“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