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‘Waitress…well, waitress with aspirations,’ she adjusted jerkily when he tensed against her ‘I want to be an interior designer but it’s more a dream than reality’

‘It takes work to turn dreams into reality’

Holly s in life but so a break relatesaway’

‘This is getting way too serious,’ Vito objected when he found hi her advice

Holly let her fingers drift up to brush his black hair off his brow, her attention locked to his lean, darkly handsome features even as her heart had sunk because she was scarily well attuned to his body language ‘Agreed Let’s stay away from the real world’

His long, lean body relaxed against hers again and tears stung her eyes as she blinked against his shoulder The news that she was a waitress had been too sharp a stab of reality for Vito, highlighting as it did the difference in their statuses His clothing, even the variety and expense of the food in the refrigerator, not to s all told Holly that Vito inhabited a rather ed place in society than she did And while here at the cottage without other people around, that difference didn’t really matter She kneould matter very much outside these walls

‘I still want you,’ Vito confided thickly, running the tip of his tongue along her collarbone

Her tummy flipped, her fe whether she wanted it to or not because she was too tender to engage again in the kind of intihtly, a s the ripple of hisin response

‘Maybe later,’ Vitointo her hair to lift her s we can do, gioia mia’

Holly laughed and buried her face in his shoulder ‘You’re so shameless’

‘Why wouldn’t I be? You’ve been brilliant I can’t understand why you were still untouched’

‘It was a pro…to wait It just seehed ‘So the line it became a burden, a tripwire in relationships that held me back from who I could be’

Vito gazed down at her with a frown of incomprehension ‘But why me? Why did you choose me?’

‘Maybe it was because you let me put my Christmas tree up,’ she teased, because there were all too many reasons why she had chosen him and very few she was prepared to share There was no safe way to tell aidea and assu more than she was supposed to feel in terms of attachment

Her fingers slid up caressingly to the firroaned, dark head falling back, wide sensual ht