The Last Heir of Monterrato

‘And yours would be non-existent.’

It was a cruel jibe and Lottie could feel the heat of it slash across her cheeks. But she wasn’t going to take it back; he deserved it.

‘Touché.’

He owned the few dark seconds of silence and Lottie felt increasingly bad with each one that passed.

‘So we are both in the same situation. And that has to be all the more reason to make the right decision now.’

Lottie placed her cup back down on the table. He had an answer for everything, didn’t he? Except Seraphina. He never wanted to talk about their baby daughter. Well, now she was going to make him.

She sucked in a deep, empowering breath. ‘Do you ever think about Seraphina?’ The out-breath of words whistled between them like a bullet. And she knew her aim had been sure by the immediate clench of Rafael’s jaw.

‘Of course I do.’ His voice was sharp but he still couldn’t hide the emotion behind it. Neither could the shuttered look in his eyes that were fixed on her face. ‘How can you even ask such a question? Seraphina was my baby too, in case you’ve forgotten.’

The vulnerability had gone, immediately replaced with the more familiar animosity, but she had caught a glimpse of it—heard him say her name. Seraphina. Spoken with that beautiful Italian intonation. It was all she could do not to ask him to repeat it, over and over again, until she was full to the brim with it.

She looked down from his injured face to the hand that was resting on his muscular thigh, the back of it crisscrossed with the scars and scratches from his accident, reminding her yet again just what he had been through.

Impulse made her reach towards it, tentatively rest her own pale hand over the top of it. ‘Maybe I have. I’m sorry.’

The connection between them was immediate, tingling with the sharp pinpricks of recalled intimacy, until Rafael quickly pulled away, running the same hand through his hair as if to cleanse himself of her. He moved slightly in his seat as he took control again.

‘I know we can never replace Seraphina, nor would we want to, but there is nothing to stop us having a healthy child, Lottie. I want you to understand that.’

‘Rafe...’

‘Just imagine, Lottie...a year from now we could be parents. We can make this happen—I know we can.’

‘You don’t know that.’ Trying to hang on to the last vestiges of sanity, Lottie challenged him. ‘Even if I agreed to the embryo transplantation there is nothing to say that it will work.’

‘But there is one certainty.’ His commanding voice was very low. ‘If we don’t try we will never know.’

Suddenly the room was stiflingly hot, its silence only broken by the hiss and rustle of the logs settling down on the fire. With the intensity of Rafael’s dark eyes boring into her Lottie felt the heat sweep through her body, softening her bones, melting away the layers of resolve that had settled comfortably over her like a blanket of snow.

Could she say yes? Rafael somehow made the decision sound so straightforward. He made everything seem possible. But then he had no thought or care for the life she had made for herself in England. Built up so painstakingly, brick by brick, from the demolition rubble of their marriage. She had finally reached the stage where she felt financially stable and emotionally settled. Most of the time anyway.

Could she really take this enormous gamble and throw caution, common sense and self-preservation to the wind? Hurl them up into the blue sky and watch to see where they fell? The same blue sky that Rafael had fallen from, that had brought her here in the first place.

It was so tempting.

Rafael waited, as if sensing that words were no longer needed. So close now she could feel the soft whisper of his breath against her face, feel herself weakening beneath the unbearable scrutiny of his gaze and the lethal, sensual intoxication of his nearness.

Sitting up very straight, she pushed back her shoulders and mirrored his penetrating stare. This was her decision and she was going to make it.

‘Right, I have made up my mind.’

The answering flash in Rafael’s eyes was so intense that she had to blink against it, her mouth suddenly dry with the cotton wool words.

‘My answer is yes. I will do it.’

CHAPTER THREE

THERE WAS A long second of astonishment. Then, jerking back to life, Rafael clasped Lottie’s hands in his, squeezing them tightly in his strong grasp.

‘You mean it?’ He angled his head to see her face better, to make sure he had understood correctly.

‘Yes.’

‘You agree to using our frozen embryo?’