The Italian's Christmas Proposition. Cathy Williams

a woman.

      What woman, she guiltily thought, would let him out of her bed? It was an inappropriate thought but it lodged in her head, pounding with the steady force of a drum beat.

      Matteo made a dismissive gesture with his hand that was both elegant and strangely exotic and she watched him from under lowered lashes, fascinated and mesmerised by the strong, proud lines of his handsome face.

      ‘I’m a normal, red-blooded man with a healthy libido,’ Matteo told her wryly. ‘I work hard and I play hard, but I don’t do love, and I never encourage a woman to think, even for a second, that I might.’

      ‘And if you spent a night with a woman…it would mean that you’re interested in more than just sex?’

      ‘Forget about me,’ Matteo drawled. ‘The danger would lie in her believing that there might be more to it than sex.’

      ‘And yet you’re okay with spending time in the chalet with me?’

      ‘Oh, but you’re not my woman,’ Matteo purred silkily. ‘And this isn’t about sex. This is a little pretend game that’ll be over just as soon as I get what I’m after…’