‘Did you love her very much?’ Leigh asked gently.

  ‘I didn’t love her at all! But by the time I’d realised that we had Gavin to think of, and I mistakenly thought he needed both parents. After we broke up I tried to give Gavin the sort of upbringing that would make him appreciate life. And I never let women get under my skin; love them and leave them—or in my case, take and leave them.’

  ‘Not even the woman whose husband forced you off the track two years ago?’

  ‘Julia? Her husband didn’t force me off the track, and I certainly wasn’t having an affair with her as the media reported. Even I have some standards, and married ladies were definitely out.’

  ‘Were?’ she queried worriedly.

  Piers smiled teasingly. ‘Pretty soon, and it can’t be soon enough for me, you will be a married lady, and I’m certainly not going to leave you alone. I’ll be a very demanding husband. Will you mind?’

  ‘No, because I’ll be a very demanding wife. Can I come over there now?’ she asked meekly.

  ‘If you promise to behave yourself.’

  Leigh stood up, a tall graceful figure in her purple trousers and black sweater. She knelt down in front of him, her eyes full of love. ‘Kiss me.’

  Piers leant forward, pulling her effortlessly on to his knees, his warm breath fanning her cheek. ‘Are you making demands already?’ he asked huskily.

  ‘Do you mind?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, but you didn’t promise.’

  ‘So I didn’t,’ Leigh said innocently. ‘But perhaps that’s because I’m not going to behave myself. I’ve waited so long for the right to show you my love and nothing is going to stop me.’

  ‘Not even me?’ his lips were caressing her creamy skin.

  ‘Especially you.’

  Leigh’s eyes never left his face, her hands trailing caressingly along his chest and up to his shoulders where she entwined her fingers into the hair that grew low on his collar. For a fraction of a second when she placed her lips on his he held back, and Leigh wondered if he had meant it when he said she was to behave herself. How could she do that when all she wanted was to have Piers make love to her until nothing else mattered? Suddenly, with a deep groan, his lips hardened on hers, parting them to ravage the sweetness within.

  She revelled in the mastery of his touch, lying beneath the hardness of his body as he kissed and caressed her, his hands straying below the thickness of her sweater to probe the soft skin beneath. Leigh longed for his touch and gasped aloud as he touched her firm uptilted breasts, pressing herself even closer against him. His lips were arousing her to an awareness she hadn’t believed possible and her body ached against the sensuous pressure of his as she begged for his full possession.

  Finally Piers put her away from him, his face pale and strained. ‘Stop it, Leigh!’ he said tautly as she made a movement to pull him back to her side. ‘Oh God!’ he gave a strangulated groan. ‘I have to get out of here.’ He stood up, tucking his shirt back into the loosened waistband of his dark trousers, and picking up the jacket he had discarded on entering the room.

  Leigh struggled to her feet, pressing herself against him and effectively stopping his efforts to rebutton his shirt. She gently pushed his hands away and began to unfasten the ones he had already refastened.

  He looked down at her, his eyes lingering on the parted softness of her mouth as she concentrated on her task. ‘What are you doing?’ he whispered huskily.

  Her eyes glowed. ‘I’m unbuttoning your shirt, darling.’

  Piers gave a strained smile. ‘I know that. But why are you doing it? Can’t you understand that if I don’t get out of here all my good intentions will be forgotten?’

  ‘I don’t care about your good intentions,’ she said softly. ‘Karen is away for the weekend and I want you to stay here.’

  He shook his head. ‘I can’t. You don’t know what you’re asking.’

  ‘All I’m asking is that you stay with me and make me yours.’

  Piers’ hands came up and painfully gripped her forearms. ‘Do you realise what you’re saying? If I stay there’ll be no turning back—for either of us. Do you understand?’

  ‘I want you,’ she said simply.

  ‘Oh God, I want you too!’ He bent and picked her up in his arms, gently placing her on the bed before she pulled him down beside her.

  * * *

  It was the insistent ring of the telephone that eventually woke her up, moving slightly under the strange weight of the masculine arm encircling her waist. She looked up to encounter the sleepy blue eyes of the man she loved, stretching her limbs like a sleepy kitten.

  ‘Good morning, my darling.’ He bent his dark head and kissed her lightly on the lips. ‘I wondered when you would wake up.’

  ‘Have you been awake long?’ She moved sensuously as his lips caressed her bare shoulder.

  ‘Only since the telephone began ringing. And whoever it is they’re very persistent.’ He gently touched her slightly bruised lips. ‘Did I hurt you?’

  Leigh shook her head, placing a kiss in the palm of his hand. ‘Only a little, at first. But that didn’t matter. Oh darling, I love you.’

  ‘And was it good?’

  She blushed at their remembered passion for each other that had lasted long into the night. ‘It was marvellous. Did I please you?’

  ‘Too much.’ He buried his face in her neck and Leigh felt his stirring passion rising once again. ‘I love you,’ his lips teased hers and Leigh gave herself up to his demands.

  ‘Darling,’ she said dazedly. ‘Darling, the telephone is still ringing. It could be something important.’

  ‘More important than making love to me?’

  ‘Nothing is more important than that.’

  ‘Okay then,’ he relinquished his hold on her, ‘you can go and answer it.’

  Leigh slipped out of bed, unconsciously alluring as she put on her bathrobe before blowing Piers a kiss as she left the room. She yawned sleepily before reciting the telephone number. It was cold out here in the hallway and she longed to go back to the warmth of Piers’ body.

  ‘Is that you, Leigh?’

  She recognised Gavin’s voice. ‘Yes, it’s me. What do you want?’

  ‘I’d like to talk to Dad. And don’t say he isn’t there, because I’ve tried everywhere else he could be. I told you everything would work out, now, didn’t I?’

  ‘Know-all,’ she joked, and seeing Piers out of the corner of her eye she beckoned him over. He was now fully dressed and looked enquiringly at her as he took the receiver.

  ‘Gavin,’ she told him, snuggling into his arms.

  ‘Yes, Gavin?’ Piers played with long strands of her hair. There was a slight pause. ‘Yes. Yes, as soon as possible. Yes, I suppose so,’ another pause. ‘Okay, I’ll tell her. Oh, and Gavin—thanks.’

  The two of them walked back into the flat, their arms entwined lovingly.

  ‘What did he say?’ Leigh asked anxiously.

  ‘He asked when I was going to make an honest woman of you, and if he could be best man at the wedding.’ He looked deeply into her eyes. ‘He also told me to say good morning to his mother-to-be.’

  ‘Oh goodness, yes,’ Leigh laughed. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

  * * *

  Six months later Leigh looked up from the book she had been studying to smile at her husband. During the five months they had been married Piers had a more relaxed look about him, the love they shared making him appear years younger.

  ‘Thank you, darling,’ she said suddenly, her love for him overwhelming in her happiness.

  Piers smiled at her indulgently. ‘For what?’

  Leigh shrugged her shoulders. ‘For loving me. For letting me do my nursing training. And for being understanding about it—there aren’t many husbands who would put up with the peculiar hours I work.’

  He moved with the panther-like grace that Leigh loved, sitting beside her on the luxurious sofa in their London apartment. ‘But I have the advantage over a lot of husbands. I can work when it pleases me, and it pleases me only to work when you do. It works very well for us,’ he added with satisfaction. ‘Besides, your mother and father wouldn’t have been very enamoured of me if I’d stopped you carrying on with your career.’

  ‘You know very well that nothing you do could ever be wrong in their eyes.’

  ‘And yours?’

  ‘You know I love you more than life itself.’

  ‘You’re beautiful. You have a beautiful body, a beautiful mind and a beautiful temper. I love it when you get angry with me.’

  ‘Which isn’t very often.’ She burrowed into his shoulder. ‘Piers, make love to me.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Right now.’

  ‘Anything to oblige a lady, especially as she happens to be my wife. And my woman.’

  ‘Your only woman,’ Leigh added teasingly.

  ‘You bet my only woman,’ he groaned deeply in his throat before taking possession of her lips. ‘I couldn’t touch anyone else after loving you.’

  ‘Good. That’s the way I feel too.’

  * * * * *

  Now, read on for a tantalizing excerpt of Michelle Smart’s next book,

  CLAIMING HIS ONE-NIGHT BABY

  The second book in her Bound to a Billionaire trilogy!

  Natasha Pellegrini and Matteo Manaserro’s potently charged reunion leads to one night of explosive passion. When Matteo discovers Natasha’s pregnancy, he’s intent on claiming his baby. Except he hasn’t bargained on their insatiable chemistry binding them together so completely!

  Keep reading to get a glimpse of

  CLAIMING HIS ONE-NIGHT BABY

  CHAPTER ONE

  JAW CLENCHED, HIS heart pounding an irregular beat in his chest, Matteo Manaserro watched the coffin being lowered into the consecrated ground of Castello Miniato’s private cemetery.

  Surrounding the open earth stood hundreds of Pieta Pellegrini’s loved ones, friends, family, colleagues, even some heads of state, with their security details standing back at a discreet distance, all there to say a final goodbye to a man who had been respected the world over for his philanthropic endeavours.

  Vanessa Pellegrini, Pieta’s mother, who had buried her husband Fabio in the adjoining plot only a year ago, stepped forward, supported by her daughter Francesca. Both women clutched red roses. Francesca turned around to extend a hand to Natasha, Pieta’s widow, who was staring blankly at the wooden box like an ashen-faced statue. The breeze that had filled the early autumn air had dropped, magnifying the statue effect. Not a single strand of her tumbling honey-blonde hair moved.

  She lifted her dry eyes and blinked, the motion seeming to clear her thoughts as she grabbed Francesca’s hand and joined the sobbing women.

  Together, the three Pellegrini women threw their roses onto the coffin.

  Matteo forced stale air from his lungs and focused his attention anywhere but on the widow.

  This was a day to say goodbye, to mourn and then celebrate a man who deserved to be mourned and celebrated. This was not a day to stare at the widow and think how beautiful she looked even in grief. Or think how badly he wanted to take hold of her shoulders and…

  Daniele, Pieta’s brother, shifted beside him. It was their turn.

  Goodbye, Pieta, my cousin, my friend. Thank you for everything. I will miss you.

  Once the immediate family—in which Matteo was included—had thrown their roses on the coffin, it was time for the other mourners to follow suit.

  Striving to keep his features neutral, he watched his parents step forward to pay their last respects to their nephew. They didn’t look at him, their son, but he knew his father sensed him watching.

  Matteo hadn’t exchanged a word with them since he’d legally changed his surname five years ago in the weeks that had followed the death of his own brother.

  So much death.

  So many funerals.

  So much grief.

  Too much pain.

  When the burial was over and the priest led the mourners into the castello for the wake, Matteo hung back to visit a grave on the next row.

  The marble headstone had a simple etching.

  Roberto Pellegrini

  Beloved son

  No mention of him being a beloved brother.

  Generations of Pellegrinis and their descendants were buried here, going back six centuries. At twenty-eight Roberto was the youngest to have been buried in fifty years.

  Matteo crouched down and touched the headstone. ‘Hello, Roberto. Sorry I haven’t visited you in a while. I’ve been busy.’ He laughed harshly. In the five years since his brother’s death he’d visited the grave only a handful of times. Not a day passed when he didn’t think of him. Not an hour passed when he didn’t feel the loss.

  ‘Listen to me justifying myself. Again. You know I hate to see you here. I love you and I miss you. I just wanted you to know that.’

  Blinking back moistness from his eyes, his heart aching, his head pounding, Matteo dragged himself to the castello to join the others.

  A huge bar had been set up in the state room for the wake. Matteo had booked himself into a hotel in Pisa for the next couple of days but figured one small glass of bourbon wouldn’t put him over the limit. His hotel room had a fully stocked mini-bar for him to drink dry when he got there. He would stay as long as was decent then leave.

  He’d taken only a sip of his drink when Francesca appeared at his side.

  He embraced her tightly. ‘How are you holding up?’ He’d been thirteen when his uncle Fabio and his wife Vanessa had taken him into their home. Francesca had been a baby. He’d been there when she’d taken her first steps, been in the audience for her first school music recital—she’d murdered the trumpet—and had beamed with the pride of a big brother only a few months ago at her graduation.

  She shrugged and rubbed his arm. ‘I need you to come with me. There’s something we need to discuss.’

  Following her up a cold corridor—the ancient castello needed a fortune’s worth of modernisation—they entered Fabio Pellegrini’s old office, which, from the musty smell, hadn’t been used since the motor neurone disease that eventually killed him had really taken its hold on him.

  A moment later Daniele appeared at the door with Natasha right behind him.

  Startled blue eyes found his and quickly looked away as Francesca closed the door and indicated they should all sit round the oval table.

  Matteo inhaled deeply and swore to himself.

  This was the last thing he needed, to be stuck in close confines with her, the woman who had played him like a violin, letting him believe she had genuine feelings for him and could see a future for them, when all along she’d been playing his cousin too.

  It seemed she had been with him every minute of that day, always in the periphery of his vision even when he’d blinked her away. Now she sat opposite him, close enough that if he were to reach over the table he would be able to stroke her deceitful face.

  She shouldn’t be wearing black. She should be wearing scarlet.

  He despised that she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen and that the years had only added to it.

  He studied the vivid blue eyes that looked everywhere but at him. He studied the classically oval face with its creamy complexion, usually golden but today ashen, searching for flaws. Her nose was slightly too long, her lips too wide, but instead of being imperfections they added character to the face he’d once dreamed of waking up to.

  And now?

  Now he despised the very air she breathed.

  * * *

  ‘To summarise, I’ll take care of the legal side, Daniele takes care of the construction and Matteo takes care of the medical side. What about you, Natasha? Do you want to handle publicity for it?’

  Francesca’s words penetrated Natasha’s ears but it took a couple of beats longer for her brain to decipher them.

  She’d struggled to pay attention throughout the meeting Francesca had called, the outbursts of temper between Daniele and Francesca being the only thing that had kept her even vaguely alert.

  ‘I can do that,’ she whispered, swallowing back the hysteria clamouring in her stomach.

  Ignore Matteo and keep it together, she told herself in desperation.

  God, she didn’t know anything about publicity.

  She knew Francesca thought she was doing the right thing, inviting her to this meeting of siblings—and the Pellegrinis considered their cousin Matteo to be a sibling—and that Francesca assumed she would want to be involved.

  Any decent, loving widow would want to be involved in building a memorial to their beloved husband.

  And she did want to be involved. For all his terrible failings as a husband, Pieta had been a true, dedicated humanitarian. He’d formed his own foundation a decade ago to build in areas hit by natural disasters; schools, homes, hospitals, whatever was needed. The Caribbean island of Caballeros had been hit by the worst hurricane on record the week before he’d died, wrecking the majority of the island’s medical facilities. Pieta had immediately known he would build a hospital there but before his own plans for it had fully formed his own tragedy had struck and he’d been killed in a helicopter crash.

  He deserved to have this memorial. The suffering people of Caballeros deserved to benefit from the hospital Francesca would steamroller into building for them.

  So Natasha had striven to pay attention, not wanting to let down the loving Pellegrini siblings who’d been a part of her life for as long as she could remember, since her father and Fabio had been old school friends. She’d never had siblings of her own and as soon as it had been announced she’d be marrying into the family the closeness had grown, even during the six long years of their engagement.

  If only Matteo weren’t there she’d have been better able to concentrate.

  There had not been one occasion in his presence in the past seven years where she hadn’t felt the weight of his animosity. Polite and amiable enough that no one could see the depths of his loathing, whenever their eyes met it was akin to being stared at by Lucifer, her soul scorched by the burn of the hatred firing from green eyes that had once looked at her with only tenderness.