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.“I might be busy later,” she told him loftily.He smiled that hard smile of his that made her ache, and he didn’t look particularly concerned.“I will take that chance.”And she would let him, she knew.Not because he told her to.Not because he was holding anything over her head.But because she was helpless before her own need, even though she knew perfectly well it would ruin her all over again.Later, she told herself.I’ll worry about it later.Because later was going to be all the years she got to live through on the other side of this little interlude, when he was nothing but a memory all over again.And she wasn’t delusional enough to imagine that there was any possibility that when this thing with Giancarlo ended he might permit her to remain with Violet, in any capacity.He was as likely to fall to his knees and propose marriage.She moved around him and into the house then, not wanting him to read that epic bit of silliness on her face, when that notion failed to make her laugh at herself the way it should have.When it made everything inside of her clutch hopefully instead.You are such a fool, she chided herself.But then again, that wasn’t news.Paige swept up her bag and hung it over her shoulder, then followed Giancarlo out to his Jeep.He climbed in and turned the key, and she clung to the handle on her side of the vehicle as he bumped his way up the old lane and then headed toward the castello in the distance.It was another beautiful summer’s day, bright and perfect with the olive trees a silvery presence on either side of the lane that wound through the hills toward Violet, and Paige told herself it was enough.This was enough.It was more than she’d ever imagined could happen with Giancarlo after what she’d done, and why did she want to ruin it with thoughts of more?But the sad truth was, she didn’t know how to be anything but greedy when it came to this man.She wanted all of him, not the parts of himself he doled out so carefully, so sparingly.Not when she could feel he kept so much of himself apart.She’d woken the morning after that first night to find herself in his bed.Alone.He’d left her there without so much as a note, and she’d lectured herself about the foolishness of her hurt feelings.She’d told herself she should count herself lucky he hadn’t tossed her out his front door at dawn, naked.What she told herself and what she actually went right on feeling, of course, were not quite the same thing.Modify your expectations, girl, she’d snapped at herself on the walk down the hill to her cottage.The birds had been singing joyfully, the sun had been cheerful against her face, she was in Italy of all places, and Giancarlo had made love to her again and again throughout the night.He could call it whatever he wanted.She would hold it in her battered little heart and call it what it had meant to her.Because she hadn’t lied to him.She hadn’t touched another man since him, and she’d grown to accept the fact she never would.At first it had hurt too much.She’d seen nothing but Giancarlo—and more important, his back, on that last morning when he’d walked away from her rather than talk about what had happened, what she’d done.Then she’d started working for Violet and it had seemed as if Giancarlo was everywhere, in pictures, in emails, in conversation.Paige had had the very acute sense that so much as going out to dinner with another man was some kind of treason—which she’d known was absurd.Beyond absurd, given the way in which she’d betrayed him.She’d made certain he hated her.He’d walked away from her without a single backward glance.Why should he care what she did?And yet somehow, each of these ten years had crept by and he was still the only man she’d ever slept with.She’d been unable to contain the small, humming thing inside her then as that thought had kept her company on her walk.It had felt a little bit too much like a kind of silly joy she ought to have known better than to indulge.But he’d turned up that night, his face drawn as if he’d fought a great battle with himself, and he hadn’t seemed interested in talking about whether he’d lost or won.He’d led her up her stairs, thrown her on her bed, and kept them up for another night—this time, she’d noted, with the condoms they’d failed to use before.They hadn’t talked about that first night and its lack of birth control.Just like ten years ago, they hadn’t talked about a thing.And that was how it had been since her arrival, Paige thought now, as they drew closer to the castello.She’d never spent much time wondering what it felt like to be a rich man’s kept woman before now.What she thought people in this part of the world might call a mistress
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