The Mills & Boon Sparkling Christmas Collection. Kate Hardy

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      He frowned at her as she said almost the same as Sofia had. ‘No, he wouldn’t.’

      ‘Would you want that if the roles were reversed? Would you want him to live with guilt eating at him for the rest of his life?’

      ‘That is what Sofia, his widow, has just told me. She doesn’t blame me and said Paulo would be angry if he knew I was.’ Images of his friend rushed through his mind.

      ‘So now you can stop punishing yourself.’

      ‘The way I handled those days at the manor was wrong, but I can’t lose you, Tilly.’ He put himself on the line as he said the words. She didn’t move. It looked as if his words had frozen her. ‘Not when I love you.’

      He’d finally said it. He’d given life to the emotion that had been burning deep inside him since the moment he’d met Tilly. The silence that filled the room was so loud it almost deafened him.

      * * *

      Tilly’s head spun and her heart thumped harder in her chest. She looked into Xavier’s eyes, hoping to see love, but saw only hard determination. How could he say he loved her when he had just returned from another woman’s side?

      ‘You don’t mean that.’ She shook her head in denial and returned her gaze to the growing darkness of the street outside, wishing he would stop torturing her. He’d been photographed with another woman—hours after leaving her.

      He took hold of her arms and spun her round to look at him. She wanted to avert her gaze, but with the heat of his touch burning through her jumper she couldn’t. ‘I mean every word of it, Tilly. I have thought of nothing else but you since the moment we met.’

      She lowered her gaze, trying to resist the urge to babble out whatever words came into her head, but the urge was too strong. ‘But I saw you—at the party last night, with your latest lover.’

      His grasp on her arms loosened and she knew she’d said the wrong thing. ‘How?’

      Now she would have to spill the whole sorry truth about looking him up on the internet, about searching for information about the accident. ‘I saw the pictures on the internet.’ She pressed her lips firmly together to prevent herself airing more babbling excuses.

      She kept her gaze averted but when she looked up again it was to see a wary look of surprise on his handsome face. ‘Does that mean you couldn’t stop thinking of me?’

      ‘Yes. I mean no.’ She knew she was in danger of talking too much again and pulled herself free of his grasp. She couldn’t think straight when he was so near, when the intoxicating scent of him made her remember those nights she’d sworn she would forget.

      ‘Natalie, don’t.’ The sexy accent he used for her name drew her up sharply and those memories hurtled back.

      ‘Don’t what?’ she asked in exasperation. He really had to go before she spilled everything out and told him she loved him. But she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t risk it. Already he’d tired of her and could hurt her far more than Jason ever had. She couldn’t face rejection again.

      ‘Don’t hide. Don’t run.’

      She couldn’t look at him. ‘I’m not hiding or running, Xavier. I just want to be honest with myself and you. I can’t be with you, not how you want anyway.’

      ‘And how exactly do I want to be with you?’ The gruffness of his voice hinted at his frustration.

      ‘I can’t be just another woman, one you call when you are in London. I’m not that type of girl.’

      He took her swiftly in his arms, pulling her excruciatingly close to him. ‘I’ve tried to forget you, tried to put you to the back of my mind as nothing more than a memory. I have no idea who I was pictured with. I might have been there at the party, but in my mind I was still at the manor with you, the only woman I want.’

      * * *

      Suddenly everything became clear and Xavier could see why Tilly was so anxious. Since the accident he’d never had a serious relationship. He’d only dated a woman once, always avoiding anything more intimate, worried about his scarred body.

      ‘I see my recently acquired reputation has coloured your view of me.’ He didn’t know how to explain without scaring her away completely. All he knew was that he had to tell her.

      ‘Something like that, yes,’ she said, and looked back up into his face. He wanted to lower his lips to hers and kiss her to prove she was the only woman he wanted. Could a kiss prove how much he loved her? The whole concept of love was totally new to him. Her eyelashes lowered over her eyes as she looked down, the long dark lashes sweeping against the pale skin in an alluring way.

      ‘I was drowning in guilt and badly scarred. What woman would seriously want me? You are the only woman I have made love to since the accident.’ Each word was raw, pulling at his heart as if being ripped from it, dragging out emotions he’d kept locked away, preferring guilt and self-pity. ‘I wanted you so badly, Tilly.’

      ‘You did?’ The soft whisper caught his attention and he lifted her chin with his thumb and finger, forcing her to look directly at him. The blue of her eyes was shrouded in tears threatening to fall and he hated it that he’d made her cry.

      But she wasn’t fighting any more. She wasn’t resisting what had sprung to life between them the very first moment their eyes had met. She was here in his arms—exactly where he wanted her to be. Those two huskily whispered words whirled round in his head.

      ‘You are the only woman I ever wanted to stay after finding out about the accident, because you are the only woman I want. I love you, Natalie Rogers, and I intend to love you more each and every single day for the rest of my life—if you will let me.’

      ‘I want to say yes.’ She looked at him, a tear slipping from first one eye then the other. He caught them with his finger, wiped them away, cursing softly because he’d made her cry.

      ‘But what?’ He sensed the doubt, the reservations she was fighting.

      ‘Jason breaking things off was my fault. I didn’t want passion and he didn’t want only companionship.’ She looked down again, as if she was gathering her strength. When she looked back up her blue eyes glittered. ‘I can’t be who I was those two nights at the manor. That wasn’t me. Nothing seemed real then.’

      ‘Our passion was real.’ How could she deny that sexy and passionate woman had been her? Every time she’d caressed him she’d set light to him. Every time he’d touched her the intensity of it had risen.

      ‘Because we were different people, cut off from reality. I can’t give you passion and excitement, just as I couldn’t give it to Jason. I’m scared to.’

      Anger simmered to the fore. Damn that man. ‘What are you scared of?’

      It wasn’t making any sense. She’d given herself to him with passionate abandon. What had burned between them those two nights had been so hot it still fired his body now to think of it.

      ‘Loving and losing.’

      ‘Losing?’

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