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“I could never hate you.”

“You did once.”

“Once,” he agreed.

Her beautiful eyes flashed with something she blinked away before he could read it. “Okay, well, I’m not going on a road trip with you; now give me my bag.”

“We can go and see all the amphitheatres and colosseums you want en route,” he cajoled. “We can see whatever you like.”

“It’ll be winter soon. Too cold to do that kind of thing.”

Dropping her bag, he slid an arm around her waist and pulled her flush to him. “We can use our body heat to keep each other warm.”

“I’m not wasting my precious body heat on you,” she whispered even as she hooked her arms around his neck.

He lowered his face to hers. “That’s okay. I’ll use mine to keep you warm.”

Fingers scratched up his neck to the back of his head. “No you won’t.”

He rubbed his nose to hers. “I never thought you were a coward, Elvira Ranieri.”

“I’m not.”

“Prove it. Come on my road trip with me. If you decide you still hate me while we’re in the Alps, you can always push me off a mountain.”

Her fingers knotted into his hair. “Or I can just not go.”

“What if I kidnap you?” Sliding a hand down to her backside, he pressed his arousal into her abdomen and brushed his lips to hers. “Take you against your will?”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“Will you fight me?”

“To the death.”

“Then fight this.”

In an instant, Elvira found her mouth locked on Mattia’s and her senses fully infused with the taste and scent she’d missed with a desperation she’d felt all the way to her marrow.

Suddenly terrified of the emotions choking her, she pulled at his hair and wrenched her mouth from his to gaze into the green eyes she’d missed as much as she’d missed everything else about him.

When he’d first strolled into her brother’s dining room, she’d thought desperation had made her hallucinate him, and now, with his arms tight around her and the hard solidity of his body pressed against hers, her heart had swollen so big that even speaking through it was a struggle.

Fighting her feelings with only her insomnia for company had been torturous. Fighting them while held so securely in his arms was impossible.

“If I come with you, don’t think it means I don’t hate you,” she whispered.

“I won’t.”

“You’ll always be an Esposito bastard to me.”

“And you’ll always be my beautiful avenging angel to me.”

“I’m not yours.”

“You damned well are, and I’m yours, and if your parents are watching over you, they’ll see that my heart is entirely yours and that I’d give my whole damned life to protect you.”

Remembering how he’d used his body to shield her, she couldn’t help her tremulous smile. “I haven’t missed you at all.”