Page 11 of Back to Claim His Italian Heir
Are you serious?
And she realised she had been. She’d had to be, because she didn’t have any other options, and now she had someone else to think about. Someone so very important.
They’d spent a couple of weeks getting to know each other, and Will had been a reassuringly open book, a workaholic with a few, simple pleasures, happy to chat but generally enjoying his own company. He’d asked for a prenup, which had made sense, and told her she could redecorate his apartment in Santa Monica if she liked, as long as she left his study alone. He’d liked the idea of a baby, and had even come along to her first scan two weeks ago. They had never been going to have a great passion, or any passion, but that had been fine. After Nico, Emma wasn’t ready to deal with that kind of explosive chemistry again, or any kind of chemistry, and Will really was happy in his own company. Emma had her baby to think about, and that had felt like enough. More than enough. Their marriage would have been simple and unexciting andsafe.
And now it was over. The future she’d so carefully tried to construct blasted into smithereens...by the man sitting across from her.
‘You look so sad,’ Nico remarked mockingly. ‘Are you missing him?’
‘He’s a kind man, and as you said, he was willing to take on another man’s child,’ Emma returned tartly, ‘so yes, I am. He was a good friend.’
‘And the father?’ Nico asked. ‘Another man who was your mark, I suppose?’
Hermark? What did he think she was, Mata Hari? She let out a disbelieving huff of laughter as she shook her head. ‘I’d find your cynicism amusing,’ she told him before she could think better of it, ‘if it wasn’t so pathetic.’
Anger flashed in his eyes and the skin around his mouth went rather alarmingly white. ‘Don’t test me, Emma.’
She shouldn’t be so flippant or foolhardy, Emma knew. As tender as Nico had seemed during their whirlwind courtship and marriage, he was also a man who was known to be ruthless in business, who knew what he wanted and how to get it—and discard it, if he so chose. She’d looked him up, after the crash, and seen the trail of affairs and broken hearts he’d left behind him, a string of casual affairs that had made headlines. She hadn’t been surprised, but it hardly inspired confidence now.
‘How far along are you?’ he asked, sitting back in his seat, his arms folded. ‘Out of interest?’
She hesitated, her mind racing between viable options. Lie, and protect herself and her baby. Tell the truth...and take the consequences, whatever they might be. It felt, she thought despairingly, no choice at all.
‘Well?’ Nico prompted.
‘Not...’ She swallowed hard. ‘Not very far along.’
Not very far along? Why didn’t she know? Had there been that many men? No matter what he’d learned of her, Nico couldn’t quite make himself believe that. When he’d taken her in his arms for the first time, she’d seemed remarkably innocent, and so very sweet. So very different from the women he usually took to his bed, who were as pragmatic as he was when it came to matters of the heart. He remembered the moment with Emma perfectly—it had been three days after they’d met. She had confessed she’d had nowhere to go and so Nico had told her she could stay in his hotel suite. He hadn’t been leaving New York for a week, after all, and he’d felt badly for, admittedly indirectly, causing her to lose her job. He’d been determined to be the perfect gentleman and he had been, even as his attraction for Emma had threatened to overwhelm him.
Her whimsical guilelessness orseemingguilelessness—he knew better now—had won him over. After the lies of his childhood, his mother’s damning silence, his father’s painful coldness, here was someone simple and innocent and pure. Ha! As if. Had Emma actually been orchestrating their first encounter, when she’d stood on her tiptoes and brushed a kiss across his mouth? Had she just been pretending when he’d looked down at her, his heart starting to hammer in expectation, and she’d smiled so softly, so tremulously?
And when he’d asked, his voice already raw with wanting, throbbing with need, ‘Are you sure?’ she’d exhaled on a small sigh of surrender.
‘Yes...’
Had that all been faked? And yet what had happened after hadn’t been. He knew that absolutely. He remembered the feel of her beneath him, open and pliant, writhing and wanting. The explosion when they came together had rocked them both to the core, left them gasping and clutching each other as if they were the last bits of wreckage on a drowning sea. And when he’d looked down at her, smiling in a sort of wry disbelief, she’d laughed, a sound of pure joy.
‘Wow...’she’d breathed, and he’d grinned, rolling onto his back, taking her with him, his arms clasped around her, sexual satiation combined with a soul-deep contentment.
No, Nico decided, some things couldnotbe faked.
And yet right now Emma was definitely looking shifty. She kept her gaze lowered as she took little sips of water, her fingers trembling around her glass. What more could she possibly be hiding? Whowasthe father?
In one sudden, swift movement, Nico leaned forward, and captured her wrist in his hand, removing the glass with the other. ‘What is it that you’re keeping from me, Emma?’ he asked in a low voice. ‘Because it’s obviously something. I’ve never seen you look so...soscaredbefore.’ He’d never seen her look scaredat all. He’d always admired her spirit, her strength. Where had it gone? What had spooked her? Or was this too some sort of act?
He’d thought, for a few wondrous seconds, when she’d first told him she was pregnant, that she’d meanthewas the father, and his heart had leapt with a wild mix of elation and amazement. A child of his own. It had been an unlikely notion, he knew, because she didn’t look pregnant, and she’d have to be at least three months along—three and ahalfmonths—for him to be the father. Besides, they’d used protection assiduously. He’d made sure of that.
Then he’d realised, in the space of a single heartbeat, by the resigned look on her face, that of course he wasn’t. She hadn’t wanted to tell him about her pregnancy, he’d realised, because carrying another man’s child would make her less attractive to him, understandably so. The disappointment that had thudded through him he’d pushed away resolutely. No need to feel that, all things considered.
And, he realised, it now all made an awful sort of sense—pregnant with another man’s child, she’d known all along that he wouldn’t want her back. No wonder she’d seemed reluctant, and yes, even scared that he’d returned.Thatwas the secret she’d been keeping...but now that he knew, why did she still look fearful? Could there be more?
Emma glanced down at his fingers encircling her wrist, her face pale and drawn. He could feel her pulse fluttering beneath his thumb, and, without even thinking about what he was doing, he stroked the silky skin there, letting his thumb linger on her cool, soft flesh. A shudder escaped her, her expression turning dazed, and desire ignited low in his belly. One tiny, treacherous touch, and already he felt lost with wanting her. Remembering how it had been between them, overwhelming his senses, making him forget everything else. His mother’s betrayal. His father’s indifference. The sense of spinning in emptiness that he’d felt, not knowing who he was, where he came from or where he belonged. The world he’d wanted to walk away from as he’d forged a new one with her.
Lies, so many painful lies, but right now all he could remember was how her arms had felt around him, her body pliant and sweetly yielding beneath his as she’d gasped out his name...
‘Please let me go,’ she whispered.
After another heated beat he released her wrist and sat back. Emma cradled her arm against her chest, as if he’d hurt her. He knew he hadn’t; he could see from her dilated pupils and flushed face that such a simple touch had affected her, too, the way it had him. She remembered how it had been between them, as well. The chemistry between them was just as strong even now, after she’d told him she was pregnant with another man’s child. The realisation was both shaming and infuriating.