Chapter Twelve

WHEN MASSIMO WOKE up the next morning it took him a minute

to work out where he was-a habitual dilemma for

someone who travelled the globe as frequently as he

did. But usually he liked that sense of uncertainty.

Transitory was his default setting. Most people we

fearful of change but he wasn't one of them. It was

the only thing he'd ever known. His mom was Italian, that's where he got his name from. 

He hadn't been lying when he'd dismissed Toyin's sympathetic words after he'd told her what a

gold-digger his mother had been. It didn't hurt. How

could somnething hurt if you had nothing to compare

it with? Just as it didn't hurt that he'd always been

pushed aside whenever the latest love interest had

appeared in his glamorous parent's life. Why he'd

spent school holidays in vast and empty hotel rooms,

while his mother went out on the town. He'd learned

to order room service and put himself to bed when

there were no more cartoons on TV. He had learned

to play the cards he'd been dealt and he'd done it by

building a wall around his heart. At first the founda-

tions had been rocky, because what did a small boy

know about emotional protection and self-reliance,

when it went against the natural order of things? But the more you did something, the better at it you got

and these days nothing touched him. His mouth hard-

ened. Nothing.

He glanced around the bedroom, realising he was

in his brother's Cotswold home. Only then did he ac-

knowledge the warm and sated feeling which came

after a night of particularly good sex. He turned his

head to find Sophie's side of the bed empty.

Lazily he stretched, his body hardening as he lis-

tened for sounds of running water or any suggestion

she might be tidying her hair in preparation for an

early morning kiss, but there was nothing, He bashed

one of the pillows with his fist and comfortably rear-

ranged his head on it, thinking maybe it was better

this way. Better than her snuggling up close trying

to do that thing women always did after a night like

that-stroking their finger in a slow circle over his

belly and wondering what made him tick.

Because they had reached for each other in the

darkness before dawn--caught in that strange half-

world between waking and sleeping. Two naked bod-

ies, doing what came naturally. He stared up at the

ceiling-at the fractured light and shadows cast by

the antique chandelier. Only it hadn't felt like that.

Her ebony skin had been silky-soft, shining and very alluring and her body as warm as

soft candle wax you could mould with your fingers.

She'd felt so tight when he entered her.

Briefly, he closed his eyes. Almost as tight as the

first time. And she'd started saying things in Greek

as she came. Soft things. Things he didn't understand

but which instinctively made him wary-because

when a woman starting talking in that tone of voice

it usually meant trouble. He hoped her inexperience didn't mean she'd started to misinterpret the impact

of a powerful series of orgasms. He hoped he wasn't

going to have to make it clear that it was a waste of

time for her to develop feelings for him.

Pushing back the rumpled bedcovers, he got out of

bed and walked over to the window, blinking a little at

the starkness of the table outside. He spent so little

time in England these days that he'd forgotten how

beautiful the countryside could look in thick snow.

For a moment he stood, transfixed by a landscape

which was almost unrecognisable the long drive

and other familiar landmarks obliterated by a thick

blanket of white. It must have been coming down all

night long-and it was still snowing, great flakes of

the stuff hurtling down from the sky. It was the kind

of white-out you usually only found in a ski resort and

Massimo's eyes narrowed as he took in the heavy clouds

overhead. It wasn't the best day for a christening, not

by any stretch of the imagination.

Toyin hadn't returned by the time he show-

ered and dressed and it was after ten when he headed

downstairs, where he could hear the sound of voices

coming from the direction of the dining room. He

walked along the long corridor, unprepared for the

sight which greeted him.

Because it was Toyin who was the centre of at-

tention-and not because she was behaving in a prin-

cessy kind of way. On the contrary. She was sitting

cross-legged on the floor right next to another big

glittering Christmas tree, and she was playing with

his nephew. Against the sparkle of tinsel and the

gleam of fairy lights, she lifted the baby high in the

air before bringing him down towards her, rubbing her nose against his tummy and making him gurgle

with delight as she made a squelchy sound. And sit-

ting watching them, with an overwhelming look of

pride on her face, was the baby's mother, Molly.