The Passionate Italian 11 DECEMBER EPUB Read Online Free PDF Page A

mind. She tried again to respond. “Because it is nonsense.”
    He shook his head. “My English Rose, so northern, so prosaic. You have to see it to believe it, eh?” He laughed as if the idea was ludicrous. “You have to taste it to know it for what it is.”
    “You can’t trust what you don’t believe to be real.”
    “Touch me. Am I not real?”
    He pulled her hand roughly into his and held it tightly for a moment before dropping it back to her side.
    “Am I not real, cara mia?” he repeated.
    She nodded. “Of course you are.”
    “Then, you can trust in me.”
    She jerked back her hand. “You’re twisting my words.”
    “Come, it’s time for bed.”
    “For work you mean.”
    “Of course.” He grinned that rare grin that could flip her stomach at a thousand paces.
    Rose swilled the remains of her second glass of wine before swallowing it, desperately trying to calm her gathering nerves.  
    She’d lived with Giovanni for barely a year but during that time, if they weren’t parted through work, a day hadn’t gone by without them making love at least once. The idea of them being together in a bedroom without loving each other was laughable.
    But she wasn’t laughing.
    “Your skin is flushed.” He raised his finger to her neck and dragged it down, stopping just short of her black t-shirt. “Too much wine perhaps?”
    “I’ve had two glasses.”
    “The thought of being alone with your husband then?”
    She contented herself with a glare.
    His fingers dipped under her t-shirt and scooped out a necklace from her cleavage.
    “What is this? I haven’t seen it before.”
    He rubbed the small, intricately wrought greenstone knot between his fingers. “A present?”
    She could hear the old familiar tension in his voice. She took pity on him.
    “You’ve done your homework, you know that there were no lovers. Although it’s none of your business.”
    The jealousy that lay like a fist in the pit of his gut uncoiled. She was correct. His informants hadn’t found any trace of attachment, romantic or otherwise. Still, he wanted to hear it from her.
    “I need to know everything about you. It could affect your work.”
    “And that’s all you’re interested in now.”
    He smiled. “So tell me about the necklace. A gift or a purchase?”
    She pulled the necklace away from her body and rubbed it against her palm. “A gift. From local Maori. I worked with them a little.”
    “Ah, yes, your scholarships for the girls.”
    “Life’s not easy for some people.”
    “I understand that the recipients never met you. It was all done online. So determined were you to avoid emotional engagement of any kind.”
    “What I did and how I did it is no concern of yours.”
    “And what would happen to these scholarships if you were to break your contract?”
    He felt the full effect of her glare. “You know full well I can’t afford to let that happen.”
    He smiled briefly at her anger. He relished her display of emotion, even if it was only anger.
    “Then we will make sure your little girls are able to study. But tell me, I am curious. Why no men in your life? Did you last lover put you off?”
    “Who?”
    “The person you left me for.”
    “I—”
    “Don’t deny it. Why else would you leave me?”
    She shook her head, whether in denial or because she refused to answer his question, he could not tell.
    He paced away from her then. The thought of her with someone else made him crazy. He took a deep breath before risking turning around to face her, determined to keep his words low and controlled.  
    “Tell me!”
    Rose shook her head again. She knew that just one word would unleash that control with devastating consequences.
    “You won’t tell me? Why? Trying to protect someone?”
    “Yes.” She held his gaze, willing him to understand that it was him that she was protecting: wanting him to do what he’d never been able to do before—suspend his overwhelming need to own everything about her and see