Free VITTORIO'S RUNAWAY BRIDE (The Vittorio Series) by Kimberley Reeves

failure was not a word in Logan’s vocabulary.   Shelby carefully set her cup down and forced herself to look him in the eyes, determined to find out what he was plotting.
    “I won’t be bullied into going back with you Logan.”
    “I have no intention of bullying you,” he said smoothly.
    “Then what are your intentions?”
    “To find out why you left, and to convince you that we belong together.”
    “I already told you why I left.”
    “No, cara , you only told me part of the story.”
    “What about your story,” she steered the conversation in a different direction, “why did you really come after me?”
    Logan’s calm demeanor faltered.   “What kind of question is that?   You are my wife.”
    “Only because you refused to sign the papers.”
    “Papers that should never have been filed in the first place,” he said heatedly.
    Shelby rubbed her temple.   “This is getting us nowhere, Logan.”
    “You are right, neither of us is ready to talk yet.”  
    He rose from his chair and scooped her up in his arms then strode purposefully back into the cottage.   Shelby’s insides trembled when he headed down the hallway towards her bedroom.  
    “Wh-what are you doing?”
    “What I should have done on the day you left me, taking you back to bed.”
    “Logan, this won’t solve anything,” she said in a shaky voice.
    He lowered her onto the mattress and tugged at the tie on her robe then drew the material away, letting his eyes feast on the perfection of her nakedness.  
    “On the contrary, carissima , it will solve a very big problem.”
    Shelby’s breath caught in her throat when he reached for the zipper on his jeans and slowly dragged it down, the soft scraping of the metal as tantalizing as a seductive caress.   Somewhere in the back of her mind a protest was uttered, but it was feeble at best and easily ignored; the little voice of reason gradually fading and growing silent altogether as Logan removed each article of clothing then lowered his gloriously naked body down onto hers.   A soft moan escaped her lips as he eased himself inside of her, submerging Shelby in the same passionate heat they’d shared the night before.
    It wasn’t until much later she as lay in his arms listening to the steady rhythm of his breathing that she realized Logan’s sudden desire to take her to bed hadn’t exactly been spontaneous.   He’d deliberately set out to weaken her defenses against him, which would have upset her if she wasn’t already perfectly aware she had been completely at Logan’s mercy from the moment he’d stepped out of his car and back into her life.   And she realized something else too.   No matter what he’d done in the past, she had no choice but to forgive him.  Because a life without Logan was no life at all.
                                                                                           ***
    Logan slowly scanned the room.   If there had ever been any doubt in his mind that Shelby loved him, there was none now.   Grady told him sometimes the lights didn’t go out until the wee hours of the morning, and now Logan knew what she’d been doing to fill the time.   He stepped closer, scrutinizing the paintings and admiring how well she captured his likeness in each one of them.   They were beautifully done, but there was a sadness about them, a loneliness that made his heart ache and rejoice at the same time.   Grady was right; Shelby had been just as miserable without him as he’d been without her.
    Logan closed the door behind him when he left, glancing down the hallway towards the bedroom where Shelby was still sleeping and considered waking her up.   Not knowing why she’d run away was eating him up inside, made him feel frustratingly helpless.   He was a powerful man in the business world, making and breaking multi-million dollar deals with every confidence that he would always come out on top