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The beautiful redhead writhed against the sheets.

“Do it to me, Giovanni,” she urged, as she touched herself. “Do it to me, baby.”

Giovanni froze in the act of unbuttoning his shirt. What the hell was he doing here? He stared at the naked beauty, knowing he didn’t want her.

“I’ve made a mistake,” he told her bitterly.

Outside, he stared up at an ink-black sky dotted with stars.

Every problem had a solution.

The question was whether he had the courage to use it.

He made himself wait until he was certain and the memory of the naked redhead had been erased from his mind. Then, that sleepless night, he climbed into his car and began the long drive to Cornwall.

A sound woke her.

In her remote cottage, Misty was used to hearing the caw of birds and the distant crash of the waves, but this sound was different. She looked at her watch and frowned. Three a.m.

Who was driving at this time of night?

Pulling on a velvet robe, she crept downstairs just as a car pulled up and there was a soft knock on the door. Her heart began to thunder even before she heard the distinctive voice.

“Misty?”

There was no point in playing games by ignoring him. She didn’t want to wake Dom.

She opened the door, steeling her heart against the tall figure sillhouetted in the doorway — but she could do nothing to prevent its painful flutter of joy when she saw his shadowed face. “What are you doing here, Gio?” she whispered.

“Are you going to let me in?”

“What if I say no?”

“Go on. Say it then,” he challenged, his eyes flinty in the moonlight.

Wordlessly, she pulled the door open and he stepped past her — strong, warm and virile. Her instinct was to touch him but she fought it. Give me strength, she prayed.

Giovanni walked into the tiny room where the embers of the fire still glowed. One of Dominic’s drawings hung on the wall and there was a book open on the window seat.

It looked...

Giovanni swallowed. It looked like home.

He turned around. Her hair was loose and she wore blue velvet. Like a medieval painting come to life.

“Why are you here?” she questioned steadily.

“Why do you think?” He stared into her eyes and his heart turned over. What a fool he had been. “I miss you,” he said softly.

Again, she steeled herself. She had to. “I’d be flattered if I thought there weren’t other housekeepers just as capable as me,” Misty answered coolly, “who can make your coffee the way you like it.”

He stared at her incredulously. “Coffee? Madre di Dio! You think I’ve driven all this way to talk about coffee?”

“Is it the sex then?” she questioned. “Well, I’m sure the number of women waiting to step into my shoes on the sexual front is even greater.” She made herself ask the question. “How many women since me, Giovanni?”

“None.” There was a pause as Giovanni recognized that how he answered this was important. That only total honesty would do. “Other women don’t work for me, anymore,” he admitted softly. “For the first time in my life I can only think about one...and that woman is you.”

She bent to throw a log on the dying embers and then blew gently on the fire to start the blaze again. She wanted to believe him — so much — but she didn’t dare let herself. For this time, Misty had much more to lose than her heart.

“You only want me because you haven’t got me,” she said quietly as she straightened up to meet his searching gaze. “I’m just another acquisition on the wish list of a man who has almost everything. Once you’ve got me, you’ll get restless and want to move on. It’s the way you are — it’s the secret of your success, Giovanni.”

“But that is where you’re wrong, cara mia. Nothing is the same now you’re gone.” He had spent his life building fortunes and defying odds, but putting these feelings into words felt like the biggest mountain he’d ever had to climb. To survive as a child he’d learned to put up emotional barriers — which couldn’t just come tumbling down overnight. He swallowed. “It felt so warm and easy when you were around, Misty. Everything is cold and empty now.”

Her long hair shimmered as she gestured around her. “But I’ve built up a good life here. Dominic’s happy at the local school and I have a job working at the local craft shop and I’m good at it. I don’t need you, anymore, Gio, don’t you see that?”

“I don’t want you to need me,” he said softly. “I want you to want me — the way that I want you.” His black eyes burned into her. “Do you want me, Misty? Because that’s the only question that matters.”

It was one of those defining moments.

She could turn him away and her life would be safe...yet Misty recognized it would also be empty and forever filled with an aching regret.

Or she could grab this unexpected chance of happiness, and take the risk that everyone had to take when they fell in love.

“Of course I want you,” she whispered. “But I’m scared.”

He laughed as he pulled her into his arms, closing his eyes as he breathed in the sweet scent of her hair. “You think I’m not? It’s the reason I behaved so stupidly,” he murmured. “But I recognize now that it’s a healthy kind of scared. Like the first time you jump into water out of your depth — as long as you can swim, you’ll be just fine.” He tilted her chin and moved his lips close to hers. “Can you swim, Misty?”

She wound her arms around his neck. “Like a fish,” she smiled, as she turned her face to his.

He bent and captured her mouth in a long kiss and in seconds she was trembling, robbed of everything but her desire for him.

“Gio?” she whispered unsteadily, as the flickering flames illuminated his dark features.

“Ssssh,” he commanded, slipping the velvet robe from her bare shoulders. “Come here while I claim you.”

“Th-that’s a very old-fashioned thing to say,” she stumbled.

He cupped her breast and touched his lips to it. “Sometimes old-fashioned is best.”

And Misty wasn’t going to argue with that.

The End



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