The Italian's Christmas Secret

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.