The Temporary Mrs. Marchetti (Mills & Boon Modern) by Melanie Milburne

Author:Melanie Milburne [Milburne, Melanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Contemporary, Contemporary Women
ISBN: 9781474052191
Publisher: Mills & Boon Modern
Published: 2017-02-03T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

CRISTIANO WOKE NOT long before dawn to find Alice nestled up against his chest soundly asleep. Her hair was tickling his chin but he didn’t have the heart to disturb her. Or maybe it was more because lying here with her was like time travelling back to a time in his life when he’d felt he had ticked all the boxes. Felt complete and satisfied in a way he hadn’t since. One of her hands was resting against his chest, right over his heart. Her silken legs were entwined with his in an intimate linkage that made his blood stir.

Would this hunger for her ever be satisfied? How many times had they made love last night? He had been like a randy teenager. He couldn’t seem to get enough of her. Was it a case of making up for lost time or...something else?

He didn’t want to think about the something else.

He wasn’t sure why he’d told Alice about his reluctance to sleep with anyone else here since her. Why should he care if she thought he’d bedded anything in a skirt for the last seven years? But somehow what they’d shared under this roof had meant something to him even if it hadn’t to her. He hadn’t wanted to dilute those memories with a host of other bodies, other faces, other smiles, and other perfumes. Or maybe it was a form of self-flagellation. A perpetual punishment for being so foolish to believe she had been The One.

No. He was fine with things as they were. What could be better than to make the most of their ‘forced’ time together? Wasn’t that what he’d wanted? A chance to get her out of his system so he could finally move on with his life?

It was a good plan.

An excellent plan.

Why had his nonna orchestrated it other than to force him to revisit his relationship with Alice? His grandmother knew his life hadn’t been the same since Alice left. She knew he hadn’t moved on. Not properly. But to leave half of the Stresa villa to her seemed a bit of an extreme measure. Not that he’d let on to Alice how much the place meant to him. He’d let her think the company shares were his focus. The lakeside villa—like this one in Milan—had been in the Marchetti family for a hundred and fifty years. To lose one pebble, let alone half of the property, to someone outside the family was unthinkable. Even if it was to Alice, with whom he’d had the most passionate affair of his life.

There was nothing to stop her selling her share out from under him when their marriage ended. There was no guarantee she would give him first option. She might not even want to sell her share, which would mean he would have to sell his, or deal with having to share the villa with her on an ongoing basis. He could think of nothing worse than having to negotiate times to visit so he didn’t run into her new lover or house-party guests.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.