serious way in which he declared this made her snort with laughter. ‘Seriously? First class an inconvenience? And you say I need to get some perspective?’

      For a long moment Tonino stared at her, enjoying the way the sunlight bounced on her thick dark hair and injected it with strands of gold and red. ‘You look beautiful.’

      As beautiful and as fresh as any flower his gardener coaxed into bloom on his estate.

      Tonino had arrived back in Sicily a few hours earlier than expected. He would have flown to Ireland to collect them, but they’d already left for the airport. Finding himself pacing the chateau’s corridors and getting in the way of his live-in staff, he’d gone for a swim but quickly found himself bored so had resorted to playing tennis with his ball-launcher machine as an opponent. That had used up much of his latent energy but not all of it, not with the promise of Orla and his son arriving at any moment feeding him energy as quickly as he wore it out.

      Gazing at her now, he felt as if he’d done no exercise at all. His veins still thrummed. His skin and loins still buzzed with anticipation.

      The memory of what had taken place in the back of his car had shadowed his every waking moment since.

      The three days away from Orla had passed slowly. A snail could have passed the time more quickly.

      It had been the same when she’d disappeared four years ago. Life had suddenly gone from passing at breakneck speed to a crawl.

      This time, he was certain the slowing of time had been because he’d been parted from his son. Already his feelings for Finn ran deep. They were feelings he’d never had before, different from any other emotion. Far different from the feelings he had for Finn’s mother. There was a purity to his feelings for Finn, a semi-conscious knowledge that for this child he would be prepared to kill to keep him safe. He would never allow his son to feel that the family name and Tonino’s pride meant more than Finn’s happiness. He would support his son and love him unconditionally.

      His feelings for Orla were far more complicated. He hated her for keeping him in the dark about the pregnancy but relished being in her company. He wanted to punish her for her lies. He wanted to worship the body that had created something so special for them. He desired her. He fantasised about her. Orla being back in his life had set off