Modern Romance February 2020 Books 5-8. Natalie Anderson

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      ‘You are possibly the most infuriating man in the world,’ Orla snapped when she opened the front door the next morning.

      Tonino looked at his watch and gave an expression of such innocence that she had to bite her cheeks not to laugh out loud. ‘You told me not to come as early as I did yesterday.’

      ‘So you come half an hour later? Seriously? It’s seven o’clock.’

      ‘And you’re up and dressed and looking beautiful.’ She looked as fresh and as beautiful as the clear blue skies covering Dublin that morning. Dressed in a knee-length leaf-green jersey dress, her hair loose around her shoulders, her pretty green eyes enhanced with a touch of mascara, a brush of colour over the high cheekbones. Fresh, beautiful and damned irresistible.

      One day soon, he vowed, Orla would open a door to him with a smile and greet him with a kiss rather than a scolding.

      Late into the night he’d lain in his bed thinking back over their time together. The more he’d remembered, the more he’d come to understand why the few affairs he’d had since she’d disappeared had fizzled out with barely a whimper. Their affair had hung over him. It had shadowed him doggedly. Seducing Orla into marrying him would allow him to put the shadows to bed in more ways than one. He would have her in his bed and his child permanently in his life. The fact he would never be able to trust her was irrelevant. He didn’t need to trust her. He just needed to marry her, the final step that would prevent her ever disappearing from his life with his son again.

      Finn was in his high chair at the dining table. He greeted Tonino with a smile and a wave.

      ‘I was just feeding Finn his breakfast. Why don’t you make yourself a coffee while we finish up?’ Orla strove to keep her tone polite but she could have cheerfully strangled Tonino. She wished she could say it was some sixth sense that he would turn up stupidly early again that had had her awake before Finn but it hadn’t been. It had been the dream of them, in bed together, that she’d wrenched herself out of that had accomplished that feat. She’d sat straight upright, heart pounding, burning and throbbing on the inside, not knowing if the dream had been a replay of something real or just her subconscious imagination, and dived straight into the shower to wash the burning feeling away.

      She’d cleaned her skin, but her insides…

      Mush. Her insides had been a hot, sticky mush the water couldn’t touch. They were still mush.

      Her hands were shaking. She could barely hold the spoon to feed Finn.

      ‘Coffee?’ Tonino’s deep voice reverberated in her ear.

      ‘No. Thank you. Did you want something to eat?’ She ground her toes into the floor in a futile effort to stop her right knee shaking too. ‘There’s bread and cereal in the cupboard.’

      Dark brown eyes met hers. ‘I had something before I left the hotel.’

      ‘Where are you staying?’

      ‘At Bally House.’

      ‘The hotel?’

       ‘Sì.’

      ‘You lucky thing.’

      ‘You have been there?’

      ‘I wish,’ she said reverently. Bally House Hotel was once a medieval village with its own church and flour mill. A huge renovation undertaken a few years ago had transformed it into Ireland’s premier hotel, the destination of choice for A-list stars to marry in. ‘I tried to talk Aislin into getting married there but she wasn’t having any of it—she was set on marrying in Sicily.’

      ‘We can marry there.’

      ‘We’re not getting married.’

      ‘I am confident that one day soon you will come around to my way of thinking, dolcezza.’

      ‘And I am confident that you are full of misplaced ego. I will not marry you, end of subject.’

      Mercifully, the nurse descended the stairs, cutting the conversation short.

      Less mercifully, the look in Tonino’s eyes told her this was a subject he had no intention of dropping.