Modern Romance January 2020 Books 1-4. Кейт Хьюит

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СКАЧАТЬ want to go to Italy.

      ‘I think we both need to compromise,’ Mia said, trying not to sound desperate. ‘What if I returned to London? You go there fairly often for business. You could see Ella regularly…’ She trailed off at the dark look developing on Alessandro’s face, like a storm front coming in, of towering black clouds.

      ‘That’s your compromise? I see my daughter once a month, if that?’

      ‘Surely you come to London more often than that,’ Mia protested. ‘To check on Dillard’s…’

      ‘Dillard’s has been assimilated into Costa International, as I told you it would be. I come to London once or twice a year at most.’

      And for that he’d needed to put her on the other side of the world? It was not a point Mia could afford to make now. ‘But it’s not that far,’ she insisted, trying her best to hold on to the plan she’d come up with last night—her in London, living in familiar surroundings with some friends around, and Alessandro safely in Italy or wherever else he travelled, coming by once in a while. She could live with that. Just about.

      ‘Not far?’ Alessandro’s eyebrows rose in incredulity before drawing together in what could only be anger. Mia tried not to shrink back in her seat. ‘It’s a four-hour plane ride, Mia. How often do you think I want to see my daughter? How much do you think I wanted to be involved in her life?’

      She shook her head slowly, afraid to hear his answer. ‘I… I don’t know.’

      ‘Then I’ll tell you. Completely. I want to see her every day. Morning and night and even afternoon. I will not have my child growing up without a father in her life. I know what that’s like and I will not allow it for Ella, especially when her father wants to be involved.’

       He knew what that was like?

      The terse statement made Mia realise there were depths of feeling and conviction to Alessandro’s stance that she hadn’t anticipated. Hadn’t remotely begun to guess. ‘So what exactly are you suggesting?’ she asked faintly.

      ‘You and Ella live at my villa in Tuscany. It is comfortable, in the country, the perfect place to raise a child. I will live there as well, and commute to Rome or wherever else as needed.’

      ‘So…we’d live together?’ She hadn’t expected that, somehow. She’d anticipated him tucking her away, controlling her as her father had her mother. But now it almost sounded as if he expected them to play at happy families, something she really could not envision, and she doubted Alessandro had thought it through entirely.

      Alessandro’s frown deepened. ‘Of course we’d live together.’ He made it sound as if she’d asked something so obvious as to be absurd.

      Mia shook her head slowly. ‘That’s not a given, Alessandro. I mean…we don’t even know each other.’

      ‘We have a baby together.’

      ‘Yes, but…we’re strangers.’ It hurt to say it, because she’d never, ever have wanted to bring a child into the world the way she had with Ella, and yet she didn’t regret her daughter for a single second.

      ‘Then we’ll get to know each other.’ Again he made it all sound glaringly obvious. ‘All the more reason for you to come to Tuscany, Mia.’

      ‘So you expect me to follow you to Italy, to live in your house, without even knowing you?’

      ‘You know enough, surely.’

      ‘What I know I don’t even like! You’re ruthless, Alessandro, completely ruthless when it comes to the companies you take over—’

      ‘That’s business, and in any case, I’m not as ruthless as you think.’ He almost sounded hurt. ‘I thought you realised that.’

      Memories of that night flitted through her brain, the man she’d started to dream he was, as well as what she’d learned about Dillard’s former employees. No, he wasn’t as ruthless as all that. And yet…

      ‘Still, you’ve been incredibly overbearing since you blasted back into my life,’ she persisted, ‘demanding everything and making no compromises—’

      ‘Because I’m right.’

      She rolled her eyes. ‘Of course you are.’

      ‘And because this is important to me.’ He lowered his voice, his hands clenched together, as he struggled with a depth of emotion Mia had never seen before. ‘I grew up without a father, Mia. He chose to walk away before I was born. All my life I’ve wondered…’ He paused, cleared his throat. ‘I cannot abide the thought of my daughter thinking I would do the same thing, even for a moment. I cannot countenance for a second that she might wonder why I don’t see her more often, or why I don’t live in the same country as she does. I cannot stand the prospect that she might think I don’t care.’

      Tears, unexpected, unwanted, crowded Mia’s eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t realise.’

      He nodded jerkily. ‘Now you know.’

      ‘But surely you can still see how much you are asking of me.’

      ‘I am asking just as much of myself. Together we will be parents for Ella. We will put aside our own desires and needs for her sake. It is what any good parent would do.’

      And how on earth could she argue with that? Mia felt cornered, and yet she could hardly blame Alessandro for it. She agreed with him…she just wished she didn’t. That there was another way, and yet there so clearly wasn’t.

      ‘So you want us to live together?’ she surmised hesitantly. ‘In the same house? What about…what about all your women?’

      Alessandro looked at her as if she had sprouted horns. ‘I would not have women.’

      ‘At least a woman, then,’ Mia clarified impatiently. ‘I’ve seen the photos, Alessandro—’

      ‘The only woman I will have on my arm is you,’ Alessandro returned, his silver gaze snaring hers and pinning her in place. ‘As my wife.’

      For a second Alessandro thought Mia might faint. Her face drained of colour and she swayed where she sat, her lips bloodless as she parted them and tried to speak.

      ‘What…?’ The word was a scratchy whisper. She shook her head, looking as dazed as if she’d been hit on the head. ‘What…are you talking about?’

      ‘I thought it would be obvious.’ Although he realised now what had been set in stone in his own mind had not even crossed Mia’s. He’d been so sure of the way forward he might have skipped a few rather crucial steps in their conversation. Well, he would cover them now. ‘I thought I’d made it clear. For Ella’s sake, we will marry. You would live in Tuscany as my wife.’

      ‘Was that a proposal?’

      Her scathing tone caught him on the raw. He’d just offered to marry her, and she was acting offended. ‘It was a fact,’ СКАЧАТЬ