Reunited with Her Italian Ex Read Online Free PDF

right person. Not a doubt of it. I must be going. My work has piled up while I’ve been away.’
    He departed fast, urgently needing to get away from Giorgio’s sharp eyes that saw too much for comfort.
    Upstairs, he headed for his bedroom, but paused before entering. The room allocated to Natasha was just across the corridor and he went to stand outside, looking at her door, wondering what was happening behind it.
    The evening had torn his nerves to shreds. The woman he’d met had been as unlike the sweet, charming girl he remembered as steel was unlike cream. His heart told him it was impossible that they should be the same person, but his brain groaned and said it was true.
    This was the heartless creature who had vanished without giving him a chance to defend himself, leaving him to hunt frantically for weeks until he’d realised that it was hopeless. And her manner towards him had left no doubt that she was enjoying her triumph.
    A sensible man would have sent her away at once. Instead, he’d prevented her leaving, driven by instincts he didn’t understand, nor want to face.
    From behind her door came only silence. He moved closer, raising his hand to knock, then dropping it again. This wasn’t the right moment.
    Instead of going into his room, he turned away again and went downstairs into the garden, hoping some time in the night air would clear the confusion in his mind. But also doubting that anything would ever be clear again.
    * * *
    Natasha paced her room restlessly. After such a day she should have been ready to collapse into sleep, but her nerves were tense and she feared to lie awake all night, thinking the very thoughts she wanted to avoid.
    Mario had blamed her for disappearing without giving him a chance to defend himself, and in so doing he’d touched a nerve.
    Perhaps I should have let him say something
, she thought.
Why didn’t I?
    Because I’m my mother’s daughter
, said another voice in her mind
. And I can’t help living by the lessons she taught me. Never trust a man. Don’t believe his explanation because it’ll be lies and you’ll only suffer more. In fact, don’t let him explain at all. Never, never give him a second chance.
    She’d fled Mario because she feared to listen to what he might have to say. Thinking the worst of him felt safer. That was the sad truth.
    But now, meeting him again and getting a sense of his torment, she felt uneasy about her own actions.
    â€˜No,’ she said. ‘No, I’m not going down that road. What’s done is done. It’s over.’
    In the last year she’d often suffered from insomnia and had resorted to some herbal sleeping pills. She took them out now, considering.
    â€˜I’m not lying awake fretting over him. This is war.’
    She swallowed two pills but, instead of going to bed, she went outside for a few minutes. The tall window opened onto a balcony where she could stand and look down on a narrow strip of garden. There were flowers, a few trees and beyond them the Adige River, glowing in the evening light. Now it was easy to slip into the balcony scene and become Juliet, yearning over the man who’d captured her heart before she knew who he was. When she’d realised that she’d fallen in love with an enemy, it was too late.
    â€˜Too late,’ she murmured. ‘The last thing I wanted was to meet him again. I came here to start a new life.
Mario, Mario, wherefore art thou, Mario?
But it had to be you, didn’t it? When I’m looking forward to meeting new people, you have to pop up.
Wherefore did thou do this, varlet?
’
    In her agitation she said the words aloud. Alarmed at herself, she retreated through the window, shutting it firmly.
    * * *
    Outside, all was quiet. Darkness was falling, and there was nobody to notice Mario standing, alone and silent, beneath the trees. He had come straight into the garden after leaving Natasha’s