The Italian's Christmas Secret

‘Probably send me off to sleep,’ he admitted.

He could hear her give a little snort of laughter. ‘You do say some outrageous things, Mr Valenti.’

‘Guilty. And I thought we agreed on Matteo—at least while we’re in bed together.’ He smiled as he heard her muffled gasp of outrage. ‘Tell me how you plan to spend Christmas—isn’t that what everyone asks at this time of year?’

Beneath the duvet, Keira flexed and unflexed her fingers, thinking that of all the questions he could have asked, that was the one she least felt like answering. Why hadn’t he asked her about cars so she could have dazzled him with her mechanical knowledge? Or told him about her pipedream of one day being able to restore beautiful vintage cars, even though realistically that was never going to happen. ‘With my aunt and my cousin, Shelley,’ she said grudgingly.

‘But you’re not looking forward to it?’

‘Is it that obvious?’

‘I’m afraid it is. Your voice lacked a certain...enthusiasm.’

She thought that was a very diplomatic way of putting it. ‘No, I’m not.’

‘So why not spend Christmas somewhere else?’

Keira sighed. In the darkness it was all too easy to forget the veneer of nonchalance she always adopted when people asked questions about her personal life. She kept facts to a minimum because it was easier that way. If you made it clear you didn’t want to talk about something, then eventually people stopped asking.

But Matteo was different. She wasn’t ever going to see him again after tomorrow. And wasn’t it good to be able to say what she felt for once, instead of what she knew people expected to hear? She knew she was lucky her aunt had taken her in when that drunken joy-rider had mown down her mother on her way home from work, carrying the toy dog she’d bought for her daughter’s birthday. Lucky she hadn’t had to go into a foster home or some scary institution. But knowing something didn’t always change the way you felt inside. And it didn’t change the reality of being made to feel like an imposition. Of constantly having to be grateful for having been given a home, when it was clear you weren’t really wanted. Trying to ignore all the snide little barbs because Keira had been better looking than her cousin Shelley. It had been the reason she’d cut off all her hair one day and kept it short. Anything for a quiet life. ‘Because Christmas is a time for families and they’re the only one I have,’ she said.

‘You don’t have parents?’

‘No.’ And then, because he seemed to have left a gap for her to fill, she found herself doing exactly that. ‘I didn’t know my father and my aunt brought me up after my mother died, so I owe her a lot.’

‘But you don’t like her?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You didn’t have to. It isn’t a crime to admit it. You don’t have to like someone, just because they were kind to you, Keira, even if they’re a relative.’

‘She did her best and it can’t have been easy. There wasn’t a lot of money sloshing around,’ she said. ‘And now my uncle has died, there’s only the two of them and I think she’s lonely, in a funny kind of way. So I shall be sitting round a table with her and my cousin, pulling Christmas crackers and pretending to enjoy dry turkey. Just like most people, I guess.’