The Doctor's Runaway Bride. Sarah Morgan

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СКАЧАТЬ am not going back to Italy with you, Luca.’

      ‘You still haven’t told me why you left Italy in the first place,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I can’t believe that you changed your mind at the last minute. If you had doubts, why didn’t you discuss them with me? Dio, I went up to your room and found everything gone. How did you think I felt?’

      Remembering just what had made her leave in such a hurry, she looked at him without sympathy. ‘I expect it damaged your ego.’

      He muttered under his breath and gave her an impatient glance. ‘Tia, I left the need to protect my ego behind in childhood, but I would be less than human if the unexplained disappearance of my bride-to-be—my pregnant bride to be—didn’t disconcert me somewhat.’

      ‘I thought you’d be pleased that I’d gone,’ she mumbled, rubbing her toe on the kitchen floor and refusing to look at him. Having him so close was unsettling to say the least. She couldn’t look at the man without remembering how they’d been together…

      ‘I wasn’t pleased,’ he said softly, his Italian accent suddenly very pronounced as he accentuated every syllable.

      She lifted her chin, her expression defiant. ‘If you missed me so badly, if you were really that worried, why didn’t you follow me straight away?’

      He tensed and hesitated for only the briefest moment. ‘There were complications,’ he muttered finally. ‘Things I needed to sort out.’

      Luisa.

      Tia turned away, hiding her hurt, but knowing that she’d done the right thing not to marry him. She didn’t want to be anyone’s second choice.

      ‘You haven’t told me why you changed your mind.’

      ‘I—I had second thoughts,’ she said honestly, flicking her hair back and looking him straight in the eye. ‘I suddenly realised that there were so many things I didn’t know about you.’

      Luca frowned. ‘Like what?’

      Flustered, Tia avoided his question. ‘I don’t know, but it was all so fast and I don’t think you should get married without knowing everything there is to know about the person you’re marrying—’

      ‘Tia there are always things about another person that stays hidden,’ he said, and she shook her head.

      ‘Not when you’ve known each other for a long time. When people have known each other for a long time they’re as familiar as old socks.’

      He lifted an eyebrow and looked at her incredulously. ‘Dio. That is your idea of a stimulating relationship? To live with someone who is like a sock?’

      ‘I’m just trying to say—’

      ‘It’s all right—I think know what you’re trying to say.’ He let out a long breath and shook his head slowly. ‘Tia, the length of a relationship is not always an indication of its depth.’

      His voice was suddenly quiet and her heart suddenly missed a beat.

      Was he going to tell her about Luisa?

      Luca’s jaw clenched. ‘It’s true that our relationship moved quickly and was very intense—’

      Intense?

      That had to be the understatement of the year.

      She’d been so totally overwhelmed by what had been happening between them that she hadn’t bothered to think about the future.

      ‘But we weren’t suited, Luca.’

      ‘No? If my memory serves me correctly, we were never able to look at each other without needing to rip each other’s clothes off,’ he drawled softly. ‘I wouldn’t exactly describe that as “not suited”, would you? You were in my bed the same night we met.’

      His blunt reminder of just how quickly they’d become intimate brought a flood of colour to her cheeks and Tia closed her eyes. He was right, of course. The physical chemistry between them had been frighteningly powerful. It had completely swamped her common sense, what little she’d had, and it had clearly taken his mind off his troubles with Luisa.

      ‘There’s more to a relationship than good sex, Luca,’ she said quietly, dragging her eyes away from his penetrating gaze and trying to regain some semblance of control.

      The mere brush of those long, strong fingers against her flesh made her tremble and she struggled to hide it from him.

      Dear God, why couldn’t she just tell him the truth? That she knew he’d met her when his other relationship had been in trouble. That she knew he was in love with another woman.

      He was watching her closely. ‘You think our relationship was just about sex?’

      For her, no, but for him?

      ‘We’re different, Luca,’ she said finally. ‘I—I didn’t realise how different until we lived together in Milan. Perhaps if I’d had a job…’

      The temperature in the room dropped below zero.

      ‘There was no reason for you to work.’ His jaw tightened and his expression was grim. ‘I gave you credit cards—you weren’t short of money.’

      That was true enough. The Zattoni family were obviously extremely wealthy. She’d never had access to so much money in her life. But she didn’t really care about money.

      ‘It isn’t about money, Luca,’ Tia declared emphatically, trying to make him understand something of what she’d felt when they were in Italy. ‘When we met in Venice it was beautiful—romantic. But Milan…’

      ‘Milan is not Venice,’ he agreed quietly, his eyes fixed on her pale face. ‘Milan is more of a business city than a tourist one. It’s foggy in winter and muggy in the summer and the pollution is grim.’

      ‘I felt suffocated there,’ Tia admitted, ‘but it wasn’t really the place. It was us. You spent all your time at the hospital and I was lonely.’

      ‘Lonely?’ He frowned sharply. ‘You had the support of my family. How could you have been lonely?’

      Tia’s eyes slid away from his. ‘They hate me, Luca,’ she told him. ‘They think I’m the wrong sort of woman for you, and do you know what?’ She forced herself to meet that unsettling dark gaze head on. ‘They’re right. I am the wrong sort of woman. You should have married someone sleek and elegant, someone who’d know how to spend your money…’

      It was the nearest she’d got to telling him that she knew about Luisa but not by the flicker of an eyelid did he betray himself.

      ‘My family do not hate you.’ His expression was suddenly ominous. ‘What possible grounds do you have for making such a statement?’

      She caught the look of disbelief in his eyes and decided to tell the truth.

      ‘Luca, I never saw them,’ she told him quietly, ‘apart from the weekends when you and I visited them together.’

      He СКАЧАТЬ