Far From Perfect Read Online Free

turbulent, and particularly so in Nick and Carlo’s case, but filial love ran far deeper than antipathy.
    “He’s doing well… Being a pain in the hindquarters, as usual, so yes, definitely improved.”
    Nick seemed very still somehow. It was a quality he sometimes possessed, and in the narrow confines of the hall it was amplified and bizarrely felt almost energetic. The impact of his body just inches away from hers buffeted Anna’s senses and sent flight-or-fight instinct racing through her. But she stomped it down ruthlessly and focused on more tangible matters. “Uncle” Carlo had always been extravagantly kind to her and news of his heart attack and major surgery had been a horrible shock. She’d wanted to visit, despite the fact she’d almost certainly run into Nick, but the medics had insisted on quiet and only the very immediate family as visitors.
    “He was most insistent on me coming here to represent him,” Nick went on with a wry smile that made Anna’s stomach flutter. “Especially with Sofia too heavily pregnant to leave Rome,” he added, referring to his happily married sister, “And Pietro, naturally, wanting to stay close to her.”
    “Of course. And are they well too?” she enquired.
    Pleasantries, polite social niceties, family chit-chat. Was this what they were eternally reduced to? She felt awkward and somehow despairing as Nick nodded in reply.
    “Look, come on through, Dad will be thrilled to see you.”
    “So you’re playing quite the little hostess tonight, eh?” observed Nick, still not moving, his blue, unblinking eyes pinning her to the tiled floor.
    “I am the hostess, and I’m not little.”
    The words were out of her lips almost before she’d thought them and she could have kicked herself for losing it with him so quickly.
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that to sound derogatory. I was just making small talk and it came out wrong.”
    The apology rang true as a bell, and she knew it was honestly tendered, but at the same time there was an infinite fieriness in Nick’s blue eyes, a quality both combative and intoxicating. Their four years of cordial, manufactured smiles and unspoken distance keeping suddenly fell away like a sheet of shattered glass. “I cannot think of anyone other than you that I’d prefer to welcome me to this party,” he added softly.
    What are you up to? We agreed “that night” never happened. So there’s no need for us to dance around each other like cats spoiling for a fight.
    “Sorry,” she backtracked, “I’m a bit nervous about everything going right tonight, that’s all.” She gestured towards the open door of the reception room beyond and the sound of laughing voices and conversation. The sound of sanctuary. “Please, come on…Dad will be wondering where I’ve got to and who’s arrived.”
    But as she took a step, Nick caught her by the arm, his hand like a gauntlet of fire gripping her bare skin. Sensation rocketed through her, activating…everything. Another first in all the truce years. Long suppressed physical responses switched instantaneously into high gear. Only an effort of pure will stopped her wrenching herself away from him.
    Either that or throwing herself forward into his arms.
    “ Tra un momento .”
    Nick’s usually accentless voice sounded all Latin, and the fact he’d lapsed momentarily into his native tongue was disquieting. “There’s something I need to discuss with you.” His fingers tightened on her arm, the very subtlety of the hold more disquieting than any amount of force or coercion. “In private. In the library?” He nodded towards the door that led to Clive’s cozy book-filled sanctum, the hall light glinting on his gilded hair with the slight motion. He might be all dark Italian fire inside, but he’d inherited the full effect of his English mother’s blonde beauty. His looks were the very embodiment of the head-on clash of passion and emotion between his parents. He was a mythical beast