Happy Mother's Day!

‘I suppose you could say that I was conditioned from an early age to expect men to cheat.’

‘People make mistakes.’

Puzzled by the odd intensity of his gaze, she nodded. ‘Sure they do; it’s part of being human.’

‘If they are genuinely sorry and regret that mistake, should they not be given a second chance?’

The colour seeped from her face. ‘Was that a confession?’ she asked.

‘I have nothing to confess to.’

Shocked by the discovery that she believed him Erin expelled a long, shaky sigh.

‘I know.’ The relief of being freed from all those doubts was incredible. If Francesco ever cheated he would tell her. He just wasn’t a sneak-around sort of guy.

‘What did you say?’

‘I said that I believe you.’

Francesco searched her face. What he saw there caused his shoulder to relax. Their eyes clung until finally he nodded.

‘Thank you,’ she said, heaving a sigh of relief. ‘God, you must think I’m a real head case.’

When he finally spoke his voice was pitched seductively low and his accent was more strongly defined than usual. ‘No, I don’t think that. I think you are a perfect fit. I would call you a perfect fit.’

Erin drew a shuddery breath as images conjured by his throaty words floated through her head of sweat-coated bodies intimately entwined. As the heat flooded through her body she closed her eyes and thought about him hard inside her, moving. She gritted her teeth and ejected the image forcibly from her mind.

When she opened her eyes he was still looking at her, his expression only marginally less seductive than his velvettoned voice had been—if ever a man had been given a voice designed for making indecent suggestions it was Francesco, she reflected with an inward sigh.

She tried to inject a note of levity to lower the tension. ‘How many times

have you used that line?’

‘You seem to find the truth difficult to cope with, Erin.’

‘You wouldn’t recognise the truth if it bit you,’ she snapped back crankily.

‘The only person who has ever bitten me is you, cara.’ His laugh deepened as the colour flew to her cheeks. ‘You remember the occasion, too, I see.’

‘Dear God, no wonder we never get to work through our issues. It always ends up with us trying to rip each other’s clothes off.’

‘You say that as though it is a problem. And I have no issues.’

She regarded him with frustration. ‘That sort of attitude is why we. Don’t you realise that our marriage has been based on a tissue of lies. Oh, I know lies of omission for the most part, but it amounts to the same thing.

‘First you don’t tell me who you really are, then you don’t even mention Rafe …’ She saw Francesco stiffen at the mention of his brother’s name.

‘I can see why you didn’t tell me about him,’ she admitted. ‘But when you marry someone you can’t be selective about what you tell them and what you don’t. I know that I have my own issues, but can’t you see that knowing you have no problem lying to me when it suits you makes it hard for me to believe you when something happens … and, well … I think I’ve said enough.’

And none of it, she suspected, had been very lucid, but she just hoped she had got her point across.

‘So,’ he said slowly, ‘what you want off me is honesty and straight-talking?’

What I want off you is love. Her eyes fell from his. ‘It would be a start.’

‘That,’ he conceded, ‘does not seem an excessive request.’ He arched a brow. ‘If I don’t deliver on your demands …?’

She was about to say that they weren’t really demands when the plane dropped like a stone for what felt like several thousand feet, but had been, she later learned, less. Erin screamed, and grabbed the side of her chair.