by Jennie Lucas
Broken.
Yes. Hana was right. She did know him. She’d seen the dark truth in his soul that he’d spent his life trying to hide. The secret no one else knew about Antonio Delacruz, playboy airline billionaire: there was some huge flaw in his soul. Something monstrous about him that had made his birth parents decide to abandon him when he was just hours old, leaving their nameless newborn in a basket on the steps of a Spanish church in the middle of the night.
“What happened to you?” Hana asked gently, drawing closer. “Why would you have a vasectomy when you were only eighteen? How could you already know you never wanted to be a father?”
Her questions felt like stabs through his heart. He couldn’t let her see through his armor to the weakness beneath. He couldn’t. Not anyone. But especially not her.
She was getting too close. Fortunately, he knew exactly how to push people away—by attacking their weaknesses, to distract them from seeing his.
Stepping back from her as the soft cherry petals whirled around them in the park, he said in a bored voice, “Why did I get a vasectomy? Because I’m a selfish bastard, obviously. Which as you said, you know better than anyone. Which begs the question.” His eyes pierced hers. “Why did you kiss me that night?”
Hana’s cheeks darkened to deep pink as she looked away. She mumbled something.
“What?”
Looking at her feet, she said, “When you told me you were going to sell the house in Madrid,” her voice became stilted, “it made me sad.”
Antonio didn’t understand. “Why would you care if I sold the palacio? We’re only there a week or two a month.”
“Because I was happy there. I made friends there. It felt almost like...like home.”
He didn’t know what she was talking about. The palacio was a trophy to him, nothing more. He’d bought it as a big middle finger to everyone in Spain who’d thought him worthless as a boy. But he didn’t need it anymore. He was ready to move on. Strange that she’d come to think of it as home.
He licked his lips. “That still doesn’t explain why you kissed me.”
Hana took a deep, agonized breath. “It was a mistake. I never should have kissed you. No matter how many years I’d wanted you.”
Antonio couldn’t move. She’d wanted him? For years?
“I should have quit my job right then,” she said. “I’ve spent too long traveling from place to place, when all I’ve ever really wanted is a real home. A place in the world that’s mine. A home no one can ever take from me.”
He stared down at her.
“I never wanted a home,” he said finally.
Her lips curved at the edges. “I know. You built an airline to make sure you’re never stuck in one place too long. Not with one place. Not with one person.”
Antonio’s gaze fell to her lips. He felt a flash of heat. Everything she’d said about him was true.
So why had he been faithful to Hana—not just since their night together, but even before, since Christmas Eve?
For years, he’d tried to deny his attraction to her. He was her boss, and she was his valuable employee. But his desire for Hana had never ended. Even now, he was still racked with it, body and soul. More than ever. His nerve endings strummed with need. He felt her every movement, her every breath.
“I never should have slept with you,” Hana choked out. “I should have waited for a man I could marry.”
Antonio clamped down on a sudden emotion in his heart, emotion he didn’t want to identify. He said harshly, “So you admit you want marriage.”
“Of course I do.” She looked again at the families picnicking in the April sunshine of the park, beneath the flowering cherry trees. “I want a man who will be my partner. A man who will help me build a home. Who will love our child and be there for us, every single day.” Her eyes focused on Antonio. “That man won’t be you.”
He felt a strange twist through his solar plexus. As two men passed by on the path, Antonio saw their eyes linger on her.
Hana wouldn’t be alone for long, he knew. She was too beautiful, too kind, too warm. He’d seen the way men looked at her. She could have any man she wanted, begging to bed her, to wed her, to raise her child. Starting with Ren Tanaka.
With her early pregnancy, there was a new lushness about her, not just her ripening body, but her lovely face, her dark eyes glimmering with new confidence and power. She wasn’t deferential to Antonio as she’d once been. Why would she be? He was no longer her boss. No longer her lover. She’d already rejected him as her baby’s father. With better reason than she even knew.
Antonio took a breath. Wasn’t this what he’d wanted? So why did he feel as if he were the one being dumped?
Was it just because he’d never had a woman reject him before? Or did it go deeper than that?
“Goodbye, Antonio,” Hana said quietly. This time, she didn’t reach out to shake his hand. She just turned away, and he suddenly knew he might never see her again. She intended to disappear from his life, and take their baby with her. To take her sweetness and loyalty and warmth to some other, more deserving man.
The strange tension lifted from his belly to his throat, making it suddenly hard to breathe. “Wait.”
Hana looked at him. “For what?”
She was close, so close. Just inches away. He could imagine her body against his. It would be so easy to take her in his arms and kiss her.
No. He couldn’t. If he did, he would want more. He cursed silently to himself. He already wanted more. He’d never stopped wanting more. From the moment he’d possessed her. No. From the moment he’d first hired her. Hana was his weakness, the one and only desire he hadn’t been able to push aside in obedience to the coldly ruthless dictates of his brain.
But he wouldn’t kiss her.
Couldn’t.
It was absolutely forbidden.
As Antonio looked down into her brown eyes, so deep with sadness, shining beneath all the lush colors around them, he suddenly felt like all the world was bursting into spring around them. Only he was still frozen. And if she left, the cold gray winter he lived in would last forever.
His gaze fell to her full pink lips. He saw the way her even white teeth worried against the tender lower lip.
“You can’t go,” he said, searching her gaze. “Not until I kiss you goodbye...”
Without letting himself stop, without letting himself think, he reached for her. In the middle of the beautiful park, as cherry blossoms blew in the soft spring breeze, he cupped her face with both his hands.
He had the brief image of her wide, startled eyes in her heartbreakingly lovely face. And then he lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her with all the emotion he could not let himself think, feel or say.
He felt the tremble of her lips beneath his own, before, like a miracle, she surrendered to him with a small shivery sigh.
But almost at once, his self-control started to fray.
He wrapped his larger body around hers, holding her tight against him as he deepened the kiss, plundering her mouth until the whole world felt like it was whirling around them, as if they were the eye of the storm.
He was pulled into a vortex of desire. Suddenly he felt lost, drowning in the intensity of his need. Nothing mattered—but this—
She roughly pulled away. She looked up, her face stricken. “Don’t!”
“Hana—”
“Stay away from me!”
And she turned and walked away. Antonio watched her wan figure disappear, her shoulders slumped, crossing back through the park. A cool wind blew against his face, as white petals danced in the breeze, brushing against his black cashmere coat. Burning, he was frozen, watching her.
Could he really, truly let her go?
CHAPTER FOUR
HANA FELT A lump in her throat as she walked past the bowing doorman into the
Tanaka hotel. She wasn’t going to let herself cry. She wasn’t! Antonio wasn’t worth it!
She blinked fast as her eyes burned.
She’d known all along he wouldn’t want to be part of their baby’s life. She’d known it even before he’d made love to her, when he’d told her outright that their affair had to be brief, forgettable and consequence-free.
So why, after telling her he couldn’t be part of their baby’s life, had he suddenly asked her to be his mistress—and worse, kissed her?
Her lips still burned from his kiss. Why would he do such a thing? Just to prove the power he still held over her? He’d have that power for the rest of his life, with the child that would link them until the day Hana died.
But her baby needed a real home, a real family, a real father, not someone who would leave or neglect them at his whim. Antonio would never be the man her baby needed. He’d had a vasectomy, for heaven’s sake. At eighteen. Could he make it any more clear that he never wanted to be a father?
Better to have a clean break.
As Hana entered the hotel, she saw Ren’s handsome, worried face across the lobby. She suddenly wished he could have been the father of her baby, instead of Antonio. Her best friend was a good man, smart, loyal and kind. Any child would be lucky to have him as a father.
But for Hana, he was a dear friend, nothing more. And she had to make him see that, too.
Ren took one look at her tearstained face, and his dark eyes turned grim. “What did Delacruz say? What did he do?” He set his jaw, glaring out the window. “I’m going to find him and—”
“Don’t. He didn’t do anything,” she said wearily. “It’s finished. I’ll never see him again.”
“You still love him.” Ren’s voice was flat as he looked at her. “Even after he’s treated you so badly.”
“No,” she protested. Love? Ridiculous. Knowing what she knew, she’d have to be the stupidest woman on earth, or the worst sort of masochist, to fall in love with Antonio, and she was neither.
Something had broken him, something that left him unable to open his heart to anyone. She wasn’t sure he had a heart.
And yet, sometimes... He did something that surprised her.
Like when her beloved grandmother had died last year from complications of dementia. Hana had been grieving her loss for years, even before her death, when Sachiko had stopped recognizing her, then stopped speaking at all. But losing the last member of her family had been a devastating blow.
And yet, initially Antonio hadn’t wanted Hana to go to the funeral. He’d tried to convince her that it would be a waste of time for her to leave Madrid. “Your grandmother won’t even appreciate it,” he’d said firmly. “She’s dead. And I need you here.”
Then he’d looked at her tearstained face. And something had changed in his dark eyes.
“I’ll come with you,” he’d said quietly.
“It’s not necessary,” she’d said, her voice clogged with tears.
“I’m coming,” he’d cut her off.
And he had. He’d had a million other things he should have been doing, billion-dollar deals waiting to be made, but he’d taken Hana on his private jet to rural California instead. He’d sat silently beside her at her grandmother’s funeral, and afterward, when Sachiko’s many friends had shyly come forward to hug Hana, whom they hadn’t seen in years, Antonio had introduced himself not as her boss, but as her friend. He’d remained in California with her for two days, a comforting presence in the background, giving her the strength to go through her grandmother’s things and begin arrangements to sell off the heavily mortgaged farm. Then, when it was over, he’d taken her home to Madrid.
Home. To Madrid.
A home she’d never see again now.
Hana’s shoulders sagged. After everything she’d gone through today, she felt bone-tired, more tired than she’d ever been in her life.
“Are you all right?” Ren asked.
She rubbed her eyes. “Just tired.”
“Don’t worry, Hana,” he said softly, as he looked down at her in the hotel lobby. “I’ll take care of you.”
The possessive look on his handsome face troubled her. She blurted out, “Ren, please, you can’t think—”
He abruptly turned away. “Your satchel was dropped off earlier. I had it taken to our best suite. You can rest there.”
“Thank you.” She bit her lip. “I’ll pay for the room—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “You’re my best friend. You think I would take your money? I want to help. I am proud to have a hotel to offer you.”
Hana disliked the feeling that he was offering her not just a room for the night, but himself for a lifetime. But they were best friends. She wouldn’t have even questioned his offer, if she didn’t fear—know—his feelings went deeper.
“Ren,” she said gently, speaking quietly so no one else would hear, “I’m so grateful. But,” she hesitated, “you have always been like a brother to me...”
He looked away. “I must go to Osaka for a few days,” he said in an expressionless voice. “A business trip with suppliers. If you need me, I could cancel my trip—”
“No, I’ll be fine,” Hana said, relieved to put off further discussion of an issue that would be awkward at best, and at worst, horrifyingly painful for them both. It might even cost her Ren’s friendship entirely, and that was a prospect she just couldn’t face today. Rubbing her eyes, she confessed, “I feel like I haven’t slept in a year.”
He gave her a kind smile. “Come with me.”
Twenty minutes later, she’d kicked off her shoes and was comfortably ensconced in a luxurious penthouse suite. He indicated her overnight bag. “If there is anything you need, anything at all, my staff will be glad to assist you.”
“Thank you, Ren.”
“It is the least I can do,” he said, and she hated the way he looked at her. “Until I return.” With a formal bow of his head, he left.
Hana exhaled, shivering with exhaustion as the aching hollows of her feet rested against the tatami mat on the floor. Picking up her bag, she silently blessed Ramon Garcia, who must have noticed she’d left her satchel and arranged to have it dropped off at the hotel. It certainly wouldn’t have occurred to Antonio. No way.
But she wasn’t going to think about him. She was not!
Pushing aside the sliding paper doors, she went past the main room of the suite, into the bedroom. Though exquisitely decorated in traditional Japanese style, the room still had some Western elements—like a king-size bed.
Which again, in spite of her best efforts, made her think of Antonio.
Setting down her overnight bag, she looked out the bedroom’s wide windows. In the distance, she could see the bright neon lights of a busy shopping district. So different from the tranquil park where he’d just kissed her amid all the beautiful pink-and-white flowering trees.
She could still hardly believe Antonio had asked her to be his mistress—and she’d told him no.
It was the right thing to do, Hana told herself wearily, leaning her hand against the window. For Antonio, there was only one thing that was always right: strength. One thing that was always wrong: weakness.
If he crushed his opponents, it was their own fault. He’d say they had been weak, letting themselves become takeover targets or badly managing their businesses. If he bruised the hearts of his mistresses, it was the women’s fault for not believing him when he told them he would never love them.
No matter how incredible their night together had been, no matter how every time she remembered their passion her body burned from her fingertips to her toes, sex wasn’t enough. Antonio would never be the man she needed him to be.
Yes, she’d done the right thing, refusing to be Antonio’s mistress, when it would have brought only brief pleasure at the expense of endless grief. The
right thing for her. The right thing for their child.
So why did Hana feel so miserable?
Her shoulders drooped as she went into the gleaming, ultramodern bathroom and turned on the shower. She washed her hair with the orange-blossom-scented shampoo and felt the blast of water massage her skin.
Best to make the best of things. Her mother had been forty-two when Hana was born, a surprise to the married couple, who’d already spent nearly two decades teaching and traveling the world. Restless hippies both, they’d believed problems could be solved just by changing the country one lived in.
Wherever they’d traveled, Hana had been a chameleon, fitting in everywhere—and feeling like she belonged nowhere. With Hana’s mixed heritage, no one looked exactly like her, certainly not her pale, red-haired father or her olive-skinned, dark-haired mother.
Her parents had had a passionate relationship—full of arguments and moaning kisses—almost like teenagers. Sometimes they’d seemed to forget they even had a daughter. Sometimes Hana had felt like she was the grown-up in their family.
Every time she started to make friends and actually become part of a new community, her parents would inevitably have a big fight, or declare themselves bored, and then grandly announce it was time for another “adventure” in a new country.
“It’s wonderful to be free,” they’d say, toasting each other with cheap wine, scorning the “poor slobs” who were “trapped in one place till death.”
To Hana, without friends or roots and often feeling even excluded from her parents’ tight relationship, being trapped in one place sounded like heaven. Her beloved grandmother Sachiko, a widow who was her last living grandparent, had been her only true source of stability. Whenever her parents had needed space from the onerous demands of child-rearing—“Grown-ups need time just to be romantic, darling, just for ourselves, you understand”—they’d send Hana for a few weeks to her grandmother’s rural almond farm in northern California.