Love's Revenge. Michelle Reid

in such a dreadful mess that remaining silent seemed wiser at this moment than saying anything that could well start another quarrel.

      So she subsided, reluctantly, into the warmth of his embrace, felt his muscles relax when he recognised her surrender. And as she began taking on board other things, like his nakedness against her thin cotton pyjamas, she bitterly wished that the man wasn’t so physically alluring.

      Wished to God that she wasn’t so useless as a woman. She wished her heart didn’t hurt so much and her brain was more able to make a clear-cut decision between what was right and what was wrong.

      And she wished so very sincerely that the world would stop turning, so that she could get off it and never come back to it again!

      ‘Cry if you want to,’ his rusty voice encouraged.

      ‘No,’ she refused, but her body was already trembling with the effort it was costing her not to.

      ‘It was the right thing to do, Catherine. The only thing to do.’ Vito’s mouth pressed a kiss to the back of her head. ‘But that does not mean you must not mourn the decision.’

      But it did—it did! And Vito was never going to understand what that decision was costing her because she was not going to tell him—or tell anyone for that matter.

      ‘I just want to go to sleep and forget all about it,’ she whispered thickly.

      ‘Then do so,’ he allowed. ‘But I will be here if you change your mind, cara. Right here beside you.’

      Was this his way of making up for the time when he hadn’t been there for her? If it was then Catherine was not going to taunt him with it. Because she might be absorbed by her own torment right now, but she could feel the way his hands were tensely gripping her hands, that Vito was no less tormented.