Happy Mother's Day!

‘No!’ he negated harshly. ‘I want to see you come. And I want to see you watching yourself come.’ In heaven’s name, it was the only time she showed any real feeling—the only time she really let go!

‘Gianluca!’ Her legs buckled and she might have fallen had not the hand that was not moving so surely against her panties whipped up to catch her firmly by the waist. And she realised then that he was not going to stop. Not only that, but neither was she. In fact, she was … was … ‘Oh!’ Her head tipped back, her eyes closed and she began to moan softly as she writhed against him.

He waited until he had felt her spasming cease and then he pushed her to the ground, straddling her as he ripped apart her panties with a single rent and her eyes flew open in question.

‘They were brand-new!’ she protested.

‘Then I will buy you another pair,’ he ground out. ‘Only next time I’m going to choose them for you. Something a little more … ah …’ He shook his head distractedly. ‘Aisling! What is it that you do to me? Impazzire o fare i matti!’ She was driving him crazy. Crazy.

Her eyes were ice and fire now—just as she was—her coolness repelling him as much as exciting him. He was able to possess her, but only in the purely physical sense. He watched the thick lashes flutter down as he drove deep inside her and then before he knew it he was welcoming the warm sweetness of his release—knowing that it would free him from her sensual spell. And, damn it—he wanted to be free from it!

They lay there on the floor, still entwined, their clothing in disarray, and Gianluca began to drift off, his hand absently smoothing down her hair as his breathing grew steadier and deeper, and Aisling’s heart felt as if it were going to shatter into a million pieces.

He did that tender stroking stuff after making love because that was what he had been conditioned to do, by nature—just as his hard body now required sleep in order to regain its strength.

In this moment, she had everything and yet she had nothing. All she had ever wanted and yet it felt completely empty. Just the same old one-sided relationship it had always been. She might as well have been back where she started—loving him from afar without daring to let it show.

It didn’t seem to matter if you made a baby between you and got married as a consequence of that—it didn’t change the fundamental facts. And those were that Gianluca simply didn’t feel the same way about her. That this life was a kind of compromise—an

d couldn’t she just accept that?

Because what was the alternative?

Aisling stared up at the ceiling, aware of the slow, steady breathing of the man beside her. Maybe she needed to initiate some kind of change—before she went mad with wanting what she could never have. Or worrying that one day he might find it with someone else.

She shook him gently by the shoulder, her fingers caressing the silk of his skin. ‘Gianluca,’ she said. ‘I want to go back to work as soon as possible.’

‘It’s only a little trip,’ Aisling said as she handed Claudio over to Carmela, and planted yet another kiss on top of his silky black hair. ‘And Paris isn’t far away.’

‘So you come back later today?’ asked the Italian girl quietly.

‘Well, I’ll probably stay overnight because I expect the meeting will run on into dinner.’ Aisling saw Gianluca come out of his study, carrying a sheath of papers which looked suspiciously like a contract, and raise his eyebrows at her in question. ‘I’ll catch a flight back first thing.’ She stared at her husband, looking so handsome and yet so impossibly forbidding. ‘If that’s okay?’

‘I think we might just be able to cope without you.’ He shot her a mocking black glance. ‘Tell me, cara, haven’t I seen that suit somewhere before?’

Aisling blushed. It was the one she had been trying on. The one.

She had managed to squeeze into it and had expressed enough breast milk for Claudio to be given in her absence, along with a long list of instructions for Carmela about what to do if he wouldn’t settle—and for her or Gianluca to ring her immediately if anything went wrong.

But there was no phone call—and while she was pleased that they hadn’t had to call her, she found herself feeling strangely disappointed, too. Was she so expendable, then? Didn’t Gianluca think that she might like to hear an account of the baby’s day while she was in a different country—or didn’t he care? Silly Aisling. Of course he didn’t.

She arrived to a chilly Paris and found it hard to settle during her meetings. Worse, she had little appetite for the delicious restaurant lunch she was taken to in the arts et metiers district. In fact, all she wanted to do was to whip out little photos of Claudio and show them round.

Was he missing her? she wondered. Was he doing that little thing he did when he’d just been fed—of lying on his back and kicking his darling little feet in the air? Gianluca always said one day he would become a striker for one of the top Italian clubs—while she had argued that he would be much better playing for an English side. Until they’d both decided that maybe football was a risky career for such a talented child.

But thinking like that didn’t help matters. It made her imagine an unimaginable future and ache with an odd kind of emptiness.

Stupidly, she found herself wishing she were back in her beautiful house with her beautiful baby—watching her beautiful man. Suddenly, she remembered how gentle Il Tigre could be. A strong man who could cradle a baby with infinite tenderness. Her heart turned over.

What wouldn’t she give for Gianluca to be missing her, too?

By mid-afternoon, she still hadn’t heard from them and she rang the house, but there was no answer. She tried Gianluca’s phone, but it just went straight through to voicemail and she left several messages asking him to call.

By late afternoon, she was frantic. Frantic enough to cut short her meeting and to cancel dinner and her hotel room and catch an early flight back to Perugia.

An empty stomach and self-doubt made her imagination work overtime. Claudio was sick. Gianluca had taken this opportunity to have the locks changed so she couldn’t get in! Gianluca had gone off with another woman! She had neglected her child by zooming off to the French capital and he would make her pay. And even though the rational side of her brain told her that these were crazy thoughts without foundation—that didn’t make them seem any less real.

She had to switch her phone off during the flight, but by the time they landed and she switched it back on again a text had come through from Gianluca saying, rather cryptically: ‘We’re fine—what’s the panic?’