by Dani Collins
Pia started to move the box, but he said, “I’ll stand.”
He was taller than her, which made him well over six feet because she had the family’s genetic disposition toward above average height. His air of watchfulness was intimidating, too, especially when he trained his laser-blue eyes on her again.
“Your card was very cryptic,” he said.
She had spent a long time composing it, wondering why he had sneaked into the ball when he could easily have afforded the plate fee. At the time, she had thought his reason for being on the rooftop was exactly as he had explained it—curiosity. She had many more questions now, but didn’t ask them yet. There was every chance she would never see him again after she told him why she had reached out.
Memories of their intimacy that night accosted her daily. It was top of mind now, which put her at a further disadvantage. Her only recourse was to do what she always did when she was uncomfortable—hide behind a curtain of reserve and speak her piece as matter-of-factly as possible.
“I’ll come straight to the point.” She hitched her hip on the edge of her desk and set her clammy palms together, affecting indifference while fighting to keep a quaver from her voice.
“I’m pregnant. It’s yours.”
* * *
Angelo took it like the sucker punch it was. He jerked his head back in reflex and physically rocked on his heels to recover his equilibrium.
“That’s the reason you tracked me down?” What about his brothers?
“It seemed a significant enough reason to. And I know what you’re going to say.” Her lashes swept down and her mouth tightened. “I take full responsibility. I had what I thought was my cycle the next morning so I didn’t consider taking any precautions. Feel free to mock my extensive education in biology.”
The silence ticked out for a full minute as he absorbed news that changed his life. All he could wonder was why he wasn’t more shocked.
Probably because he’d had sex without protection, same as she had. He didn’t need anything but adolescent whispers to know this was exactly the consequence he had risked that night. Only an adolescent would behave that recklessly and not expect this outcome. He wasn’t a teenager. He had known the risk he was taking and he’d done it anyway.
He didn’t let himself ponder why.
He did try to manufacture skepticism and searched for reasons to be suspicious, but he couldn’t even scrape up anger. They’d both been rash. This was the result.
“Who else knows?”
Her amber eyes flashed up, appalled. “No one.” As if the thought of anyone knowing was far too compromising to admit.
He ignored the sting of that and tried very hard to imagine how she could have known he would be at the ball that night, let alone got to the rooftop ahead of him. How could she have tricked him into unprotected sex so she could present him with this outcome, all in league with his brothers?
While managing to look hideously ashamed of it?
“It’s been confirmed?”
“I have the result from the doctor’s blood test.” She started to reach for her purse, but he flicked a hand to indicate proof was unnecessary.
“I believe you.” Given her discomfiture and the effort she’d made in tracking him down, he didn’t think she would have told him unless she was sure it was his.
“I’m keeping it,” she stated, voice cool. “I felt you should know, but this doesn’t obligate you. I’m more than capable of supporting myself and the baby.”
He searched her aloof veneer for the woman whose sexuality had been so tuned to his own they’d made a baby within minutes of meeting each other. Where was the goddess who’d set the bar so high he hadn’t looked at another woman since?
“You’re free to walk away if that’s your preference.” She glanced toward the door in what smacked of a dismissal.
“You think I would turn my back on my child?” That annoyed him. His progeny would never be something shameful to be shipped away to a penal colony of a boarding school, never recognized or provided for.
Her brows lifted with surprise. “Given our no-strings agreement, I anticipated your interest would be low to nonexistent.”
“You anticipated wrong.” His harsh tone made her stiffen, but she offered a jerky nod of acknowledgment.
“Very well. I suggest a trust. I’m in the fortunate position of being able to offer the child a comfortable upbringing without prevailing on you. It’s really about what you consider a fair arrangement for the long term.”
“Prevail,” he insisted, his attention caught by her use of the. Not our child or even my child. The child. “I want and expect to be fully involved,” he stated without equivocation.
“I see.” Another blink as she absorbed that, cheeks hollow. “Well, we have time to discuss exactly how that will look. My wish is that we remain as discreet as possible while we work that out.”
“You don’t want anyone to know I fathered your child?” He wasn’t shocked. She was a pedigree show dog caught in heat by an abandoned mongrel. He deliberately cultivated the image of a low-rank plebeian on an upwardly mobile trend as he infiltrated the establishment. All the better to annoy his noble brothers, but, “Why tell me at all if you want it to be our little secret?”
“I considered not telling you,” she admitted frankly. Damn she was cool, perched so still on the edge of the desk, projecting patient tolerance of his presence before her. “But both of my brothers learned belatedly that they had children. I extrapolated that you might also feel cheated if such news came to light well after the fact. By being open with you, I expect we can make adjustments to accommodate our joint participation in the child’s life while mitigating otherwise-damaging rumors.”
There was the the again. He choked on a humorless laugh. “You sound like you’re still pointing at data and graphs. Speak like a human.”
She sat taller, her chin coming up, but there was a flash of irritation in her gaze that he found very satisfying. It meant he was getting under her skin.
“I’m too smart to be in this position. So are you. It serves both of us to keep this as simple and quiet as possible.”
“Consenting adults have affairs. Sometimes they slip up. This news won’t hurt either of us.” In fact, in the back of his brain, he was seeing how this new connection to the upper echelon of society could play out very much in his favor. Maybe that was her concern? “Are you trying to sideline me because of who I am? You don’t want to be associated with me? Is that it?”
“I don’t know who you are, do I?” she shot back. “I know your name. I know you sneak into parties to which you aren’t invited, place wild bids on innocuous items, then lurk in private areas like a cat burglar, seducing strangers you catch unawares. Would you like to explain any of that?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I was under the impression the seduction was a mutual agreement.”
She looked away and briefly touched the back of her neck before clasping her hands in her lap again. “It was,” she allowed. “But it was impulsive and irresponsible.”
“What happened to ‘no regrets’?” What had happened to that introspective, intriguing woman he’d been so compelled to hold and touch and possess? He really had been on some kind of daredevil high that night. She definitely wasn’t his type.
“Regret comes from wishing for a different outcome from the one you face,” she said flatly. “The truth is, why you were there and who you are doesn’t change the fact that I chose to behave in a way that will reflect badly on my family. I can’t undo that, but for their sake, I intend to do everything possible to cast this in as least damaging a light as possible.”
She really didn’t know about his connection to the Gomez family. She couldn’t, or she would be hysterical right now.
As he was processing whether that was a good or bad thing, comprehension of what she was reall
y saying dawned. With it came a flush of incendiary heat.
“You’re getting married anyway.” He was instantly and inexplicably furious.
She stilled, asking cautiously, “How do you know about that?”
“I know a lot of things.” He didn’t have a clue what was happening, not to himself or her. He moved forward on reflex until his knuckles were on the hard desktop on either side of her hips, the tip of his nose a hair’s breadth from hers. “I’m not letting a stranger raise my baby.”
“I can’t help the state of our relationship, can I?” She set a hand on his chest, but didn’t push him away. Her hand lifted slightly from his shirt, as if she found him too hot to touch. She wasn’t as unaffected as she was trying to appear. Her breasts rose and fell unsteadily. Her eyes were huge, her pupils big enough to eclipse her golden irises.
“You know what I mean. I want my child, Pia. Full access, every single day.”
It was fascinating to watch the burst of emotion behind her eyes, the light flush of pink beneath her skin while she fought to maintain her unaffected expression.
“Until July, I’m the only one with access. I suggest you take that time to reflect on whatever reasons you had for not wanting it known you were at my brother’s that night. When you can react less emotionally, we can resume this discussion.”
He was starting to see how she used fifty-dollar words to put distance between herself and others, but he didn’t back off one iota.
“You’re carrying my heir. My blood. I will not walk away. Not now, not ever.”
His words had an effect. He was close enough to see how deep they struck, causing both a spark of something that might have been gladness, but it was swallowed by her flinch of anguish.
“Angelo.” It was the voice he’d heard on a darkened rooftop, ringing with want-but-can’t-have. Her fingers curled into his shirt. “I told you that night I have obligations. They’re due sooner than this baby.”
From the moment he’d seen her in the conference room, he had itched to get her like this, close enough to feel the heat beneath the frost that encased her.
“You have obligations to me now.”
She shook her head, but her pleading eyes slid to his mouth.
As he recognized the craving in her gaze, he experienced a rush of pure, carnal lust. Exactly the same spell that had gripped him that night. Her lips were right there, parted and shiny. Her breath moved across his own in shaken pants.
He wasn’t the martyr she seemed determined to be. He gave them what they both wanted, cupped the side of her neck and took her mouth with his, reveling in the blast of heat and hunger. Lightning and craving hit him like whiskey. Her unique flavor and satin textures were all he would ever need in this lifetime.
She softened with surrender, exactly as she had that night, feeding his swell of powerful greed.
He held back nothing as he ravaged her mouth, slaking weeks of thirst. Her mouth moved under his, melting and clinging. Her arm went around his neck, pulling him down even as he firmed his arms around her, pulling her off the desk to stand against him.
She was on tiptoe, her body long and taut against his, exactly as he wanted her. This was what he had been looking for in his online searches. This tactile sensation of silk shifting against heat, a slender back and the small, firm lobe of her butt cheek in his hand; the crush of her breasts to his chest and her thick hair in his fist, the citrus scent and the tentative greeting of her tongue when he claimed her mouth with a sweep of his.
A sudden thump against the window had him jerking his head up, his arms shifting to form a protective shelter around her.
Outside, a young man stooped to pick up a yellow disk and laughed as he walked away, thumbing toward the window as he called out, “People are making out in there.”
Pia made a noise of anguish and slid out of his arms, took two steps away and kept her back to the window. She hung her face in her hands. “Did he recognize me?”
“What if he did? We were only kissing.”
She shot him a stark look and he had to agree. Given the pace of their last kiss, they would have been making love very soon. His body was starving to have her beneath him. He was tense and aching, restless as an animal on the hunt. Twitching like a creature with the scent of his mate in his nostrils.
“We can’t do this.” She plucked a fawn-colored overcoat off a hook.
“Not here,” he agreed, taking the coat.
She hesitated, then let him hold it for her. She shrugged into it as though pulling on her composure, the sensual woman of moments ago gone.
What the hell?
She gathered her purse and started to shoulder a laptop bag. He lifted the cushioned strap off her shoulder and dragged it free of her arm, partly out of chivalry, partly to catch the shift of awareness that flickered in her eyes before she lowered her lashes and stepped away.
Interesting.
He looped the bag onto his own shoulder, then brushed aside her attempt to pick up the cardboard box. He glanced at the contents: notebooks and screen cleaner, a nameplate and a framed certificate of her master’s degree. He realized she was permanently vacating this office and he was suddenly reminded why.
“We should go for dinner. To celebrate.”
“Celebrate?” She was so taken aback that she stumbled in retreat.
Amusement gathered across his cheekbones. “Your doctorate,” he clarified, adding dryly, “The baby, too, I suppose.”
He hadn’t fully processed her pregnancy. He would become a father next summer. Was it cause for champagne? It wasn’t cause for anything less, he decided.
“We don’t celebrate things like that,” she said stiffly, buttoning her overcoat. “Today was a completion point in exercising my academic potential, nothing more. Given this pregnancy wasn’t planned, I wouldn’t call it an achievement of remarkable note, either.”
Wow. Was she really made of ice or was her indifference a defense mechanism?
He pressed his hand over the seam of the door before she could open it.
She released the knob and pivoted to face him, lifting her chin. She was a nice height. He wanted to kiss her again. Press her into that door and make love to her against it. Drain the tension from both of them so they could talk without every word feeling like a grenade lobbing sexual anticipation.
He resisted. He didn’t even brush away the strand of hair caught on her eyelashes even though his fingertips tingled in anticipation of her warm, downy skin.
“This baby is a remarkable enough achievement that I won’t let another man take credit for it.” It was vow and warning combined. “I will be Papà. No one else. So you and I will celebrate our engagement.”
She displayed no reaction beyond a tremble of her eyelids and a fade of color from her smooth complexion and soft pink lips. After a long, tense moment she swallowed.
“How long have you known who I was?” she asked.
“I guessed your identity before I was off the property.”
“And you waited until I found you before you came to see me. Until I told you I was pregnant before you asked me to dinner. I bring more to a marriage than a womb, Angelo. I expect my future husband to want and value me. So, no,” she said firmly. Frigidly. “I will not marry you.”
“Oh, querida, you’re right that you don’t know me. You shouldn’t have revealed your deepest fear.” He enjoyed the subtle confusion of latent desire and wariness that came over her as he bent his elbow, looming as though he would kiss her again. “Marry me or I’ll go straight to the press with a tell-all.”
CHAPTER FIVE
DEALING WITH THIS man was like having a slippery grip on a slingshot aimed into her own face. He unsettled her. Worse, his kiss had completely undermined the control she needed to project. She was doing her best to pretend she’d already forgotten it, but he was impossible.
“Dinner it is, then.” It was a basic negotiation tactic she had learned from dealing with her parents. Concede to something minor to buy time to work on her counterargument. “Where shall I meet you?”
“We’ll go in your car. I had my driver drop me.”
Her hatchback was perfectly serviceable for carrying rain gear and collection buckets to beaches. It achieved great mileage, was comfortable on long treks and slipped easily into four-wheel drive on a muddy track.
Apparently Angelo expected something sleeker and sexier. He looked at her with disbelief. “This is your car?”
She beeped the fob to prove it.
He stole the key and adjusted her seat as he climbed behind the wheel.
With Angelo’s attention on traffic, she brooded on the fact he had known who she was all this time and hadn’t bothered to get in touch. His indifference hurt to the point her insides felt raw.
Her brothers were so happy, so irrevocably in love, she had allowed herself to entertain, just for a brief second, that she might trip into something like it for herself, even though she knew it was unrealistic, especially with a man she barely knew.
After days of mulling it over, however, she had decided to risk learning whether she and Angelo had anything beyond lust between them.
The lust was in full force. She was still reeling from their kiss. And his bold personality was as overwhelming as she had recalled.
She, however, had hardly proved herself to be a thrill a minute, droning on with her dissertation and having to be told to “talk like a human.” She had shown herself to be as boring as every man had ever judged her to be, so it was hardly a shock that he wasn’t interested in anything but the baby and perhaps another quickie if she was going to be easy about it.
She felt stupid for imagining he had been searching for her and might have welcomed the arrival of her card. It wasn’t like her to be naive and romantic. Life was a lot less hurtful when she kept her expectations low, calculated odds and formulated logical steps to achieve her goals. Investing hope and yearning for emotional regard only courted crushing disappointment. She knew that.