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All their lives were changing

He went to grab his briefcase, which he’d left by Alessandra’s corner office Instead of picking it up and leaving, he found hih the portfolios of her work

Asalbuh These were the unofficial ones taken by Alessandra, a ti week, when their first guests had arrived, right up to the ot on the dance floor for the Kalamatianos His lips quirked to see a picture of a particularly beautiful but notoriouslyblack in her teeth

His heart jolted when he turned the page over to find a les, all differentOne in particular held his attention The face was staring directly into the caestive look in the eyes, as if the person wanted nothing rapher to a private room and make love to theraphs was him

Christian pulled up outside Villa Mondelli Turning off the engine, he stared at it in the sahteen-year-old boy on the cusp of beco a man He’d seen lavish splendour before, had walked past thethat, one day, he too would live in a home like these Villa Mondelli was the first of that particular type he’d actually been invited into Not only invited to cross the threshold but to stay there for a week—and hout his life, but of course at the time he wasn’t to know that The Mondellis had welcomed him, Stefan and Zayed into their home and treated him as if he were their equal, as if he were le woman with callused hands

Now, fourteen years later, with homes every bit as opulent as the villa and wealth beyond his drea was for Alessandra

When he’d first visited he’d been full of envy for the people who lived there, brought up with such easy wealth Or so it had seemed to his eyes

Alessandra had lived in this house alht here when her father had lost his own house and abdicated responsibility for his children onto his own father Alessandra had been a baby She’d grown up feeling responsible for her mother’s death, shunned by her father and raised by an often austerefinished with Her only source of love had been her older brother who, she worshipped For much of Alessandra’s life in this ho, graduating to become a workaholic

More often than not, her only co a roof with her because they were paid to

All the envy he’d felt fourteen years ago had gone, replaced with the sad knowledge that even the richest of people could lead the poorest of lives

Look at hiarded as one of the richest s such wealth brought, but in his heart he was still poor

It was only now, at the age of thirty-two, that he’d discovered the path to true richness

He hadn’t even placed a foot on the bottom step when Rocco answered the door

Christian looked up at him ‘I’ht They’d exchanged a couple of text reed to meet him in Milan for her next obstetrician appointment, but until then she wanted soether To get his heart together

Rocco looked him up and down ‘And what if she doesn’t want to see you?’

‘Has she said that?’ A puff of relief escaped froht For all Alessandra’s proclamations that she’d rather live in a convent than stay with her brother, this was the first place Christian had looked when she’d failed to return to her apartment after her Tokyo trip