‘Have dinner with me tonight.’ He’d spoken those words on umpteen occasions in the past, but never before had he braced himself for rejection. Up until this point in his life it had been a foregone conclusion that the woman in question would just say yes.
As he’d anticipated, Liv instantly shook her head. ‘I couldn’t possibly. Why? Why would you want to?’
He was asking himself the same question. He’d never before dated a colleague or a single mother.
Neither had he found himself thinking about sex at inconvenient moments during his working day. ‘I owe you dessert.’
Liv backed towards the door. ‘You don’t owe me anything.’
Unaccustomed to having to persuade a woman to join him for dinner, Stefano watched her for a moment, trying to read her mind. ‘Is it a babysitting issue?’
‘Yes.’ She said the word quickly and then breathed out and shook her head. ‘No, actually that’s not true. It isn’t just about the babysitting. It’s about me. And you. I mean, you found out everything there is to know about me last night. You’ve already listened to my entire life history and I’m sure it bored you to death. I don’t have anything else to say. I work, I spend time with my child. That’s it. I’m just not interesting. You already know all there is to know.’
He was stunned by the completely false impression she had of herself.
Why did she think she was boring?
Contemplating the soft curve of her mouth and the shyness in her expression, Stefano strolled across his office towards her. He watched as her eyes widened slightly.
‘Mr Lucarelli—Stefano…’
Without speaking, Stefano took her face in his hands, stared down into her startled green eyes for a few endless seconds and then brought his mouth down on hers. For a moment she didn’t move a muscle, and then she made a soft sound and her lips parted under his.
He kissed her slowly and confidently, taking his time, holding her head exactly as he wanted it as he skilfully seduced her mouth. Only when her fingers curled into the front of his shirt and he felt her relax against him did he slide an arm around her waist and pull her into his body.
Boring?
She was exquisite.
Her hips were curved, her breasts full and the sudden explosion of raw lust that devoured him was so powerful that it took all his willpower to stop himself from slamming the door shut and just taking her on his desk.
Unsettled by the fierce intensity of his own response, Stefano dragged his mouth from hers and eased her away from him.
Liv swayed for a moment and then opened her eyes and looked at him. Her expression was so bemused that he suddenly wondered exactly how long it had been since anyone had kissed her properly.
‘There’s plenty that I don’t know about you, Liv,’ he said softly, dragging his thumb over the swollen softness of her mouth. ‘But I intend to find out.’
‘MUMMY, why are you staring out of the window and smiling?’
Liv turned at the sound of Max’s voice. ‘Oh…’ she cleared her throat and picked up her coffee-mug. It was Saturday morning and she’d been up since dawn. ‘I was just…thinking.’ About being kissed. It wasn’t the first time she’d been kissed, but it seemed that way. Unless her memory was defective, it had never felt like that.
Stefano Lucarelli kissed as well as he did everything else.
Max shook the contents of the cereal packet into his bowl and looked at her sympathetically. ‘Are you worrying that Father Christmas might not come? I know how he gets round the whole world in one night.’
‘You do?’ Why had he kissed her? She didn’t understand it, but it was impossible to erase the memory from her brain or her body. And he’d said that he wanted to know more about her. What had he meant by that?
‘Mum? Are you listening?’
‘I’m listening.’
‘It’s because he travels through different time zones,’ Max said seriously. ‘You know, he starts in Australia, then he moves on to…’ swinging his legs, he carried on detailing Father Christmas’s route while Liv tried desperately to stop thinking about Stefano.
With a huge effort, she brought herself back to reality. ‘OK. I’ll stop worrying about Father Christmas’s workload. So—plan for the day. Football in the park and then we’ll buy the Christmas tree. How does that sound?’
‘Brilliant.’ Max crunched his way through the cereal and drank his milk. ‘Pizza for tea?’
Liv laughed. Why was she feeling so happy? It was completely ridiculous, but she just couldn’t help it. Determined to pull herself together, she rose to her feet. ‘I’ll make the dough now. You can help. Wash your hands.’
‘Hayley’s mum won’t let her make pizza dough because she says it makes a mess.’ Max reached for the weighing scales and lifted the flour out of the cupboard. ‘I told her that you love mess.’
‘Mess and I are certainly intimately acquainted,’ Liv said dryly, glancing around her kitchen and wondering why it never stayed tidy.
Because she was happy to let her son make pizza dough.
Max emptied some flour onto the weighing scales. ‘Oops.’ He stood back as some of it sprinkled over his toes. ‘You can do the water.’
The doorbell rang just as Max plunged his fingers into the gooey mixture.
‘That will be the postman.’ Liv wiped her hands and walked towards the door. She was still in her pyjamas, her hair was tumbling loose past her shoulders and her feet were bare, but as she had no intention of stepping outside, she decided that it didn’t matter.
Keeping her body out of sight, she opened the door, a cheerful smile on her face as she popped her head round.
Stefano Lucarelli stood there, a large white box in his hands and a cool, confident look on his handsome face. He was wearing a long black coat over jeans and a chunky roll-neck jumper that brushed against the blue shadow of his jaw.
‘Buongiorno.’
Memories of that amazing kiss came flooding back with disturbing clarity and for a moment she wondered whether he was real or whether her mind had conjured him up because she’d been thinking of him all morning. Was he a product of wishful thinking?
‘What are you doing here?’ Liv winced as she listened to herself. It was no wonder she was single. ‘I’m sorry. That sounded rude. It’s just that I—’ He looked far too good to be standing in her doorway.
‘Invite me in.’ His silken command left her more flustered than ever.
‘You must be joking.’ She thought of the pyjamas she was wearing. ‘Why would you want to come in?’
‘Because I don’t want to eat dessert on my own.’
Her gaze shifted from the gleam in his eyes to the box in his hands. ‘You brought me dessert?’
‘Belgian chocolate log, complete with whipped cream.’
Liv started to laugh. ‘It’s ten o’clock in the morning.’
Stefano gave a dismissive shrug. ‘If you’re going to commit a sin, you may as well get it over with early in the day.’ His Italian accent somehow made the words seem more sinful than the subject and the way he was looking at her made her insides turn to liquid.
‘You can’t possibly come in,’