A Touch of Temptation. Tara Pammi

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СКАЧАТЬ still panicking. She had blurted out the news in a petty fit of pique. Whereas he didn’t even blink.

      She laughed, the sound edging toward hysteria. “What? No accusations? No demands for proof? No talk of DNA tests? Just like that, Diego?”

      He turned away from her to lean against the wall and closed his eyes. He ran his hand over the bump on his nose. Tension overflowed from him, filling up the huge suite, rattling like an invisible chain, reaching for her. His eyes flew open and her gaze was caught by his.

      “DNA tests are for women to whom being pregnant with a rich man’s child means a meal ticket to a better life. An accusation my father threw at my mother every time she showed up with me on his doorstep, begging for support.”

      His words vibrated with emotion. His very stillness, in contrast to the loathing in his words, was disquieting in the least. “However, with our history, I don’t think that’s what you’re going for.”

      Kim tucked her head in her hands, wondering what she had started. A lump of something—she refused to call it gratitude—blocked her throat, making it harder for her to speak. He could have turned this into something ugly if he wished. He hadn’t.

      Everything within her revolted at being obligated to him for even that small display of honor. It made her weak, plunged her into useless wishing.

      She couldn’t let him put her in the wrong. She couldn’t forget that the very reason she was in this situation was because he had orchestrated payback.

      She felt the hard wall of heat from his body and stiffened.

      “For a woman who fairly blazes with confidence in every walk of life, your hesitation would be funny if it wasn’t the matter of a child. Are you not so sure who the father is yourself?” he whispered softly, something deadly vibrating in his tone.

      “There’s no doubt,” she repeated.

      Thinking with a rational mind, she knew she should just tell Diego the stupid truth. That she had never slept with Alexander. But then Diego would never leave the truth alone.

      “Now that we have solved that particular puzzle, what do you need from me?”

      It took her a moment to realize that he was waiting for an answer. A chill began to spread over her skin. “I...I don’t need anything from you.”

      “Of course not.” An edge crept into his tone, his gaze devouring her. Something stormy rumbled under that calm now. “Then why tell me?”

      “Honestly? I wasn’t thinking,” she said, wondering if she was destined always to make mistakes when it came to him. “You were gloating. You were...”

      “Nice to know something touches you,” he said, a fire glinting in his gaze. She opened her mouth to argue and shut it just as quickly. “And if I hadn’t been here to gloat? Would you have called me then?”

      “That’s a question I don’t have to answer, because you are here. And stop pretending as though this means something, Diego. You were ready to walk out of my life, and I say keep on walking.”

      “Your arrogance in thinking that you know me is astounding, querida. Did I teach you nothing four weeks ago?”

      His words rumbled around her, and images and sensations tumbled toward her along with them. But she refused to back down. “You take risks. Your business tactics are barely on this side of the law. The last thing you need in your life is a baby. If I had hidden this from you you would have only found more reason to hate me.”

      “To think for a moment I assumed that you weren’t doing this for purely selfish reasons but for the actual wellbeing of the child you’re carrying...”

      She flinched, the worst of her own fears crystallized by his cutting words. Her earlier dread intensified. That was what she should have immediately thought of. The child’s welfare. “I want nothing but a divorce and an exit from you.”

      His laughter faded and shadowed intent filled his face. He grabbed the papers she had signed not five minutes ago and shredded them with his hands.

      His calm movements twisted her gut. “Then what do you have in mind? We’ll kiss each other and make up? Play happy family—”

      He came closer—until she could see the gold specks in his eyes, smell the dark scent of him that scrambled her wits.

      “I’m not turning my back on my child.”

      Panic unfurling in her stomach, she shot up from her seat. “You’re out of your mind. This is not what I planned for my life—”

      “I’m sure you had a list of requirements that needed to be met in order to produce the perfect offspring,” he said, his words ringing with bitter satisfaction, “but it’s out of your hands now.”

      “It is. But what I can control is what I do about it now. Being a mother is going to be hard enough. Dealing with you on a regular basis will just tip me over into...”

      Perverse anger rose within her—perverse, irrational and completely useless. He could walk away from this. She needed him to walk away from this. But she...she had no such choice. She had a lifelong commitment. She was supposed to love this baby. She was supposed to...

      “You don’t want this baby?”

      “Of course I don’t. I’ll even go so far as to say it’s the worst thing that has ever happened to me!” she shouted, the words falling off her trembling lips.

      Shock flickered in his gaze, but she didn’t have the energy to wish them unsaid.

      “This baby is going to be a walking, talking reminder of the biggest mistake of my life. You’ve achieved what you wanted, Diego. You’ve done your worst. You have changed my life in a way I can’t control. Now, please, leave me to get on with it.”

      * * *

      Diego breathed out through his teeth and hit the punching bag again with renewed force. His right hook was beginning to fall short again. The injury to the muscle in his bicep was making itself known. The same injury that had forced him to withdraw from financially lucrative street-fights. The injury that had forced him to reach out to his father for help when he had been sixteen and unable to pay for his mother’s treatment.

      But he wouldn’t stop now. He breathed through the vicious pain, hating himself for even remembering.

      The clock on the wall behind him chimed, reminding him he’d been at it for more than two hours now.

      Sweat poured down from his forehead and he shook his head to clear it off. His T-shirt was drenched through and the muscles in his arms felt like stones. Adrenaline rushed through him in waves and he was beginning to hear a faint thundering in his ears. Probably his blood whooshing. But he didn’t stop.

      Because even trying to drown himself in physical agony he couldn’t block out Kim’s words.

      Stimulus and response!

      Meu Deus, the woman reduced him to the lowest denominator with her infuriating logic. No one had ever got under his skin like she did. And she was carrying his baby. The resentment that had glittered in her brown eyes pierced even СКАЧАТЬ