With visible reluctance she looked at him again. ‘Well… I’m very different to her. You looked good together. I can see why you chose her to be your wife.’
It was as if she could see into his mind. His skin prickled. She was right. Skye O’Hara couldn’t be more different from the very tall and svelte Leonora. But her petite curvy body and fresh-faced prettiness had a far earthier appeal to his libido than Leonora’s cool elegance. Leonora had never connected with that part of him.
In fact Skye was like no other woman he’d ever been with, and yet she’d been the one with whom he’d connected most viscerally.
She said, ‘Well, maybe this has done her a favour. Everyone deserves to be loved.’
Inexplicably, Lazaro felt an ache deep inside him. He quashed it brutally. ‘Don’t be so ridiculously sentimental. You caused this to happen by interrupting a private and exclusive gathering.’
‘Not that private or exclusive if the press were there,’ she pointed out.
Lazaro ground his teeth. ‘We are not here to debate the issue.’
She bent down then, and picked up her bag and coat. ‘No, we’re not. I came to tell you that I’m pregnant, and now that I have I’ll leave.’
She moved as if to walk out and then stopped, looking around at the maze of doors leading off in different directions.
She turned around, sheepish. ‘Can you tell me the way out, please?’
Lazaro shook his head, as much in negation of her question as to check if he was hearing her correctly. But she looked deadly serious.
Remembering how quickly she’d slipped out of his grasp once before, he went over and caught her arm, leading her over to a sofa, saying grimly, ‘You don’t get to deliver a bombshell, wreck my engagement and then walk out the door like nothing’s happened. Sit down. You’re not going anywhere.’
Skye should have known it wouldn’t be so easy. Of course a man like Lazaro Sanchez—so important that it was impossible to get in touch with him like any normal mortal—wouldn’t just let this go. And she had to concede that this had to be a huge shock for him. As much as it had been for her, and she’d had three months to absorb it now.
As if it was paining him to ask, he said, ‘Do you want something? Tea? Coffee?’
Skye appreciated the fact that he patently didn’t want her there but was being forced to be civil. ‘Maybe a glass of water?’
She was also starving. This was usually the best time of day for her to eat, when she could keep it down, but she didn’t think Lazaro was about to order her a club sandwich and fries—her current craving.
He came back from the drinks cabinet and handed her a glass of water, which she accepted gratefully. He had a glass of something for himself that looked like brandy or whisky.
He went and stood in front of one of the windows and Skye felt awed. He really did look like a titan. Master of his universe.
‘You must have known who I was,’ he said.
Skye looked at his back. ‘Excuse me?’
He turned around. ‘You knew who I was and you targeted me.’
Skye stood up, incensed, water splashing unnoticed from her glass to the rug on the floor. ‘I beg your pardon? You walked into my restaurant and sat in my section.’
Now he flushed, and a bolt of heat went straight to Skye’s groin because it reminded her of his flushed face after they’d made love. He’d looked so…sexy.
She sat back down again. ‘You didn’t tell me your name until you gave me your card and asked me to meet you at your hotel.’ She winced inwardly. It sounded so sordid when she said it like that.
‘You would have had time to look me up then—maybe that’s why you decided to meet me…when you knew it was worth it.’
‘Maybe I didn’t look you up,’ Skye shot back. ‘Maybe I decided to go because you were the sexiest man I’d ever met and I knew if I didn’t go I’d regret it.’
She stopped and bit her lip, aghast at what had just tumbled out of her mouth.
She lifted her chin. ‘I will admit that I looked you up the following day. And then I realised that you were…someone.’
It was a ridiculously ineffectual way to describe a man who had become a self-made millionaire by the time he was twenty-five after setting up his own hedge fund. He’d since become a billionaire, by diversifying into the real estate market. His signature move was buying up old decrepit buildings in up-and-coming areas and restoring them.
‘So that’s when you decided to take advantage of the situation?’
Skye stood up again. ‘Unbelievable as it might seem to you, my life plan wasn’t actually to get pregnant at the age of twenty-two.’
‘Oh? And what was it then? To become the manager of that restaurant?’
‘That’s not fair. You have no idea who I am or what I want.’
Lazaro took a step towards her and said with an infuriatingly smug tone, ‘On the contrary. I think we established pretty effectively what you wanted that night.’
Skye’s cheeks were burning now, her hand gripping the glass hard. ‘There were two of us in that room, and as I recall it any wanting was pretty mutual.’
He gritted his jaw at that. ‘Why did you really come?’
‘To tell you. Don’t you want to know that you’re going to be a father?’
He studied her for such a long moment that Skye fought not to squirm, and then he shook his head.
‘You’re not just here to impart this news out of the goodness of your heart.’
Skye struggled to hold on to her temper. ‘You are being incredibly negative. Would you really have preferred that I didn’t tell you? That you had a child out in the world that you knew nothing about?’
To her surprise he blanched slightly at that, and then his face became shuttered.
‘If you are pregnant, and if the baby is mine, then of course I want to know about it. I’ll admit it’s not something I was prepared to deal with quite yet, but no child of mine will want for the lack of a father.’
His eyes glowed with an intensity that caught at Skye inside. She realised then that she hadn’t seen anything about his parents in the information she’d found about him online, and she wondered about that now. But before she could say anything else a wave of dizziness took her by surprise and she swayed on the spot.
Instantly he was at her side, taking the glass out of her grip, a hand around her arm. ‘What is it? You’ve gone as white as a sheet.’
She was trembling. ‘I think I need to eat something…’
‘When was the last time you ate?’
Skye just wanted to sit down. ‘Breakfast?’
If you could call a banana and a croissant that had later made its reappearance in the airport toilet breakfast.
Lazaro made a rude sound and led Skye over to a chair to sit down. He handed her the water. ‘What do you want to eat?’
She hated being weak and vulnerable like this. She’d wanted to come and face Lazaro, give him the news and then walk away with her head held high, knowing she’d done the right thing.
‘Maybe a sandwich? And