Still that curious echo. Keira frowned. Shouldn’t she just agree to see him once and get it over with? Steel her heart against her own foolish desires and listen to what he had to say? ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘We’ll put an appointment in the diary.’
‘Now,’ he bit out.
‘What do you mean...now?’
‘I want to see you now,’ he growled.
‘Matteo, you’re in Italy and I’m in England and unless you’ve discovered the secret of teleportation, that’s not going to happen.’
‘I’m downstairs.’
She froze. ‘What did you say?’
‘I’m downstairs.’ The echo began to get louder. ‘Coming up.’
Her heart slamming against her ribcage, Keira rushed from the nursery to see Matteo with his mobile phone held against his ear, making his way up the stairs towards her. His face was more serious than she’d ever seen it as he cut the connection and slid the phone into the pocket of his jeans.
‘Hi,’ he said, the casual greeting failing to hide the tension and the pain which were written across his ravaged features.
She wanted to do several things all at once. To drum her fists against his powerful chest, over and over again. And she wanted to pull his darkly handsome face to hers and kiss him until there was no breath left in her body.
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded.
‘I need to speak to you.’
‘Did you have to go about it so dramatically? You scared me half to death!’ She looked at him suspiciously. ‘You don’t have a key, do you?’
‘I don’t,’ he agreed.
‘So how did you get in?’
‘Claudia let me in before she left.’
‘Claudia let you in?’ she repeated furiously. ‘Why would she do something like that?’
‘Because I asked her to.’
‘A
nd what you say goes, I suppose, because you’re the one with the money,’ she said contemptuously.
‘No.’ He sucked in a ragged breath. ‘I’m the one with the broken heart.’
It was such an unbelievable thing for him to say that Keira assumed she’d misheard him, and she was too busy deciding that they needed to move out of Santino’s earshot in case they woke him to pay very much attention to her husband’s words. ‘You’d better come with me,’ she said.
Matteo followed the denim-covered sway of her bottom as they went downstairs, watching her long black ponytail swinging against her back with every determined stride she took. Her body language wasn’t looking promising and neither was her attitude. But what had he expected—that she would squeal with delight when she saw him again? Welcome him into the embrace he had so missed—as if that whole great betrayal had never happened? His throat thickened. He had tried playing it slow and playing by her rules but he’d realised she would be prepared to push him away for ever if he let her.
And he couldn’t afford to let her.
They reached a beautiful, high-ceilinged sitting room dominated by a tall Christmas tree, which glittered in front of one of the tall windows. Fragrant and green, it was covered with lights and tiny stars and on the top stood an angel with gossamer-fine wings. A heap of presents with ribbons and bows stood at the base of the giant conifer and Matteo thought it looked so homely. And yet he wasn’t connected to any of it, was he? He was still the outsider. The motherless boy who had never really felt part of Christmas.
So what are you going to do about it, Valenti? he asked himself as she turned to face him and they stood looking at one another like two combatants.
‘You wanted to talk,’ she said, without preamble. ‘So talk. Why did you sneak into my house like this?’
‘You’ve been ignoring my letters.’
She nodded and the glossy black ponytail danced around her shoulders. ‘I told you I wanted to keep all written communication between our respective solicitors.’