Billionaire Pascal prides himself on his rigid control. So it infuriates him beyond belief that he can’t forget Cecilia, the sweet and innocent woman who saved his life…or the forbidden passion they shared. This Christmas, he’s determined to forget her—until they suddenly come face-to-face!

Seeing Pascal again blindsides Cecilia. She gave him more than her innocence during their explosive encounter—she gave him a piece of her heart. Their still-searing chemistry is startling! As is Cecilia’s stunning baby secret…

To all our wonderful Modern readers—

this one is for you!

CHAPTER ONE

“I BEG YOUR PARDON, sir,” his secretary said in the pointedly diffident way that always managed to convey the full range of his feelings.

Pascal Furlani shared them.

And he was not a man who ordinarilyf accepted the existence of feelings, unless they suited him. Or benefited him in some way.

“I have taken the liberty of compiling yet another slate of candidates,” Guglielmo continued in that same tone, because he was not the sort of secretary who was afraid to share his opinions, feelings, or thoughts, however he might dress them up. “As the last several met with disfavor.”

There was a dig in that, Pascal knew. He stood, not at the window that looked out over one of Rome’s wealthiest neighborhoods, but at the glass partition that separated him from the rest of his sleek, modern office. It was the perfect antidote to the fussiness and great weight of Roman history everywhere else in the city.

Pascal knew too well what the three-thousand-year-old city looked like, from its forgotten streets to its most renowned piazzas. He knew how it felt to grow up rough and ignored in the shadow of the ruins of former great glories. And what life in this city had made him, the cast-off bastard son of a man who acknowledged only his legitimate issue and turned his back entirely on his mistakes.

He had earned every inch of the sweeping views his office commanded, but he was far prouder of what he’d done inside the walls of The Furlani Company.

Pascal had considered it a decent start when his personal wealth exceeded not only that of his father, but of all his father’s legitimate children, too. Combined. He’d achieved that milestone in the first year after the accident.

The accident.

Pascal’s lips

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