Modern Romance Collection: December Books 5 - 8. Julia James
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Название: Modern Romance Collection: December Books 5 - 8
Автор: Julia James
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Короткие любовные романы
Серия: Mills & Boon e-Book Collections
isbn: 9781474081924
isbn:
‘Your father didn’t love you?’ she challenged with an angry gesture.
‘The Prince loved me, but it wasn’t easy for me to trust him enough to return his love, not as soon as he wanted, anyway.’
‘He must have been a patient man.’
‘He was.’
‘Know this, Luca. Nothing will change my mind. I don’t want a work in progress, while you discover your feelings. I want the boy who made his home in the Coliseum and dreamed of what he would one day become. I want the man who made that happen. Don’t you dare make your past an excuse. I haven’t.’
That was true. She shamed him. ‘How can I prove that I love you?’
‘By letting me go,’ she said with her usual frankness.
* * *
Back home at the Browns’, the ache in Callie’s heart at the absence of Luca was like a big, gaping wound that refused to heal. Even the Browns’ famously over-the-top Christmas preparations couldn’t do anything to mend it. Seeing Anita again had helped, Callie conceded as she smiled across the room at her friend from the lemon groves. Anita had become a most welcome fixture at the Browns’. On her return, Callie had persuaded Anita, who lived alone in a rented room, to take a job close by, and the Browns had offered to rent her a room. They always welcomed help with the younger children and Anita would never be alone again, Ma Brown had promised. Anita had a proper family now—if she could stand the noise and chaos. Anita could certainly do that, and had fitted right in.
‘Come on, our Callie,’ Ma Brown insisted as she bustled into the room they called the front parlour. ‘Anita, I need you to help me in the kitchen, and, Rosie, you and Callie still have the rest of those crêpe paper streamers to hang.’
‘And make,’ Rosie pointed out as she glanced at the uncut reams of crinkled paper and then at Callie’s preoccupied face. ‘Come on, I’ll help you.’ Kneeling down at Callie’s side, Rosie waited until her mother had left the room before putting an arm around Callie’s shoulders. ‘I know you haven’t said anything in front of the family, but you can’t keep bottling this up. And you can’t keep refusing to speak to him,’ Rosie added. ‘If Prince Luca comes to England to see you—’
‘Do you know something?’ Callie asked. Her heart soared at the thought of seeing Luca again, even as her rational mind told her she could never be a princess, so it was better not to see him at all.
‘Not exactly,’ Rosie admitted uncomfortably. ‘I’m just saying that if Luca did turn up, you should see him.’
‘I don’t have to see anyone,’ Callie argued stubbornly, but her heart was beating so fast just at the thought of seeing Luca again that she could hardly breathe. Was he in the country, maybe somewhere close by? There was no smoke without fire, she concluded, glancing at Rosie, who refused to meet her eyes.
‘We’d better get these streamers made,’ Rosie said, acting as if the lack of paper decorations was the only crisis looming, ‘or there’ll be hell to pay.’
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