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It hadn’t felt like giving herself to Christian Giving i a favour, not the hot mix of desire and need that had made her desperate for his touch

She could still feel and taste the heady heat of his breath

But now she was stone-cold sober, her iht have the power to jolt her senses but they didn’t have the power to knock her off balance No ht have a Pavlovian response to him but intellectually and emotionally she was safe

When they married he could see whoever he wanted It made no difference to her All she cared about was her baby As long as her babyelse mattered

Maybe when her baby was placed in her arms, her own place on this earth wouldshe’d carried her entire life that she should never have been born

Christian sensed a slight change in Alessandra’s de of the shoulders and stiffening of the spine

She was looking good She always looked good

With her long hair loose around her shoulders, she wore faded tight-fitting jeans, a pale-blue cotton blouse unbuttoned to the top of her cleavage, a navy blazer and silver ankle boots with a slight heel Heavy costu round her neck and wrists, large, hooped gold earrings in her ears Alessandra could wear a sack and carry it off, would still have that beautifully put-together air she carried so well

Her apartether, the walls and furniture s bold and colourful Giant prints of her work hung on the walls, enlarged, fraazines she’d worked for

He kneould be a wrench for her to leave, but a third-floor apartment in the heart of Milan’s fashion district was not a feasible place to bring up a child He’d raised the subject of her selling it on the phone a few days ago Her response had been non-coet used to the idea before discussing it again

‘Are you ready to go?’ he asked