Modern Romance February 2020 Books 5-8. Natalie Anderson

her and she gave a short, breathless nod.

      ‘No one turns me on the way you do. No one.’ Bending his head, he kissed her plump mouth while running a hand down the side of her body then back up to cover her breast. He could feel its softness more easily through the shirt than he could through the thicker material of her dress and bra but he wanted to feel it bare against his hand and feel the nipple pucker in his mouth.

      ‘I will never force you to do anything you don’t want,’ he whispered as he drove his arousal inside her, savouring the way her neck arched and the softest moan flew from her mouth. He pulled back to the tip then thrust in harder. ‘All I want is to give you pleasure.’

      Maybe if he showed her all the pleasure they were capable of creating together, the Orla who had given herself to him without reservation four years ago would come back to him.

      When Orla opened her eyes the room was bright with daylight. The space beside her on Tonino’s bed was empty.

      She sat upright, looking for something to tell the time with.

      Padding out of the bedroom, she went to Finn’s room and found it empty. The nurse’s room was empty too.

      In her own room she donned some underwear, shrugged her robe on and set off looking for everyone.

      She ignored the chiding voice in her head that told her she was being sentimental keeping Tonino’s shirt on.

      After a search that took far longer than expected, she found her son and his father in Tonino’s office. Tonino was reading something on his desktop, Finn sat on the floor building something only he could recognise with his blocks.

      They both turned to her when she walked in.

      ‘Mummy!’

      She sank to her knees and scooped her son into her arms, then waited a moment for her heart rate to lower to something resembling normality before turning her gaze to Tonino.

      Her heart rate accelerated. Images of everything they’d shared the night before flashed in vivid colour before her eyes.

      From the knowing smile playing on Tonino’s firm mouth, he was having the exact same recollection.

      ‘What time is it?’ she asked.

      He looked at his watch. ‘Eleven.’

      She raised her brow in dismay. ‘That late? You should have woken me.’

      ‘You needed the sleep, dolcezza.’ And then he winked, making her cheeks turn into a furnace all over again. ‘If you go and get ready, I’ve promised Finn a swim in the pool.’

      The next day, after a couple of hours spent building sandcastles on Tonino’s private stretch of beach and eating the picnic lunch made for them by his chef, Finn fell asleep. Removing the sandwich half hanging from his mouth and making sure the parasol shaded his delicate skin, Orla covered him from shoulder to toe with a thin sheet for good measure, then stretched her legs out and lifted her face to the sun’s rays.

      ‘You look happy,’ Tonino observed, cold bottle of beer in hand.

      She nodded, glad she had her shades on so he couldn’t see what lay behind them. Sometimes it felt as if he only had to look into her eyes, and he could read everything in her head.

      This was the second day in a row she’d woken in Tonino’s bed, replete by a night of lovemaking. Her promises to self that she would sleep in her own bed had been broken pretty much the moment she’d made them.

      Deny herself the opportunity of making love to Tonino again? She was no masochist.

      Or was she?

      Was the heady pleasure she found in his bed worth the inevitable heartache heading her way?

      ‘Finn’s happy here too,’ he added into the silence before helping himself to a chunk of honeydew melon.

      She looked at their sleeping son and could only agree.

      ‘Have you thought any more about us marrying?’ he asked.

      Her answer was automatic. ‘No.’ She shook her head for good measure, her loose ponytail whipping with a crack.

      He exhaled slowly. ‘What is stopping you from saying yes?’

      ‘Everything that stopped me when you first suggested it. Marriage is a terrible idea.’

      An edge crept into his voice. ‘Why?’

      Orla felt an edge form inside her too, defensive spikes lifting beneath her skin. ‘Because it wouldn’t mean what it should mean. You wouldn’t even be thinking it if it weren’t for Finn. I mean, come on, four years ago you pretended to be someone else and, while I believe you about Sophia, it doesn’t change that you did lie about your identity, and the only reason I can see for you doing that is because you never took me seriously from the start. I was so far removed from what you considered suitable wife material that you didn’t need bother tell me the truth.’

      A long pause of silence opened up between them, broken when Tonino took a swig of his beer.

      ‘Thoughts of your suitability…’ he delivered the word with a curled lip ‘…didn’t cross my mind. When we first met my only thoughts were of bedding you. You didn’t know me. You had no preconceptions. You just wanted me. And that felt great.’

      He turned his head to face her. Even with both their eyes masked by sunglasses, his gaze penetrated her flesh and set her heart racing.

      She remembered her own instinctive reaction when she’d learned the wealth, connections and power Tonino and his family had. It had frightened her. For many other women, it would have attracted them.

      His voice lowered. ‘But then you got under my skin and I knew I had to tell you the truth. The mistake I made was to fly to Tuscany before telling you because Sophia got to you first and fed you all those lies.’

      ‘No, the mistake you made was not telling me the truth to begin with.’ She shook her head to clear it from the effects of Tonino’s seductive voice. He had a voice that could recite the worst kind of poetry and make it sound like a masterpiece. ‘You were playing with me. I was just a joke to you, some naïve Irish girl you could play make-believe with.’

      He downed the last of his beer. ‘Maybe it started like that,’ he admitted, ‘but that is not how it finished. I fell for you, dolcezza, harder than I had ever fallen for anyone, and you ran away rather than confront me and allow me to defend myself. You believed Sophia’s lies.’

      ‘She was very convincing.’ She rubbed her cheeks, feeling wretched. He was right. She hadn’t given him the chance to defend himself from Sophia’s lies.

      ‘Sophia is a superb actress.’

      ‘I think her hatred of me is genuine.’

      ‘What hatred? What makes you say that?’

      ‘Did you not see the dirty looks she kept throwing me at Aislin and Dante’s wedding?’

      ‘All I remember from that wedding is feeling sucker-punched by your reappearance in my life.’

      ‘She looked like she wanted to throttle me.’

      ‘Don’t take it personally. She looks at everyone like that.’ Tonino popped the cap off another beer, removed his sunglasses and looked at her squarely. ‘I’ve known Sophia all my life. She’s a bitch, yes, but she would never hurt you. She’s married now and has a child of her own.’

      ‘Oh.’ She gave a shaky laugh. ‘I suppose I imagined she’d spent the past four years making effigies of me.’

      ‘Put your fears