Italian Mavericks: Carrying The Italian's Heir: Married for the Italian's Heir / The Last Heir of Monterrato / The Surprise Conti Child. Tara Pammi

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СКАЧАТЬ with this deal for the right reason.’

      ‘Which is...?’

      How could he even ask that?

      She paused as a waiter approached with a single glass of juice on a silver tray. Dante took it with thanks and handed it to her.

      She looked straight into those sinfully dark eyes. ‘Our child.’

      ‘And I am not?’ How could he boldly stand there and say that when he’d been the one to make such a deal?

      ‘No, you are doing this for a business deal—although you’d like everyone to think it’s for a charitable reason. But if there is one thing I know about you now, it is that you couldn’t possibly want to marry—even for your child. Everything I read about you in Celebrity Spy! is true. So far I have found nothing to make me think otherwise.’

      ‘At least you are well informed about me, whereas I know very little of you.’

      She bristled as the conversation turned in a way she hadn’t expected. ‘There isn’t much to tell.’

      ‘I’d like to know why you were the hostess at that dinner party in London—“stepping in”, I think you called it. What exactly is your profession?’

      She tried to suppress the urge to shock him, but it was too great. ‘I’m just a waitress.’ It wasn’t her choice of job—wasn’t what she’d hoped for as she’d started university in Australia—but circumstances had conspired against her.

      She watched as he clenched his jaw and a surge of triumph rushed through her. He had certainly never envisaged marriage and fatherhood, and she was completely sure that if he had he wouldn’t have wanted his wife to be a mere waitress.

      ‘And that is enough for you?’

      ‘It’s had to be,’ she said, without realising she was opening the door to a discussion about herself she’d rather not have. She didn’t want to talk about her beloved father, about the emptiness in her life where he had been. She was an ordinary girl—but to her father she’d been a princess, and he’d been the most important person in her life.

      Thankfully at that very moment other guests joined them, and after that there wasn’t much chance to talk—at least not about anything private, and especially not her past, nor the events which had changed her life. That was something she had no wish to share with a man incapable of any kind of emotion. He would never understand.

      * * *

      Dante unlocked the door to his apartment and for the first time since he’d been relegated to the small room which usually served as his home office he was glad of it. At least there he would be away from the temptation to kiss Piper, because after spending the evening being tormented by her body in the bronze creation Elizabeth had selected he was in danger of giving in to the lustful desire which pumped through him.

      Never before had he had to restrain himself. He always got what he wanted, be it women or fast cars. Holding back was not a comfortable sensation, and he didn’t know how long he could go on being tempted so enticingly by her without acting on it.

      ‘Piper...’ He spoke softly as she placed her purse on the antique table in the living area. He wanted to tell her again how lovely she looked, and how much he wanted her, but instead decided that keeping to the terms of their agreement was better—for both of them. He couldn’t allow himself to care, knowing she would one day walk away. Just as she had done the night after his baby had been conceived.

      She looked at him, her big green eyes full of uncertainty, and when she bit her lower lip he clenched his hands into fists at his sides. Now was not the time to remember how those lips had felt beneath his just hours earlier, how they’d responded so willingly. Nor was it the time to remember that if they had been here instead of in the car when he’d kissed her they would never have left for the dinner party.

      ‘Is something wrong?’ she asked tentatively.

      Everything was wrong. He was falling under a spell he was beginning to think she had no idea she was casting. She seemed oblivious to what she did to him. Tonight he’d seen her smile and laugh with people she didn’t know, seen them warm to her in a way which had made pride fill him as she visibly blossomed.

      ‘I just wanted to say you made a good impression this evening. Thank you.’

      ‘I did it for my baby.’

      She flung the words at him instantly and he bit back his retort. It was late, and now was not the time to be getting embroiled in a discussion he didn’t want, no matter what the time of day. The way she’d said my baby cut deep into his hardened emotions, more painfully than he’d thought possible.

      ‘Tomorrow we will be leaving for Tuscany, where you will do it all again—this time for me and my deal.’

       CHAPTER SIX

      PIPER SAT IN the sports car as it sped along the road towards Tuscany, glad that the threat of morning sickness she’d experienced earlier in the week seemed to have dwindled. Beside her Dante drove with clean precision, and she couldn’t help but glance at him as he drove, embarrassed when he caught her out. His sunglasses hid the truth in his eyes and probably, after the burning look of desire he’d had in them when they’d returned from the dinner party last night, that was for the best.

      She had no wish to fall even harder for him than she had already, and certainly didn’t want to repeat their encounter in London. This was all about their child. Nothing else mattered other than giving her son or daughter the experience of knowing both parents.

      ‘We are almost there,’ he said, and quickly looked at her. ‘Tonight we dine with Bettino D’Antonio at his new villa, so it would be best if we exchanged a few details about each other before this evening, no?’

      ‘Is that in the interests of making our engagement believable or out of a genuine need to know more about the mother of your child?’ He’d caught her off-guard with his callous disregard for her feelings and she’d risen to the challenge he’d inadvertently given. They would never be a real couple, but he would always be her child’s father, and she intended to remind him of that duty as often as possible.

      ‘Such attention to detail is necessary whatever the reason.’ He slowed the car and turned off the main road onto a narrower road which twisted through a small and sleepy village before heading out into the countryside once more. ‘This weekend will be make or break after months of negotiations between myself and D’Antonio. He has also invited Gianni Paolini, my rival in this deal, so I fully intend to use our newly announced engagement and the baby to maximum benefit.’

      The tension of several hours in the car with Dante, being excruciatingly aware of every move he made, got the better of her and she couldn’t help but continue to aim for irritation. ‘And by that you mean I shouldn’t elaborate on what I know about you, but paint a very different picture?’

      ‘It is what we agreed, Piper.’

      He swung the car into a driveway lined with mature cypress trees and, knowing he was right, she looked away just in time to see a large villa come into view.

      ‘That’s so beautiful...’ she breathed, more to herself СКАЧАТЬ