The Mills & Boon Christmas Wishes Collection. Maisey Yates

it was only her pride that was prompting her to make the effort. After all, a male as sophisticated as Vito Sorrentino wouldn’t look at her anyway, she thought with a squirming pang of guilty disappointment. Why on earth was she thinking about him that way?

      And thinking about Vito that way put her back in mind of Ritchie, which was unfortunate. But it also reminded her that she hadn’t taken her pill yet and she dug into her bag to remedy that, only to discover that she had left them at home. As to why a virgin was taking contraceptive precautions, she and Pixie both did on a ‘better safe than sorry’ basis. Both of their mothers had messed up their lives with early unplanned pregnancies and neither Holly nor Pixie wanted to run the same risk.

      Of course a couple of years back Holly had had different and more romantic expectations. She had fondly imagined that she would eventually meet a man who would sweep her away on a tide of passion and she had believed that she had to protect herself in the face of such temptation. Sadly, nothing any boyfriend had yet made her feel could have fallen into a category that qualified as being swept away. Since then Holly had wondered if there was a distinct possibility that she herself simply wasn’t a very passionate woman. Still, Holly reasoned wryly, there was nothing wrong with living in hope, was there?

      Somehow Vito had been fully expecting Holly to reappear with a full face of make-up. Instead she appeared with her face rosy and apparently untouched, his sweater drooping round her in shapeless, bulky folds, her tiny feet bare. And Vito almost laughed out loud in appreciation and relief. What remained of his innate wariness was evaporating fast because no woman he had ever yet met could possibly have put less effort into trying to attract him than Holly. Before his engagement and even since it he had been targeted so often by predatory women that he had learned to be guarded in his behaviour around females, both inside and outside working hours. His rare smile flashed across his lean, strong face.

      Holly collided involuntarily with molten gold eyes enhanced by thick black lashes and then that truly heart-stopping smile that illuminated his darkly handsome features, and her heart not only bounced in her chest but also skipped an entire beat in reaction. She came to an abrupt halt, her fingers dropping from her rucksack. ‘Do you want me to make something to eat?’ she offered shakily, struggling to catch her breath.

      ‘No, thanks. I ate before you arrived,’ Vito drawled lazily, watching her shrug back the sweater so that it didn’t slip too low at the front. No, she really wasn’t trying to pull him and he was captivated as he so rarely was by a woman.

      ‘Then you won’t mind if I eat? I brought supper with me,’ she explained, moving past him towards the kitchen.

      She’s not even going to try to entertain me, Vito reflected, positively rapt in admiration in receipt of that clear demonstration of indifference.

      When had he become so arrogant that he expected every young woman he came into contact with to make a fuss of him and a play for him?

      It wasn’t arrogance, he reasoned squarely. He was as rich as Midas and well aware that that was the main reason for his universal appeal. He poured Holly a fresh glass of wine and carried it into the kitchen for her. She closed the oven, wool stretching to softly define her heart-shaped derrière.

      ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ he heard himself enquire, seemingly before his brain had formed the question, while his attention was still lodged on the sweater that both concealed and revealed her lush curves.

      ‘No. As of today I have an ex,’ Holly told him. ‘You?’

      ‘I’m single.’ Vito lounged back against the kitchen island, the fine fabric of his pants pulling taut to define long, muscular thighs and...the noticeable masculine bulge at his crotch. Heat surging into her cheeks, Holly dragged her straying attention off him and stared down at her wine. Since when had she looked at a man there? Her breath was snarled up in her throat and her entire body felt super sensitive.

      ‘What happened today?’ Vito probed.

      ‘I caught Ritchie having sex with his receptionist on his lunch break,’ Holly told him in a rush before she could think better of that humiliating admission. Unfortunately looking at Vito had wrecked her composure to such an extent that she barely knew what she was saying any more.

       CHAPTER THREE

      IN RECEIPT OF that startling confession, Vito had the most atrocious desire to laugh, but he didn’t want to hurt Holly’s feelings. Her cheeks had gone all pink again and her eyes were evasive as if that confession had simply slipped accidentally from her lips. He breathed in deep. ‘Tough. What did you do?’

      ‘Told him what I thought of him in one sentence, walked out again.’ Holly tilted her chin, anger darkening her blue eyes as she remembered the scene she had interrupted. ‘I hate liars and cheats.’

      ‘I’m shockingly well behaved in that line. Too busy working,’ Vito countered, relieved that she had not a clue about the scandal that had persuaded him to leave Florence and even less idea of who he was. In recent days he had been forced to spend way too much time in the company of people too polite to say what they thought but not too polite to stare at him and whisper. Anonymity suddenly had huge appeal. He finally felt that he could relax.

      ‘So, why are you staying here all alone?’ Holly asked, sipping her wine, grateful he had glossed over her gaffe about Ritchie without further comment.

      ‘Burnout. I needed a break from work.’ Vito gave her the explanation he had already decided on in the shower. ‘Obviously I wasn’t expecting weather like this.’

      He was unusually abstracted, however, ensnared by the manner in which the blue of his sweater lit up her luminous eyes. He was also wondering how she could possibly look almost irresistibly cute in an article of his clothing when the thick wool draped her tiny body like a blanket and only occasionally hinted at the treasures that lay beneath. What was the real secret of her appeal? he was asking himself in bewilderment, even though the secret was right in front of him. She had a wonderfully feminine shape, amazing eyes and a torrent of dark hair that tumbled round her shoulders in luxuriant loose curls. But what was most different about Holly was that she was genuine as so few people dared to be. She put on no show and said nothing for effect; indeed she followed a brand of candour that was blunt to the point of embarrassing.

      ‘Why are you staring at me?’ Holly asked baldly, straightening her spine and squaring her little shoulders for all the world as though she was bracing herself for him to say something critical.

      ‘Am I?’ Vito fielded, riveting dark eyes brimming with amusement as he straightened to leave the kitchen. ‘Sorry... I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.’

      He was setting up a games console when Holly joined him with her plate of savoury snacks. ‘I thought I’d have a game,’ he told her, ‘but perhaps you would rather watch TV—’

      ‘No, what game is it?’

      It was a war game Holly knew well. ‘I’ll play you,’ she told him.

      Vito shot her a startled glance. ‘You play?’

      ‘Of course I do. Every foster family had a console and you learned to play with the other kids to fit in,’ she pointed out wryly.

      ‘Dio mio...how many different families did you live with?’

      ‘I never counted but there were a lot of them. I’d get settled somewhere and then someone somewhere would decide I should have another go at bonding with my mother, and I’d be shot back to her again for a few months.’

      Vito was frowning as he set up the game. ‘Your mother was still alive?’

      ‘Just not a good parent. It never worked out with her,’ Holly completed wryly, keen to gloss over the facts with as little detail as possible while she watched Vito, lean hips flexing down into powerful thighs as he bent down.

      From her position kneeling on the floor, she could admire the fluidity of his long-fingered