An Innocent, A Seduction, A Secret. Эбби Грин

Christmas was around the corner and the decorations were up in earnest.

      Sebastio passed women in expensive furs and men in bespoke suits and overcoats, much like his own.

      He pulled up his collar against the chill and was oblivious to the appreciative looks he drew from a group of women standing outside a shop. He crossed the street, avoiding a particularly garish Christmas tree surrounded by singers in period costume belting out tuneless carols.

      He loathed Christmas for too many reasons to count, and for the past three years had escaped it by going to parts of the world where Christmas wasn’t celebrated so much. One year he’d gone to Africa, another year to India. Last year he’d spent it in Bangkok.

      That first year—after the accident had happened—Christmas had been a blur of grief, guilt and pain so acute that Sebastio hadn’t been sure he would come out the other side.

      But he had. And this year he was here in London, in the hub of Christmas mania. Because the truth was that he didn’t deserve a free pass to escape. And, more pertinently because the Rivas bank had just opened its European headquarters here. He had been advised to make the most of the festive season by hosting a series of important social functions which would secure his place in English and European society.

      It had even been suggested that he should decorate his house, where he was intending hosting these seasonal social functions, but the thought of being surrounded by trees and baubles and blinking lights made him feel so claustrophobic that he’d tuned out that particular advice.

      He was passing the windows of one of the most famous department stores in the world now, and an ornate sign hung in the window, in front of red velvet drapes.

       The famous Marrotts festive windows will be revealed this weekend!

       Happy Christmas!

      A couple of small children were trying to peer in between a small gap in the curtains, giggling before being led away by their parents.

      Sebastio felt a shaft of pain so intense that he almost stopped dead in the street. If not for the accident, Victor and Maya’s daughter would now be...

      He shook his head to dislodge the thought and instinctively moved away from the main thoroughfare, ducking down a side street. He cursed the reporter again for having precipitated this avalanche of memories.

      At that moment Sebastio turned his head and realised he was passing another of those famous windows, but this time the red velvet drapes were partially open.

      He came to a reluctant standstill on the quiet pavement as the scene in the window snagged his attention. It was a magical fairy forest, with branches opening into hidden worlds and little faces and eyes peeping out. Fairies, goblins...

      In spite of himself, Sebastio was momentarily captivated. It was Christmassy, but...not. It tugged on a memory deep in the recesses of his mind. An uncomfortable reminder that he hadn’t always hated Christmas.

      He’d had an English grandmother, and his parents had used to leave Sebastio with her every Christmas while they went on holiday. Those Christmases had been magical. His grandmother had taken him to West End shows. They’d decorated the house, watched movies, played games. All the things he’d never done with his parents because they had been too busy either having affairs, fighting or indulging in lavish reunion holidays.

      Sebastio had used to dread their return, and he could remember one year clinging to his grandmother in tears, his father pulling him away roughly...

      His grandmother had died not long after that, and they hadn’t even come back to England for her funeral. Sometimes Sebastio had wondered if he’d made it up. So starved of affection by his parents that he’d concocted a benevolent loving grandmother like some pathetic fairytale...

      As time had passed it had seemed more and more like a fantasy because no subsequent Christmas had ever been like those idyllic ones he remembered. And so he’d blocked them out and convinced himself that he hated Christmas, because he knew he would never experience anything close to that magic again and to want it was a weakness.

      He saw movement, and followed it to see a woman standing at one side of the display. She had her hands on her hips and her head cocked to one side as she looked up to where a young man was hanging a glittering star on the branch of a tree. They must still be dressing the window.

      She shouldn’t have snagged his attention. She had her back to him and she was dressed in plain black trousers, a long-sleeved black top and flat shoes. He saw her shake her head, her shining cap of short hair glinting auburn in the lights. Then she bent down and picked up something else—another decoration—and handed it up to the man on the stepladder. As she reached up, her top rode high to reveal a taut pale belly and slim waist.

      A beat of something pulsed to life in Sebastio’s blood. Awareness. Arousal. For a moment he almost didn’t recognise it, it had been so long since he’d felt it. Nearly four years. He welcomed it as an antidote to the bitter memories.

      Then, as if sensing his attention on her, the woman slowly turned around. Sebastio wasn’t prepared for the kick to his solar plexus when he saw her revealed. She was stunning. Huge eyes framed by arching dark brows. Defined cheekbones and a lush mouth set off dramatically by her short hair, slightly longer at the front and feathering messily around her face.

      It gave her a delicate gamine appeal that sent a definite surge of desire through Sebastio’s body. It confounded him. Being so tall and big himself, he’d always gravitated towards statuesque women. This one looked as if a puff of wind would blow her over. And yet he could sense an inner strength. Crazy when she was a total stranger, with a thick pane of glass separating them.

      The woman was staring at Sebastio with an arrested expression. For a moment their eyes locked. Hers were deep blue, but even from here he could see the long lashes. And then, as if waking from a trance, she stalked over and dragged the drapes shut, leaving Sebastio looking back at his own distorted features in the glass.

      He had the strangest sensation of déjà-vu—as if he had seen her somewhere before. But the feeling was too ephemeral to pin down.

      He was stunned. No woman had ignited his interest or his desire so forcibly and immediately in four years. Not that anyone would believe it. Sebastio was a master of misdirection—covering up his flatlining libido with a series of high-profile dates that never went beyond a kiss. His reputation as a skilled lover and a connoisseur of beautiful women served as a smokescreen he used willingly.

      He thought of the display in the window again. It had effortlessly captured his attention, taking him unawares, which was unusual when he had such an aversion to Christmas. He thought of the advice he’d been given to decorate his home and something occurred to him...

      That woman might have sparked his libido back to life, but he needed her for something far more practical.

      Sebastio went back the way he’d come and turned the corner into the main street, thronged with people. He saw the main doors of the shop and strode towards them purposefully.

      * * *

      Edie Munroe was standing looking at the closed drapes like someone who’d been hypnotised. Or hit over the head. She’d never in a million years expected to see that guy again and yet...she just had.

      And it had struck her today as forcibly as it had four years ago, when she’d first laid eyes on him in a crowded nightclub in Edinburgh.

      It couldn’t be him, she told herself now, feeling her skin rise into goosebumps. It couldn’t be Sebastio Rivas.

      The fact that she even remembered his name was not welcome.

      What were the chances it was him? It had to be someone who looked liked him. After all, Sebastio Rivas was a mega-famous international rugby star. What on earth would he be doing walking down a random side-street in London?

      But her accelerated heart-rate told her it was him.

      It was galling to be