by Penny Jordan
“Of course,” Isabella said magnanimously. “And please accept my sincere condolences.”
Appearances again. It seemed Lauren was just as guilty as the rest of the world. Sickly guilty, if she let herself dwell on it, which she tried not to. She woke in a cold sweat too often, worrying her husband’s death was her fault. Ryan hadn’t been happy about her request for a divorce. Had it made him extra reckless when foiling those terrorists?
Pressing the suspicion to the back of her mind, she accepted the condolences for the sake of Ryan’s family, squeezed Isabella’s hand with appreciation and avoided the delving look Paolo turned on her. Ten minutes, she swore to herself. Then she could wrestle herself out of this dress and all the other confines of her life. She would be a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, able to fly into places she’d never dreamed when she’d been a lowly silkworm tied by emotional threads to her grandmother’s estate of maple trees.
“Why here, then?” Paolo asked as he steered her toward the dance floor, his tone growling with disapproval. “If you only wanted a few minutes of my time?”
“I—” She had to pull herself together as he set confident hands on her, leading her into a waltz. It had been years since she’d taken the lessons, imagining dancing with Ryan in Vienna when she joined him there, but the trip had never materialized. Nothing truly exciting had ever happened to her.
Except discovering she was pregnant with this man’s baby.
Lauren faltered, probing her memory for the steps and searching for a clear thought in the haze that closed in with Paolo’s disconcerting presence.
Wide shoulders filled her vision. His clean-shaven jaw tempted her lips to lift and taste. He’d been stubbled and masculine and hot, so unquenchably, passionately hot. Demanding when he took control. Skilled and confident and ravenous. Like a wild animal let out of his cage, running her to ground and feasting on her.
Her breath shortened and sexual heat suffused her, making her quiver, filling her nostrils with his familiar scent. It had only been the one night. How could she know his dark, espresso scent so well she could find him blindfolded in this heavily-perfumed crowd?
“You’re making a fool of yourself,” he muttered.
The words sliced through her, withering a very sensitive nerve. She knew she lacked experience and sophistication. Why else had her husband cheated on her? Paolo didn’t need to rub it in, though.
Lauren flashed him a livid glance from eyes that burned, but he wasn’t looking at her. He wasn’t aware she was melting under his touch.
“Be a merry widow for your next husband,” he said scathingly. “Ryan deserves better.”
Ryan had lived a double life.
“He had his mail delivered to his mother’s,” she said, shying at the last moment from shattering Ryan’s precious image. He was dead and he’d died with honor even if he hadn’t entirely lived so. “The invitation was forwarded in a packet they sent to me.”
It had been postmarked the day Ryan had gone missing. The engraved envelope was one she’d seen annually and always wound up throwing away because her husband had never been home to take her.
“Initially it only meant that you’d be in New York. I wanted an appointment to see you in your office, but your schedule was booked and my grandmother’s closet is full of dresses like this. When else would I wear one?”
Pride had made her do this. Pride and a perverse desire to thumb her nose at expectations and propriety. Frances Hammond had come home pregnant with her head held high. Lauren Bradley intended to leave the same way.
She lifted her chin, daring him to take that away from her.
Nothing. Not one iota of reaction. Only a disinterested, “Why did you want to see me?”
The moment of truth. She waited until he’d spun her so her back was to the majority of the crowd, making lip-reading from across the room less likely. “I needed to tell you that I’m...” She found the Italian word she’d looked up especially. “Incinta.”
If the language switch caused him any confusion, he didn’t show it. In fact, he showed little reaction at all, beyond one contemptuous glance down his nose.
“Congratulations. Whose is it?”
CHAPTER TWO
LAUREN HAD PREPARED herself for many reactions: anger, blame, suspicion that she was trying to trap him, even disbelief in the context that this could have happened to a pair of otherwise responsible adults. She had not imagined a denial of any involvement whatsoever.
Behind her burn of outrage raced a trail of humiliation. Did he really imagine she’d taken other lovers besides him and her husband? Well, why not, based on the way she’d made love with him as though she was starved for it? Her throat clogged and mortified pressure built behind her cheeks.
She stumbled out of sync with the music, forcing him to pull her a fraction closer to steady her. He was an iron cage around her, supporting her while trapping her in this farce of a dance.
She moved as though swimming in molasses, a bug caught in sap, soon to be immortalized in amber. Light-headedness combined with the spin of the dance made the room swirl around her while her stomach turned over. Whatever blood had been circulating through her drained into her toes, leaving her chilled to the core.
Somehow she reached through the miasma of shock to locate contempt for a man who dared to denigrate her when he’d been in that bed exactly as long as she had.
“You never struck me as lacking intelligence, Paolo.” Her voice was soft yet layered with frost, frigid as a Canadian winter. “You deserved to know, so I told you. Have a nice life.”
She pushed away from him, head high, tears thick in her throat.
* * *
No, Paolo thought. It was the only sound in ears pulsing with his boiling blood. Ryan’s? Another man’s? His?
No, no, no. He was not stupid enough to fall for that again. His ex had pulled this same trick for a direct line to his fortune, complete with another man’s baby conveniently conceived at an appropriate time to make it plausible. He’d unquestioningly done what was right for his child and the payback had been six months of melodrama, scheming and bitterness that kept his heart hard to this day.
He had vowed not to let any woman tear him to pieces again, but as Lauren left him on the dance floor, he felt like an actor who’d been abandoned on stage, the spotlight hot and white upon him, props gone, lines forgotten. He’d felt the same way after their night together, when she’d disappeared into the clutch of grieving Bradleys, leaving him to cope alone.
Despite his exceptional reflexes and honed instincts, he didn’t know how to react to something so unexpected and threatening to his carefully structured life. Especially when lust was clouding his vision and frying his mind. Dancing with her had been as erotic as making love to her.
Then it struck him. She hadn’t said it was his, only that he deserved to know. Because the perception would be that it was his.
A string of violent Italian curses fed through his psyche as he strode after her. To his irritation and disgust, Vittorio stopped her before either of them had wound very far through the crowd.
“I must confess, I didn’t recognize you from your photos,” Paolo heard as he came upon them. “I’m Paolo’s cousin, Vittorio. I knew your husband. I’m deeply sorry for your loss.”
Paolo couldn’t stop the territorial slide of his hand beneath the drape of Lauren’s silk wrap, fingers splaying over lithe back muscles that stiffened at his touch.
The tumultuous instinct to guard her, own her, while his brain reminded him she was the enemy, tangled his thoughts, making him say harshly to Vittorio, “She’s leaving.”
“So soon?” Vittorio was enjoying himself, aware something was afoot and determined to have a piece of it.
“I only wished to put in a brief appearance,” Lauren said with surprising solemnity.
“Given this event benefits cardiac research. My grandmother had a heart condition so I wanted to show my support.”
The unexpected revelation set Paolo back on his heels. He was instantly sure the records would show a very generous donation next to her name and even though a string of zeros often meant nothing to people in a crowd of this financial rank, the catch in her voice underlined her sincerity. Her devotion to her grandmother had always been something he respected about her.
The phrase “had a heart condition” pinged inside his skull. The old woman was gone? He unconsciously gentled his touch, offering a caress of comfort.
Lauren shifted her weight, subtly removing herself from contact with Paolo’s fingertips, the only sign she was aware of him, while she continued speaking to Vittorio.
“She passed away earlier this year.” She controlled the hitch in her voice. “The loss was overshadowed by other events, but it does make a night like this quite difficult. I hope you’ll understand and excuse me?”
“Of course,” Vittorio said with a gallant bow before stepping aside.
Paolo slid his arm more securely around Lauren’s waist and tightened it, pinning her to his side before she could sweep herself away.
She flung him a look that lashed like a bolt of lightning, gilding him in an exciting sensation of pleasure-pain. It was completely at odds with the fading spirit and demure manner she’d been projecting seconds ago. No one else saw it, but he tasted the slap of challenge and the hot blood it left in the corner of his mouth.
Everything about this woman provoked a visceral reaction in him and Paolo had to temper a grin of exhilaration. If she wanted a fight, she’d come to the right place.
But she was pregnant, he reminded himself, fighting an impulse to grip her with hard, controlling hands the way he would anything that fought his will: a race car, a powerboat, a fighter jet. At the same time, he thought, Pregnant, and knew he should lift his red-hot palm right off her.
Despite knowing he should never have touched her in the first place, he kept her from moving with a flex of his superior strength. Whether she was actually naming him the father or warning him of the perception, he was facing a firing squad. Perhaps he owned some of the responsibility for that. He’d brought her into his home and made love to her. It had been foolhardy and wrong, but it had been the first time in five years that other spouses had not stood in the way. In his weakened state, he’d let long-suppressed desire overtake him.
It should have been a bittersweet aberration tucked away and forgotten, but she had decided to bring an infant in a basket to his doorstep. Having the baby turn out to be his was the only way he could forgive her for doing this, but he simply couldn’t let himself believe that she was telling the truth. Other motives were too quick to present themselves: his fortune, for starters.
They needed to talk.
“Play host while I escort Mrs. Bradley to her room,” Paolo said without looking at Vittorio, perversely pleased with the flush that poured into Lauren’s cheeks and the way her burgeoning breasts heaved against the line of her dress.
“That isn’t necessary,” she said through her teeth.
“Si, cara, it is. Very much so.”
* * *
Lauren refused to speak to him as he accompanied her to the elevator. Part of it was stubborn fury, the rest complete intimidation. She was catwalk height, like her grandmother, five-ten plus more in heels. Somehow Paolo’s looming six-three had never penetrated, probably because she’d rarely stood this close to him.
Threat radiated off him. Not physical threat, but the impression that he was on the prowl to crush her in some way and was merciless enough to do a fine job of it.
“So?” he demanded when the elevator doors enclosed them. “Whose is it?”
She dragged her gaze from his magnetic reflection and looked scathingly up at the man himself, mortified to acknowledge that desire still gripped her. It had always been there of course, sublimated, rejected and ignored. That’s why she’d so rarely stood near him or held a real conversation with him. That’s why, after trying to speak to him at Ryan’s thirtieth birthday and receiving nothing but disparagement, she’d told herself she hated him.
She had convinced herself she would never see him again, but three months ago she’d had nowhere else to turn. At best she’d hoped for a civil phone call that might or might not have shed light on Ryan’s disappearance.
Twenty-four hours after the pleading message she’d left on his voice mail, however, he had walked into the Bradleys’ cold, silent mansion like an avenging angel, eyes only for her. It was the last thing she had expected and inexplicably, despite all the turmoil around her, her inner freeze had thawed into a flood of warmth and relief. Her heart had begun to beat again.
Let me take you out of here, cara. He’d been like a mug of cappuccino, all coffee tones in a fawn leather jacket over dark chocolate pants. His jaw had been sprinkled with a sexy, overnight stubble and his brown eyes had been liquid with empathy and sorrow.
She’d gone with him because she had trusted him. The painfully awkward interactions in the past had fallen away and they’d been two people in the same crisis willing to cling to each other to survive it. She hadn’t gone to his penthouse because she was sexually attracted to him. She hadn’t wanted—
Well, that wasn’t true. She had always wanted on some level. Involuntarily.
She dropped her defiant gaze from his, swallowing back embarrassment over the way she hadn’t stopped herself reaching for him in the dark.
Forget it, she commanded herself, trying to ignore the clamor in her that said, I don’t want to forget. It was over. If he’d had a weak moment of desire then it was her good fortune. She had the baby she’d longed for. Every time she thought of the life growing in her, her heart expanded to fill her chest with the sweetest ache. All she was really concerned with now was proceeding with life as a mother.
“It’s yours, Paolo,” she said in a husky voice aimed at his shoes, then realized she was doing it again, hanging her head as though she had something to be ashamed of. Jerking her chin up, she set her jaw and braced herself against the feeling of teetering like a plate on a stick. “I don’t care whether you believe me,” she declared.
“Good,” he said as the car floated to a halt and the doors opened. “Because I don’t.”
She choked on offended fury. She cared. Of course she cared. This was their baby. All the maternal instincts she’d kept in stasis for years rushed forward to stand up for their child.
“How dare you call me a liar over something so important?” She made no move to exit the elevator.
He put out a hand to hold the doors, his scornful gaze flaying her into sandwich meat. “I’ve been down this road. How could you think I’d take your word for it?”
She didn’t know much about his marriage, only what Ryan had told her: that his ex-wife had plotted with her lover to con Paolo into child-support payments. The plan had backfired when he had insisted on marriage. He had unraveled the subterfuge right before Lauren’s own wedding to Ryan and the marks of being taken advantage of had been carved into his brutally handsome features while he’d stood next to Ryan at the altar. Ryan later admitted that just before the ceremony, Paolo had tried to talk Ryan out of marrying her.
Then, grim and cynical, Paolo had barely been civil at the wedding reception, leaving a strong impression he blamed Lauren for timing the event to happen as his own marriage dissolved.
She didn’t own a crystal ball. She couldn’t have known. She had felt awful and tried to apologize. Now, frozen in the elevator, she unwillingly relived how he’d told her to leave him alone and she hadn’t listened, reaching out instead to try to comfort him. He had brushed her off, started to turn away, then had spun back and pulled her into him like a lifeline.
He had opened her right up for the pass
ionate kiss he’d drawn from her with seductive ease. She’d forgotten everything, most especially that she was newly married. Nothing had come back to her until Paolo had drawn back to murmur something against her lips and Ryan’s voice had interrupted at the same time. Then Paolo’s gaze had turned cold and vindictive. Women were fickle and treacherous and easy, he’d implied with a rake of his gaze down her wedding gown as she had moved to her husband’s side.
After behaving like that, she should have seen that he would lump her in with the woman who’d turned him into such a cynic about female honesty. Lauren put out a hand to steady herself against the cold mirror, biting back a protest that she was different. She had no way to prove it though. Not when she’d been the one to initiate the lovemaking in Charleston.
How obtuse was she that she hadn’t seen this coming? But she’d known she was above women who played foul so it had never occurred to her he’d accuse her of such a thing. Lauren had never been a flirt, or a strategist, or a manipulator. Paolo saw her through his tainted glasses, however, and it made her feel dirty.
Why did she care, though? She’d been prepared to raise this baby alone from the moment she had suspected she was pregnant. She had come to New York convinced she didn’t need or want his support on any level.
While a hidden part of her had basked in the chance to draw a little of Paolo’s attention one more time.
Even though his regard had always scared her a little. Like a possum under a suddenly bright light, she’d always skittered away or curled into herself or into the nearest shadow—preferably those cast by larger-than-life people like Ryan. But she had thought, right up until Paolo’s first caustic remark tonight, and especially after his tenderness in Charleston, that he’d felt at least a little warmth toward her.
His expression held nothing but cynicism and contempt, however, as he waited for her to absorb his rejection of her claim.
She hid her devastation behind a proud posture, keeping her back arrow-straight as she finally preceded him from the elevator, faltering when she realized this wasn’t her floor but a private suite. “What—”