“I’m not your responsibility.”
“You are now.” Reaching out, he tucked a long tendril of her dark hair back behind her ear and said softly, “And taking care of you will be my pleasure.”
His...pleasure?
A sudden terrifying thought occurred to her.
“Darius,” she said haltingly, unable to meet his eyes. “You surely can’t think...”
“Think what?”
Taking her courage in her hands, she looked into his dark wicked eyes. However charming he might seem at the moment, she couldn’t forget the heartless man he’d revealed himself to be. She couldn’t let herself confuse him with the boy she’d once loved. No matter how much Darius’s dark eyes, his smile, his kindness might seem the same. He was nothing like the man she’d loved.
“You can’t think...” She took a deep breath. “That our marriage would be real.”
“Of course it will be real. Legal in any court.”
“I mean...” She licked her lips, hating him for making her spell it out. “It would just be a marriage of convenience, nothing more. For our baby. We wouldn’t... You and I, we would never...”
“You will sleep in my bed, Letty.” His dark eyes burned through her. “Naked. Every single night.”
His sensual voice swirled around her body like a hot wind, making her toes curl.
She had to resist. She had no intention of sleeping with him again, no matter how seductive he might be. She’d been a virgin till twenty-eight, waiting for love. That love was gone.
“I loved you the night we conceived our baby. Everything has changed. Unlike you, I can’t have sex with a cold heart,” she said in a low voice. “No love, no sex.”
He wrapped her hand in his larger one. She felt his palm against hers, and a shiver ricocheted through Letty’s body, deep, to blood and bone. He leaned forward.
“We’ll see,” he whispered.
LETTY WAS SAVED when the salesgirls interrupted them with trays of pastries and fruit and juices, followed closely behind by yet more racks of clothes for her to consider.
A proper breakfast tray soon followed with maple bacon pancakes drizzled in maple syrup, hash brown potatoes and hot fried sausages. Thus fortified, Letty spent another hour trying on all the clothes she liked in that luxury store. Then they moved to a designer boutique. Then an exclusive department store.
By the end of the afternoon, Darius had bought her so many bags of clothes, he’d had to call his bodyguard and driver down to Fifth Avenue to carry everything back to the penthouse.
He took her to a world-famous jewelry store where they were ushered to an exclusive, private floor. She tried to protest, for about the thirtieth time. “You really don’t need to keep spending more money on me!”
Darius held up a twenty-carat diamond necklace with a critical eye. “You’re going to be my wife. Of course you need clothes.”
“Those are diamonds.”
He grinned. “Hard, sparkling clothes.”
She harrumphed. “You’re wasting your money.”
“So let me waste it. What do you care?” Lifting his eyebrow, he said mildly, “I seem to recall your saying you hate me. So why not make me suffer?”
Why not indeed? Put that way, it didn’t sound so unreasonable. “You do have it coming.”
Setting the necklace down, he looked at her with a heavily lidded gaze.
“And I intend to take it.” Turning back to the jeweler, he nodded toward the diamond necklace. “Starting with that.”
But though Darius insisted on buying her an entire wardrobe of fancy clothes, he was never satisfied by any of the ball gowns she tried on. Truth be told, even Letty thought most of them hideous. A hoop skirt on a baby bump? She looked like a cartoon hippo.
In spite of Letty’s misgivings, the afternoon flew by in an irresistible whirlwind of small pleasures. Her new wardrobe wasn’t comprised of minimalist black and gray clothes as he had originally suggested, currently popular with chic society women, nor were they the plain, sensible, washing-machine-ready clothes she’d worn for the last ten years. No.
Darius had watched her carefully as she’d tried on each outfit, and he seemed to notice the colors that made her face light up with joy. Bright, vivid jewel tones—emerald green, cerulean blue, fuchsia, ruby red—in impractical sensual fabrics like silk.
“We’ll take it,” he would say immediately.
Letty felt guilty revealing her own pleasure, but she couldn’t help herself. For so long, survival had been her only goal. She couldn’t remember the last time that her happiness had mattered to anyone, least of all her.
But Darius treated her as if her happiness was actually the main goal.
Because I carry his baby inside me, she told herself, as she changed her clothes yet again in a private dressing room.
But his hot dark gaze had told her it was more than that. He didn’t just want custody over their baby.
He wanted to possess Letty, too.
You will sleep in my bed. Naked. Every single night.
She shivered, then tried on yet another formal gown, this one made of a slinky knit fabric in a delicious shade of hot pink, her favorite color.
The dress fell softly over her body. Reaching back, she couldn’t quite zip it all the way. She looked at herself in the mirror.
The long stretchy gown fit perfectly over her pregnant body, curving over her full breasts and huge belly. She liked it, but weren’t pregnant women supposed to wear tent dresses?
“I want to see,” Darius’s voice commanded outside the dressing room. She took a deep breath, then came out, her cheeks hot.
“What do you think?” she said timidly.
His expression said everything. He walked slowly around her, looking up and down her body in a way that made her shiver inside.
“That,” he said softly, “is the dress.”
She bit her lip. “I’m afraid it’s too formfitting...”
“It’s perfect.”
“I couldn’t zip it all the way up...”
Drawing close, he wrapped his arms around her. She felt his arms brush against her body as he pulled on the zipper. His eyes never left hers as he towered over her, so close. He made her breathless.
A hint of a smile lifted the edges of his cruel, sensual mouth. He cupped her cheek, then stroked down her throat. “The necklace will be perfect here. Against your skin.”
Looking down, she realized how low cut the gown was. Her cheeks went redder. “I shouldn’t wear this.”
“Why?”
“It’s too revealing. Everyone will stare.”
“They will stare regardless.”
“Because I’m the daughter of a criminal.”
“Because you’re an incredibly beautiful woman.”
At his soft words, Letty’s throat suddenly hurt. “You don’t realize how much they hate me.” Her eyes stung as she pushed away. “When they see me...it’ll be like dropping raw meat in