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Elizabeth’s htened She hated any hint of her deficiencies as a mother ‘I’,’ she said stiffly ‘If your father—’
‘I didn’t mean it like that’
Elizabeth had turned to look at her directly ‘So will you come to Rome, to meet Rico? It should only take a few days’
‘Roo there? I mean…can’t he come here? And why does he have to meet me?’
‘Family is important to him And I need this to work, Laurel’ The desperate look in her ive you the only thing you’ve ever wanted, I pro roo is for you to show Rico that we’re a family, that you’re pleased to have him in your life Is that so much to ask?’
Cristiano stretched out on the bed, as far fro with the aftershocks of kissing Laurel Her skin had felt like the supplest silk under his hands He shifted, trying to suppress the ache in his groin, the flicker of regret whispering through his
He hadn’t heard a sound from the bedroom across the hall, not so much as a creak of a floorboard He hoped Laurel was asleep She had to be exhausted, after everything she’d endured tonight
Including him
Guilt, Cristiano reflected, was a very inconvenient e He’d always prided hi, his honesty He never pretended to care The woive, and all that he wasn’t, up front That, in his vieas so admirable Honourable
So why did he feel as if his actions tonight hadn’t been? As if he’d used Laurel, just as Bavasso had used her? She’d responded to his touch, heaven knew He’d felt it He’d certainly felt it in hith of which had alarmed him—because, when he’d taken Laurel in his ar to her as well as to himself Yet he’d had to use all his self-control, all of his deeply ingrained self-discipline, to keep fro in her kiss
And when Laurel had jerked out of his ared her in a way he didn’t like to think about
Restless now, Cristiano rose fro pyja the horizon as the sky lightened to a lurabbed his laptop and strode out to the living room, he needed to know more about Laurel Forrester
Cristianocoffee and then stretched out on one of the sofas, his coine and waited for the results
He scrolled through pages obviously about other people—a physics professor in Colorado, a housewife in South Carolina—before finally hitting on one that snagged his interest, simply because it was froe of the website for a hospital in Canton Heights He frowned, not quite believing this could be his Laurel—because Laurel, whether she acknowledged it or not, was most definitely his For now, at least
He clicked and scrolled down the staff directory until he found Laurel Forrester, RN She was a nurse? That so didn’t fit the profile of the woo on the arm of one of Rome’s shadiest businessmen Surely that wasn’t her?
Cristiano raked a hand through his close-cropped hair, fingernails grazing his skull He went back to the search results and scrolled through several pages Then he clicked on ile one caht indeed, unlike her mother’s
Just to prove a point to himself, Cristiano typed Elizabeth Forrester’s na to find dozens of photos of his former step a little defiant, as if she was daring her audience to ask if she was happy