A Baby to Bind His Innocent by Michelle Smart

Author:Michelle Smart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2020-04-13T11:58:17+00:00

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Claudia stood in front of the mirror in her dressing room and brushed her hair. She’d had a shower, brushed her teeth and changed into her pyjamas, her usual bedtime routine, but there was nothing usual about how she was feeling. Her stomach churned with such strength she wished she could put it down to pregnancy nausea. But she couldn’t. She’d fooled herself before about her feelings, insisting to herself and her sister that she did love Ciro when all along it had been deep attraction mingled with a plaintive need for the freedom he represented. She wouldn’t lie to herself again.

But her attraction to Ciro hadn’t died. It still burned inside her. There had been a moment towards the end of their meal when their eyes had locked again and she’d suddenly been consumed with memories of the feelings and sensations that had erupted in her when they’d made love. She felt them on her skin now. And inside her too. Ripples of heat low in her pelvis, a hungry ache...

Gritting her teeth, she began plaiting her hair as she always did before bed.

How could she still feel such physical hunger for him? Ciro had played her for a fool in a sick game of revenge. She’d swallowed his lies about love and while she accepted her words of love had been a lie too, she’d never meant to be deceitful. He had meant to be deceitful. If she hadn’t overheard him, she would still be ignorant of the game he’d been playing. Imma was convinced the Trapani brothers’ ultimate aim had been the entire Buscetta family’s destruction.

Claudia wanted them to build a supportive relationship for their baby’s sake but she would never trust him again.

‘We need to get you a dressing table.’

She gave a small scream. So lost had she been in her thoughts she hadn’t heard Ciro enter the bedroom. ‘You startled me!’

When their meal had finished the semi-easy atmosphere between them had suddenly changed. Conversation had become stilted. Eye contact had ceased. And the charge in her veins...

She’d got up from the table abruptly, frightened of all the feelings rampaging through her. ‘I’m going to bed now.’

He’d still had half a glass of wine to drink. He’d looked at her briefly before swirling the dark liquid and giving a short nod. ‘Sleep well.’

She hadn’t asked if he’d be joining her in the bed. She hadn’t known which answer she most wanted to hear.

This was the first time he’d entered the bedroom with her in it since her first morning.

She met his eyes in the reflection of the mirror. A faint smile tugged on his cheeks. ‘I’ll call out next time.’

Breaking the eye contact, she continued working on the French plait and pretended not to notice Ciro watching her from the dressing room’s threshold. She couldn’t pretend the butterflies weren’t flapping and dancing in her belly or that her usually steady hands didn’t have a tremor in them.

Ciro knew he needed to move. The longer

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