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PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE ANNIE rubbed her eyes. Well shaped and an intense shade of almost violet-blue, with thick long eyelashes, they were eyes any woman could be proud of—if they hadn’t been aching with tiredness and feeling as though they were filled with grit. She lifted her hand, its wrist so slender that it looked dangerously fragile, pushing the heavy weight of her shoulder-length, naturally blonde and softly curling hair off her face. Normally she wore it scraped back in a neat knot, but Ollie had grabbed it earlier when she had been giving him his bath, and in the end it had been easier to leave it down. She loved her baby so much. He meant everything to her, and there was nothing she wouldn’t do to protect him and keep him safe. Nothing. She had been reading all evening. Part-time freelance research work didn’t pay very well—certainly not as well as her previous job, which had been working as a researcher for a novelist turned playwright. Tom had paid her very well indeed, and he and his
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO SACKED. She had been sacked because a hotel guest had—shock, horror—had to touch her. The hotel receptionist had obviously reported the incident, and a complaint had then been made to the firm that employed her. Her manager had been waiting for her when she had returned with the other workers to the depot, to give her the news. As a part timer she had no comeback. She was now out of a job. It was supposed to be summer, but the morning’s bright sunshine had now gone and it had started to rain. As she stepped out into the street Annie hunched into her raincoat—a good-quality trenchcoat that belonged to her previous life, a life before the death of her mother and the birth of her son. She was twenty-four years old, she reminded herself. Far too old to cry because she was alone and vulnerable and desperately worried about how she was going to hold everything together without her cleaning job. The city streets were busy now, and she didn’t want to be late collecting Ollie from h
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE TRUE to his word, Falcon Leopardi had arrived at the flat early in the morning to collect her and Ollie in the chauffeur-driven car he had hired. He had taken them to Harvey Nichols, where they had spent over an hour and more money than Annie liked to think about equipping Ollie with suitable clothes and a large amount of baby equipment for his new life. Now, surveying what looked like a positive mountain of small garments, Annie felt guilty. She had been enjoying herself so much, choosing everything for him. ‘I’m sorry.’ She apologised to Falcon. ‘I’ve chosen far too much, and it’s all so expensive. Perhaps we should think again?’ ‘I shall be the judge of what is and is not expensive—and we don’t have time for second thoughts. You still have your own wardrobe to attend to—although, I imagine that is something you can do far more comfortably without my presence.’ He pushed back the cuff of his suit jacket—a habit of his, Annie had noticed. In a different suit this morning
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR THE heat of the Sicilian night wrapped round them like a moist blanket when they left the plane, and by the time they reached the waiting car Annie, in her heavy clothes, was drenched with perspiration. ‘Rocco.’ Falcon greeted the brother who was waiting for them with obvious affection and warmth, and the two men exchanged fierce hugs before Falcon somehow managed to catch hold of her arm before she could stop him, to draw her forward to be introduced to the tall, good-looking man standing alongside the waiting Mercedes. She expected him to shake her hand, but instead he hugged her, enveloping her in an embrace which oddly did not have anything like the effect on her that being held by Falcon had. He then admired Ollie, picking him up out of his buggy with such obvious expertise that all Annie’s maternal fears were immediately soothed. He made her son smile widely as he held him high in the air with an expert male care that said that Rocco was familiar with the needs of a
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE ANNIE grimaced to herself as she felt her body’s reluctance to return to the heavy and uncomfortable constriction of her own clothes, washed and returned by Maria, after the freedom of wearing lighter things for two full days. The only occupants of the castello were the old Prince, Falcon and the servants—so surely it was safe enough for her to continue to wear her new clothes? Playing with Ollie in a shady part of the garden, she had actually felt so safe that she had even removed her wrap top. Rocco’s wife’s words had gone a long way to reassure her that she could trust Falcon, and had boosted her confidence in her own judgement. Once she had settled in properly, Julie had promised, she would take her round and show her something of the island. She’d said how delighted she was that Josh, her nephew—now her and Rocco’s adopted son—would have another child to play with. ‘It’ll be lovely to have another woman with whom I’ve so much in common so close,’ Julie had told her wa
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX WITH him as her guide and teacher? Did that mean what she thought it meant? Annie’s heart started to thud unsteadily. ‘Give me your hand,’ Falcon demanded. Reluctantly Annie held out her hand, stiffening when he took it and held it between his own. ‘Five minutes ago you said to me, “What man these days wants a woman like me? A single mother, who doesn’t know the first thing about how to give and receive sexual pleasure, or what it’s like to enjoy sex.” I believe that deep down inside you do want to take back to yourself what has been stolen from you, and that you do want to walk free as a sexually confident and happy woman. Isn’t that so?’ ‘I don’t know,’ Annie answered uncertainly. Her heart was racing. She felt as though she was confronting something she knew to be dangerous but that she also found enticing and exciting. ‘Yes, you do,’ Falcon corrected her. ‘You love Oliver, and you know that ultimately, in order to give him the right to grow up confident in his own sexua
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN ‘I’VE been thinking,’ Falcon announced, leaning forward across the wrought iron table on the terrace, where they’d been sitting, drinking a pre-dinner aperitif. He had arrived back from Florence just over half an hour ago. Annie had seen him drive up to the castello and then into the paved courtyard. She had watched him uncurl his lean height and muscular shoulders from his car, and then reach back inside it to gather up his suit jacket and a small laptop case, hooking the jacket over his shoulder before mounting the flight of marble steps that led up to the main entrance of the castello. His shirt had been unfastened at the throat, just by one button, but the brilliance of the late-afternoon sun had struck through his shirt so clearly that she could almost have traced the dark shadowing of male body hair that crossed his chest and bisected his flat six-pack. There was something very sensually male about that dark shadowing. Something so strongly intimate that it had set
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT ANNIE had had a full tour of Falcon’s apartment, and was genuinely impressed, and filled with admiration for everything about it—especially the double-height floor-to-ceiling glass wall of the living room and the master bedroom. ‘There are no curtains,’ she had commented in surprise. She had noticed this lack as she and Falcon had stood side by side, looking out across the clifftop to the sea beyond. Falcon had insisted on holding Ollie, who had been grizzling a little bit—preparatory, Annie thought, to cutting a new tooth. He had smiled widely with delight the minute Falcon had taken him in his arms. ‘No, this corner of the castello, very private,’ Falcon had agreed. ‘I like the freedom of lying in bed and watching the night sky—just as I like the freedom of being able to walk naked around my own personal space, and swim naked in my pool. They are simple pleasures, but very meaningful to those who cherish them. There is nothing to compare with the cloak of the night sky
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE ‘IT IS so lovely having you and Ollie living here, Annie. Sometimes I have to pinch myself in case I’m dreaming. I feel I’ve been so lucky.’ Annie nodded her head and tried to look as though she was paying proper attention to what Julie was saying as the two of them sat drinking tea and watching their babies playing happily together on the shaded patio of Rocco’s beautiful mansion. The reality, though, was that she was finding it next to impossible to drag her thoughts away from the intoxicating and guilty pleasure of reliving over and over again the events of two nights ago, when she had woken up in the velvet darkness to find herself in bed with Falcon. Still buoyed up with the sweet physical satisfaction of her earlier orgasm, and the emotional high of feeling that she had finally broken free of her imprisonment and celebrated her sexuality, she had been filled with unfamiliar confidence and happiness. It was those feelings, she felt sure, that had somehow led to her no
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN THEY were within sight of the castello when a taxi coming away from it passed them on the road, causing Annie to feel a fierce spiral of joyous anticipation, and the hope that it meant that Falcon had returned earlier than planned. But after Rocco’s driver had dropped her off, she asked Maria if Falcon was back, and the housekeeper shook her head and said that no, the taxi had brought a visitor—the second that afternoon—for the Prince. She grumbled that she suspected Falcon knew nothing of these two visits, and that she hoped that two visitors in one day would not be too much for the elderly man. Nodding her head, Annie was more concerned about the danger of her disappointed reaction to the fact that the taxi had not brought Falcon back to the castello, than curious about the Prince’s visitors. Now, having fed and changed Ollie, she was walking round the enclosed courtyard garden adjacent to the terrace with him. He lay back in his buggy enjoying the warmth of the late-afte
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN WHY was being in Falcon’s bed tonight so very different from last night? Annie wondered miserably, as she lay alone. It was over an hour since Falcon had suggested that she must be tired—only to tell her that he had some work to finish the minute she had agreed that she was, but that she should go ahead and go to bed. In that time she had showered and dried herself and curled up in the large bed, her heart pounding with excitement and love, her body on fire with intoxicated longing and desire, but Falcon had not come to join her. Now he was in the bathroom, where he had been for what seemed like for ever, and the unwelcome and unwanted thought was creeping over her that Falcon might be delaying coming to bed because he was hoping that she would be asleep when he joined her. After all, she was the one who had asked to sleep with him, not the other way round. But the last time he had been in bed with her he had wanted her. Had he? Or had he simply been doing what he had pr
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EPILOGUE
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