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‘Seriously’ Vito focused on that sparkling sritted his teeth in a conscious attempt to cool off and quell his hard-on He didn’t knohat it was about her but one look fro blue eyes and he was hotter than hell ‘Go ahead…’ He pinched one of the snacks on her plate by his feet ‘Any more of these?’

Holly laughed ‘I’ll put et the tree sorted’

Vito watched her rush about full of energy, and suppressed a rueful sigh It didn’t take a lot to make her happy ‘Why does Christmas mean so much to you?’

‘I didn’t have it when I was very small,’ she admitted

‘How can you not have Christmas?’

‘Mum didn’t celebrate it Well, not in the fa She went out partying but I didn’t knohat the day was supposed to be until I went into care for the first time’

Vito frowned ‘And how did that happen?’

Holly hesitated, eyes troubled as her oval face stiffened ‘You know, this is all very personal…’

‘I’rew up in care before,’ Vito told her truthfully, revelling in every fleeting expression that crossed her expressive little face She was full to the brim with emotional responses She was his exact opposite because she felt so much and showed even enuousness so very appealing in a woed to look away from her

Holly compressed her lips, those full pink lips with that dainty little cupid’s bow that called to him on a far more primitive level ‘When I was six years old, Mum left hbour because I was hungry and she called the police’

Taken aback by that adht eyes locked to her as she finished that little speech in an ee ‘Your mother abandoned you?’

‘Yes, but eventually she probably would have come back, as she’d done it before I was put into a short-terh it was already over,’ Holly told him with a fond smile of remembrance

‘And you’ve been ing off the pangs of syy cynicis such displays and feelings whenever he could because the memories of his mother’s raw pain in the face of his father’s rejections still disturbed his out on display you were asking to be kicked in the teeth and it was not a risk he was prepared to take for anyone Yet just looking at Holly he could tell that she had taken that saain

‘Probably As obsessions go, Christot up to hurry into the kitchen and retrieve the snacks fro hihts round the small tree

He watched the firelight flicker over her, illu thigh as she bent down, and the provocative rise of her curvy behind ‘How old are you, Holly?’