Reunited with Her Italian Ex Read Online Free PDF Page B

door, wondering if some light from her room would reassure him. What he had seen stunned and confused him. Her whispered words seemed to float down, reaching him so softly that he couldn’t be sure he’d actually heard them.
    To believe what he longed to believe was something he refused to do. That way lay danger, disillusion—the things he’d promised himself to avoid in future. So he backed into the shadows, his eyes fixed on her window until the light went out and his world was full of darkness.
    * * *
    Promptly at nine o’clock the next morning Mario appeared at the breakfast table, frowning as he saw only Giorgio there.
    â€˜Where is she?’ he demanded. ‘I told her nine o’clock.’
    â€˜Have a heart,’ Giorgio begged. ‘It’s only a few minutes after nine. She’s not a machine, just a lovely lady.’
    â€˜She is an employee being paid a high salary, for which I expect punctuality and obedience to my wishes. Kindly call her room.’
    â€˜I’ve been calling it for half an hour,’ Giorgio admitted. ‘But there’s no reply. Perhaps she doesn’t want to talk to us.’
    Or perhaps she can’t
, said a voice in Mario’s mind. He remembered the woman she had been the evening before, bright, completely at ease, ready to challenge him every moment.
    Yet there had been something else, he realised. Beneath her confident manner he’d sensed something different—troubled, uneasy. Their meeting had taken them both by surprise. His own turmoil had startled and shaken him, making him struggle not to let her suspect his weakness, the more so because she had seemed free of any weakness.
    But then he’d seen a new look in her eyes, a flash of vulnerability that matched his own. It had vanished at once, but for a brief moment he’d known that she was as alarmed as he was.
    He remembered how he’d stood under her balcony last night, watching her, sensing again that she was haunted, but resisting the impulse to reach out to her. Her disappearance now hinted at new trouble. If he went to her room, what would he find? The confident Natasha, laughing at his discomfiture? Or the frail Natasha who couldn’t cope?
    Abruptly he took out his mobile phone, called her room and listened as the bell rang and rang, with no reply.
    â€˜If it was anyone else you’d think they’d vanished without paying the bill,’ Giorgio observed. ‘But we’re not charging her for that room, so she’s got no reason to vanish.’
    â€˜That’s right,’ Mario said grimly. ‘No reason at all.’
    â€˜I’ll go and knock on her door.’
    â€˜No, stay here. I’ll see what’s happened.’
    Swiftly, he went to his office and opened a cupboard that contained the hotel’s replacement keys. Trying to stay calm despite his growing worry, Mario took the one that belonged to Natasha’s room and went upstairs. After only a moment’s hesitation, he opened her door.
    At once he saw her, lying in bed, so still and silent that alarm rose in him. He rushed towards the bed and leaned down to her, close enough to see that she was breathing.
    His relief was so great that he grasped the chest of drawers to stop himself falling. Every instinct of self-preservation warned him to get out quickly, before he was discovered. But he couldn’t make himself leave her. Instead he dropped onto one knee, gazing at her closely. She lay without moving, her lovely hair splayed out on the pillow, her face soft and almost smiling.
    How he had once dreamed of this, of awakening to find her beside him, sleeping gently, full of happiness at the pleasure they had shared.
    He leaned a little closer, until he could feel her breath on his face. He knew he was taking a mad risk. A wise man would leave now, but he wasn’t a wise man. He was a man torn by conflicting desires.
    Then she moved, turning so that the