The Mills & Boon Sparkling Christmas Collection. Kate Hardy

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СКАЧАТЬ much as the thought of spending more time with a man who made her feel emotions she just wasn’t ready to experience.

      ‘Take candles and matches with you,’ he said dismissively, and even though she was relieved he’d let the subject go, she couldn’t help the disappointment that crashed over her.

      ‘Goodnight, Xavier.’ She forced as much control as possible into her voice, picked up the candles and matches and headed for the door. She was almost sorry to leave the warmth of the fire for a room that would probably still be cold after almost twenty-four hours without heat, but she couldn’t stay here with him any longer. Not when he tested her, pushing her towards everything she’d always resisted—everything she should still resist.

      ‘Tilly?’

      ‘Yes?’ She swung round to look at him, cursing the excited hope that flared to life.

      ‘Sleep well.’

      She nodded then left before she gave in to the temptation to rush over to him, throw her arms around him and be the woman she’d been last night—the woman who loved him.

      * * *

      Xavier watched Tilly go and felt every last bit of willpower being tested. He wanted to go after her, sweep her into his arms and carry her to the large four-poster bed in which he’d spent the first night at the manor—alone.

      He wanted to kiss her until she surrendered to him. He wanted to lure out the woman he knew deep down she was. The passionate and sexy woman who’d spent last night in his arms.

      Instead he stayed brooding over his paperwork, her claims that last night had been a mistake banging around in his head. Obviously, despite her bold way of proving his scars didn’t matter and telling him the accident had been just that, she felt differently.

      She was the only woman he’d let close since the accident, the only woman he’d made love to—and she was pushing him away, telling him a fling was all she’d wanted. Yet she’d been a virgin.

      Maybe it was just as well the electricity was back on. It would stop him making the same mistake twice and prevent his life becoming complicated. He wasn’t ready for a relationship. With those thoughts, he went to his room, intending to take a cold shower and get some sleep, but as he stood, towel around his hips, looking at his reflection in the bathroom mirror after shaving, he questioned if sleep would be possible.

      How could he sleep alone after last night, when the woman who’d allowed him to take something so precious, who’d shown him things he could never have, filling the night with compassion as well as hot desire, was only a few rooms away? She was that close, but so very far out of reach.

      A fluid Italian curse left his lips and he flung the towel to the bathroom floor, as if it was responsible for the wild rush of emotions coursing through him. Damn it, he wanted her, he wanted the happy future she’d allowed him to glimpse, the one she’d had snatched from her.

      But she doesn’t want you. Dio mio! What was wrong with him? Since when did he believe in relationships and happiness? He’d destroyed Paulo’s family and deserved to be punished over and over. Love and happiness could never reach him through his barrier of guilt—or so he’d thought.

      He got into bed and switched out the light, the darkness wrapping around him instantly. He thought of Tilly, lying alone in her bed, and wanted nothing more than to go to her and hold her, but even more he wanted to love her. Could she have changed him that much in one night?

      With a growl of exasperation he threw back the covers, flicked on the bedside lamp and pulled on his jeans. He couldn’t ignore what burned inside him for the blonde who’d exploded into his life such a short time ago and had inexplicably become a part of it.

      His bare feet were silent on the carpeted landing as he made his way to the top of the stairs. In the dim light he could see the Christmas tree. It still mocked him, still reminded him he didn’t deserve Christmas and the happiness it brought.

      Did that mean he didn’t deserve Tilly and the happiness he’d begun to imagine with her?

      Should he stop and return to his room? No, he couldn’t turn his back on not only Tilly but the happiness she would bring to his life. He paused at the top of the stairs and looked down the corridor that led to Tilly’s room.

      They were still snowed in, still away from the harsh reality of the real world, and that changed things. Was one more night in that surreal world possible?

      He turned away. She deserved better than him and so much more than he could give. She deserved happiness and love. With heaviness settling over him, he walked away, turning his back on what could have been if he hadn’t been the man he was.

      * * *

      Tilly hadn’t slept at all and without knowing why had slipped out of bed and from her room. Where was Xavier now? Was he alone downstairs, punishing himself? She wished she could make him see he shouldn’t, make him see he deserved to be loved and had to let love back into his life.

      She stopped briefly in the darkened corridor, nervous of the shadows lurking in the old house, but the need to go to Xavier, to be with him, to love him—for just one more night—was too much. She made her way along the corridor to the top of the stairs. It wasn’t just the passion and desire that had turned her whole world upside down last night that drove her on in this madness. It was the love for him, growing deep inside her. This was far more than being spontaneous.

      She wanted to show him her love, just one more time, because tomorrow, however it was accomplished, she was leaving. She had to get back to her life. The one without love and passion complicating it, but tonight she wanted to live the fantasy one last time. She wouldn’t be leading him on, not when he preferred affairs to relationships. She would just blur into one of many who’d warmed his bed. That thought didn’t sit comfortably, but her need for him was far stronger and she wanted to take the risk that being with him most definitely was.

      Nothing else mattered. She had to go to him—just one last time.

      As she came to the landing and the top of the elegant staircase she saw him. Like a vision conjured up from her dreams, dressed only in his jeans, the look on his face so distant. Traces of vulnerability lingered in his eyes and she could hardly believe it was the same man she’d said goodnight to earlier.

      ‘Tilly?’ The question lingered in the syllables of her name.

      She took a deep breath. Now was a time to be bold. ‘I want to be someone different, Xavier, to live in a world of complete fantasy and be the woman I was last night—just once more.’

      Before she had a chance to register his reaction, he’d come to her, his fingers brushing down her face as he stood half-naked in front of her. Her pulse leapt and she looked up into his dark eyes, wondering if he felt it too, this passion that had taken her over. It was so intense she trembled like a leaf in the summer breeze.

      ‘You are tempting me so much I can’t resist.’ His voice held a faint tremor, as if he did feel it.

      He lowered his head and brushed his lips lightly over hers and she closed her eyes as pleasure swept away any lingering doubts about what she was doing. Her body leaned towards him, but he didn’t take her in his arms, didn’t pull her against his body.

      She opened her eyes and looked into the fathomless depths of his. They had only one more night left СКАЧАТЬ