Phantom Marriage
Page 34
As he watched Tess disappear down the block, he felt a new sense of loss. Why? Why did he still feel so drawn to her? He’d had beautiful women in his bed before. Why couldn’t he forget this particular one?
Stefano forced himself to turn away. It was better this way, he repeated to himself. He started to walk toward the hotel’s entrance. He stopped.
Something didn’t make sense. He frowned.
If Tess was so happy in her new relationship, raising another man’s child, why had she been so overjoyed to see Stefano? She’d looked at him like unicorns were dancing on rainbows. Like all her dreams had suddenly come true.
Our night didn’t mean anything to you?
He could still hear the tremble of her voice, still see the shadows cross her lovely, troubled face.
You changed my life.
And as she’d spoken she’d looked away.
Toward the stroller.
Toward her baby.
Her dark-haired, plump-cheeked baby.
“We’ll survive alone,” she’d said.
We. Not I.
A low growl came from the back of Stefano’s throat. Turning, he pursued her grimly down the street.
Even with his longer stride, it took him time to catch up with her. He reached her at the end of the dark street, almost at the edge of Times Square. Grabbing Tess by the shoulder, he forced her to face him as the colorful lights of the electronic billboards lit up the sky brilliantly behind her.
“Wait,” he ground out.
Tess had been crying, he saw. Her green eyes glittered like emeralds in her pale face. She lifted her chin fiercely. “Wait for what? For you?” She wiped her eyes. “What do you think I’ve been doing for the last year?”
Her voice was quietly accusing. Against his will, Stefano’s gaze fell to her full, pink lips, and lower still.
Tess’s hourglass figure should have been illegal in the modern world. Her flowy long-sleeved blouse was tucked into a midi pencil skirt, like a sexpot librarian. It showed her curves to perfection—her full breasts, tiny waist, and big hips a man could wrap his hands around. Her red hair tumbled over her shoulders, the color of roses, the color of fire.
She was different from any other woman he’d ever seen. He wanted her. Even more than before. More than he’d ever wanted any woman.
With all his relationships over the years, his mistresses always knew love wasn’t part of the equation. He only dated experienced, beautiful women he enjoyed having in his bed and on his arm. In return, they enjoyed his body, his prestige and the lifestyle he could provide.
If he was honest with himself, it had all grown rather tedious. Mechanical. He’d started to wonder which of them was using the other one more. Which was why he’d stopped having love affairs, even one-night stands, after his night with Tess. He hadn’t wanted any other woman.
Why? Why did he want only her? Was it simply because he knew she was forbidden? Surely he couldn’t be selfish enough to desire something only because he knew he couldn’t have it?
Even now, he found his gaze lingering on her full hips, her plump, generous breasts. Her colorful outfit, with its ridiculously whimsical fabric, set off her amazing figure. His eyes lifted from her breasts to her bare collarbone, up her swanlike throat to her lovely heart-shaped face.
Her pink tongue nervously licked the corners of her mouth. His whole body felt electrified. All he wanted to do was kiss her.
Clenching his hands at his sides, he forced himself to turn toward the dark-haired baby in the stroller. She was still sleeping peacefully, her old-fashioned, collared dress half-covered with a blanket, clutching a stuffed giraffe toy in her plump arms.
No. She couldn’t be. But even as Stefano told himself there was no resemblance, suspicion pulsed through his body, tightening his chest from his shoulders to his taut belly.
“Tell me about the baby,” he said.
“What do you want to know?”
“Her name.”
“Esme.”
“Her surname?”
“Foster, like mine.”
His jaw tightened. “And her father?”
Tess stared at him, then looked away, her lips pressed in a thin line. Groups of tourists walked by them on the sidewalk, laughing and chatting in bursts of different languages. She stubbornly refused to look at him, or answer.
“Tess,” he demanded, coming close enough to touch her, his tall, broad-shouldered form casting a shadow over her smaller one.
Colorful lights swept over her red hair like a halo, as Tess finally looked at him. Her green eyes were half filled with hope, half with anger, as she said in a low whisper, “You, Stefano.”
Copyright © 2018 by Jennie Lucas
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PHANTOM MARRIAGE © 1983 by Penny Jordan.
THE ITALIAN’S UNEXPECTED LOVE-CHILD © 2018 by Miranda Lee.
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