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looked stricken. ‘You looked at my photos?’ she asked in a hoarse-sounding whisper.
    â€˜There was nothing too incriminating there, I can assure you,’ Luca said. ‘No boudoir scenes, for instance.’
    Her face regained some of its colour, two hot spots on each cheek. ‘You had no right to touch my phone.’
    â€˜On the contrary, Bronte, it was on my sofa and it rang while I was holding it,’ he said. ‘Did you want me to ignore your call?’
    She gave him an icy glare. ‘That’s what you would have done in the past, wasn’t it?’
    Luca had to admit she had won that round. He could hardly tell her now how hard it had been to see his phone ringing with her number showing on the screen and having to restrain himself from picking it up just to hear her voice one more time. In the end he had changed phones and numbers so in a weak moment he would not be tempted. And there had been many weak moments over the following months. ‘How seriously involved are you with the father of your child?’ he asked. ‘You’re not wearing a wedding ring so I am assuming you’re not married.’
    She looked at him for a long moment, her eyes flickering with something he couldn’t quite identify. Her teeth caught at her bottom lip, pulling at it until he was sure she was going to draw blood. ‘No, I’m not married…I… The thing is…’ She winced as if she found the subject painful to talk about.
    â€˜You’re no longer together, is that it?’ he said.
    She gave her lip another gnaw and finally released it. ‘Yes…something like that…’
    â€˜Well, then,’ Luca said. ‘At least we’ve cleared up that little detail. There is a lot I would do to get you back into my bed, but taking on a jealous husband is not one of them.’
    â€˜I am not going to—’
    Luca put a finger against her lips. ‘Don’t speak so soon, cara ,’ he warned.
    Her eyes flared as he brushed his finger along herlips. The softness of her mouth had always amazed him. She had a classically bee-stung mouth, irresistibly kissable. He bent his head and gently brushed his mouth over her lips, tasting her sweetness, wanting more, but holding back to give her time to reveal how much he affected her. Her lashes came down over her eyes, her tongue darting out and depositing a light sheen of moisture over her lips before disappearing again. He felt her breathe, in and out, a ragged sort of sound that seemed to catch inside her chest.
    He bent his head again, hesitating just above her mouth, waiting for her to meet him halfway. ‘Go on, cara ,’ he whispered against her lips. ‘You know you want to.’
    â€˜I don’t want to…’ Her eyes met his briefly before falling away again. ‘I don’t want to see you. I don’t think this is a good idea…you know…rehashing the past. It never works.’
    He brought up her chin again, holding her gaze with his. ‘We could make it work. Just you and me. No one else needs to know.’
    She pushed against his chest and slipped out of his hold, crossing her arms over her body, turning away from him. ‘There’s not just the two of us to consider any more,’ she said. ‘I have a child. I have to consider her. She is my first priority. She will always be my first priority.’
    Luca raked a hand through his hair. He didn’t want to think about her love-child. It wasn’t that he didn’t love kids; he did and had always hoped he would have a family of his own one day. He just couldn’t get used to the idea of Bronte being a mother to someone else’s baby.
    Had she had the child as a result of a rebound affair?That somehow made it so much worse. If things had been different, he would have loved to have married Bronte and had the family he knew she wanted. She had hinted at it once or twice but he had