Kate Hewitt - Mills & Boon Christmas Set

Emma took a deep breath, knowing she needed to say this even if part of her didn’t want to. ‘It is for me, Larenzo.’ He didn’t answer and she continued, keeping her voice steady with effort, ‘Look, you said yourself you aren’t interested in a relationship. You want to get to know Ava, and I respect that. But the only reason I’m here is because Ava is. So it makes sense for me to have a role. A job.’

Still Larenzo didn’t speak, and Emma could see the emotions battling on his face. She just didn’t know what they were. Did he want there to be more between them? Or was that just her foolish, wishful thinking? Sighing, she hoisted Ava more firmly on her hip. ‘I’m going to put her to bed. Think about it, at least.’

She was at the door when Larenzo finally bit out, ‘Fine, you can act as housekeeper. But I don’t want any responsibilities you needlessly put on yourself to take away from Ava’s care.’

‘Many women manage a home and a baby,’ Emma answered, doing her best to keep her voice mild. ‘I think I can too.’ Larenzo said nothing and as she headed to the nursery with Ava, Emma wondered why this didn’t feel more like a victory.

CHAPTER NINE

ANOTHER SLEEPLESS NIGHT. By now Larenzo was well used to insomnia. He’d slept badly in prison, on a thin mattress in a tiny cell with a thousand other prisoners shifting, coughing, and groaning around him. Ironic that he slept just as badly now that he was free, lying on a king-sized bed with the apartment quiet and still.

And Emma sleeping across the hall.

Although he knew he shouldn’t, he imagined rising from his bed, opening his door, and going into Emma’s room. Watching her sleep, her golden-brown hair spread across the pillow, her lithe body clad in those scanty pyjamas he remembered from their night in Sicily.

Then he imagined sliding into that bed with her, taking her in his arms, burying his face in her sweet-smelling hair, burying himself inside her body...

With a groan Larenzo rose from the bed and went to the en-suite bathroom to splash some cold water on his face. He had no business thinking of Emma that way. His libido might have leapt to life since he’d seen her again, but he had nothing left in his heart to give her. No ability to have a relationship, to trust or to love someone.

He loved Ava, because she was sweet and innocent, and she was his. His love for his daughter was rock solid, utterly unshakeable. But loving a woman? Trusting someone with the heart that had shattered into tiny fragments of nothingness?

Impossible.

And the alternative, some kind of fling or affair, would only further complicate what was already a tenuous arrangement. His face settled into a scowl as he thought of Emma’s suggestion. Housekeeper. He didn’t want her here as a housekeeper. She wasn’t his damned employee. She was here because she was the mother of his child, because she belonged —

Larenzo let out his breath in a hiss as he bowed his head. Emma belonged with Ava, but not with him. Not like that. Never like that.

So perhaps, much as he had instinctively disliked the idea, it was better that she act as housekeeper. Perhaps having a clearly defined role would help them navigate this arrangement with a minimum of awkwardness.

A soft cry interrupted the wrangling of his own thoughts and Larenzo realised that Ava had woken up. Quickly he left his room and went to the nursery. His daughter was standing up in her crib, her face streaked with tears. Larenzo’s heart twisted with a powerful mixture of love, protectiveness, and sorrow. Sleeping in a strange place had to be a frightening experience for the child.

He picked her up, and again his heart twisted as Ava settled against his bare chest, her cheek resting over his heart. Larenzo stroked her back and without even realising what he was doing, he began to croon a lullaby in Italian. ‘E dormi, dormi, dormi, bambin de cuna. To mama no la gh’è la a-sé andà via.’

The words came to him unbidden, from a deep well of memory. He stroked Ava’s hair and watched as his daughter’s eyelids eventually drooped.

After several minutes when he was sure she was deeply asleep, he laid her back in the crib and watched her for a moment, her thick, dark lashes fanning her plump baby cheeks.

‘That’s a beautiful lullaby.’

Larenzo stiffened, his gaze moving from his sleeping daughter to the woman standing in the doorway of the nursery. Emma’s hair was tousled about her shoulders, her golden-green eyes wide and luminous. Larenzo dropped his gaze and saw with a hard kick of desire that she was wearing just what he’d imagined: a thin T-shirt that moulded to the shape of her breasts and a pair of boy shorts. He felt his body respond, and in only a pair of drawstring pyjama bottoms he knew Emma would be able to tell if she lowered her gaze just as he’d lowered his.

‘She’s asleep,’ he whispered, and moved quietly out of the nursery, brushing past Emma as he did so. He sucked in a hard breath as her breasts nudged against his chest, and her hair whispered against his cheek. He inhaled the scent of her, sweetness and sleep, and he averted his face from the temptation of hers.

Emma closed the door behind him and they stood in the hallway, only a few inches separating them, the only light coming from a lamp Larenzo had left on in the living room, its warm glow spilling onto the floor.

It was so reminiscent of that night in the villa, the way things had shifted between them in the quiet and dark. Barriers had disappeared, defences had dropped. In that bubble of solitude and intimacy there had only been the two of them, seeking and finding both solace and pleasure.

And there were just the two of them now, standing so close together, the only sound the sigh and draw of their breathing.

‘What did it mean?’ Emma asked in a whisper, and Larenzo forced himself to meet her gaze, to hold himself still, when all he wanted to do was drag her into his arms, forget everything but this, them , for a little while.

‘What did what mean?’

‘The lullaby. I couldn’t make out the Italian. I’m rusty, I suppose.’

‘Oh... Sleep, sleep, sleep, cradle baby. Your mother is not here, she has gone away.’ Belatedly he realised how it sounded. ‘It’s the only lullaby I know. I didn’t even realise I knew it until I started singing.’

‘Is it from your childhood?’ Emma asked, and Larenzo blinked.

‘I suppose it has to be. But I don’t remember anyone singing me any lullabies.’ He heard the note of bitterness that had crept into his voice and he tried to shrug it off. No point in dwelling on the past, just as he’d told Emma. ‘Anyway, Ava seemed to like it.’

‘Thank you,’ Emma said softly, and she reached out and laid a hand on his arm. The touch of her fingers on his skin was electric, jolting his senses as if he’d stuck his finger into a socket. He held himself still, staring down at her hand, her slender fingers curled around his biceps.

She’d touched him like this back in Sicily. And he’d put his hand on hers, and for a moment he hadn’t felt alone. He’d felt as if someone was on his side, someone actually cared...

But that was a lifetime ago, and it hadn’t been true anyway. Their night together had been a moment out of time, out of reality. An aberration.

Larenzo forced himself to shake off her hand. ‘It was nothing,’ he said and without saying anything else he turned and went back to his bedroom.

* * *

Emma woke to sunlight pouring through the windows of her bedroom, and the sound of Ava gurgling with laughter from the adjoining nursery. She stretched, savouring the moment’s relaxation before the day with all of its demands began.

Then she heard Larenzo’s answering laughter and realised he was in the nursery with Ava. Just the rumbling sound of his voice as he talked to their daughter brought the memory of last night back with slamming force. Emma didn’t think she’d seen or heard anything as beautiful, as desirable , as Larenzo cradling their baby to his bare chest as he sang her a lullaby in lilting Italian.