Affairs Of The Heart: The Italian Boss's Secret Child. Rebecca Winters

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СКАЧАТЬ how you begged me to take you?’ His free hand cupped her breast. Her shocked intake of breath was fast and tremulous as he massaged the tender flesh, her nipple firming and reaching out into his palm.

      He closed the gap between them, pushing himself against her. She felt his arousal with shock and awe, excitement building in her own deep places.

      ‘Are you seriously telling me you wouldn’t like to make love with me again?’

      His hand left her breast and dipped down her back, pressing her into his hardness. ‘Are you seriously trying to tell me you don’t want me again?’

      His words were seductive, hypnotising her, a mantra for her soul. His touch was persuasive, compulsive, like a mantra for her body.

      He dropped a hand into her still open zipper, slipping his hand down until his warm fingers cupped the flesh of one cheek, squeezing, massaging, his fingers exploring more…

      ‘There’s no denying it, you realise that. You want me just as much as I want you.’

      ‘Damien,’ she half-pleaded, sensation blotting out rational thought once more, nerve-endings screaming for release. It was true. She could no more deny wanting him than she could deny the sun a place in the sky. But that didn’t mean he could buy her like just one more part of his business.

      ‘See,’ he said, a tone of victory injected into his voice. ‘There’s no way you can deny me. Not now.’

      ‘Damien,’ she said, stronger this time, his arrogance fuelling her determination to fight back. ‘I won’t be your mistress.’

      ‘You don’t mean that,’ he said. ‘Let me show you what you really want.’ His mouth dipped lower as if intending to claim hers but it never made its mark. Summoning strength she didn’t know she possessed, she pushed and twisted at the same time, swivelling out of his arms and swaying across the room until dozens of cubic metres of super-charged air swirled between them.

      ‘Believe me, Damien. I won’t be your mistress. I won’t be anyone’s mistress. Have you no idea what an insult that is?’

      ‘Then what were you expecting? Marriage? Is that what you were hoping for? A white picket fence and a fairy-tale ending?’

      She schooled her face blank, her chest heaving, not trusting her voice to hold steady if she uttered a word. Of course it sounded ridiculous when he put it like that. But what was wrong with wanting things to be right, wanting to bring up a child in a proper family? What was wrong with hoping love might have something to do with it?

      But there was no way she’d tell Damien that.

      ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said, only when she was sure her voice wouldn’t betray her. ‘I told you, I don’t want anything from you.’

      Still, his eyes narrowed, focusing on something in her face. ‘Ah, but that’s what you were hoping for, wasn’t it?’

      His words cut uncomfortably close to the truth. Why had she had to go and fall in love with him? It had been so much easier in the beginning, before she’d seen beyond the arrogant businessman behind whom Damien existed, before she’d felt his lovemaking and experienced the sheer magic of his touch.

      Until then she’d been happy to think about a life with her child—Damien didn’t even have to figure. But she did love him. And now she couldn’t imagine life with his child without him.

      Her chin kicked up. ‘You must really fancy yourself. I told you and I mean it. I don’t want anything from you.’

      He watched her for a few seconds more, cold emotion drizzling down over them. ‘So be it. Because I don’t do family. It’s not going to happen.’

      He walked to the slatted timber bifold doors separating the bedroom from the rest of the apartment. ‘I’m going back to work. Let yourself out when you’re ready.’

      ‘I’ll be down shortly,’ she said, knowing it would take her a good ten minutes to get herself back together enough to appear in public.

      ‘Don’t bother,’ he said. ‘Go home.’

      And then he was gone.

       CHAPTER NINE

      ‘HOW is she?’ asked Enid on his return.

      ‘Gone home,’ he snapped back, ‘and if she’s got any sense, she’ll stay there.’

      Enid’s eyes narrowed speculatively, her lips tight and puckered. ‘I see.’

      ‘You do? I sure wish the hell I did. Hold my calls, Enid. Tell everyone I’m in conference.’

      ‘As you wish,’ she said as he entered his office. He closed the door behind him but for once ignored the expansive desk to his right. Instead he strode to the wall of glass, his window to the outside world, and gazed out across the city, looking for answers amongst the columns of office towers, the low-rise buildings and homes at the city’s fringe and the warehouses of the harbour near the port. The sea lay lifeless in the distance, flat and dull. He empathised. It matched his mood perfectly.

      It had been one hell of a day. To finally find the woman who’d been haunting his thoughts and dreams for so long only to discover it had been Philly all along. What was more, to learn she was pregnant with his child.

      He was going to be a father.

      The concept was as exciting as it was terrifying. Yet he didn’t want a child; he’d never wanted one. He’d survived without the whole family thing for this long. He didn’t need it.

      So why did some small part of him insist on feeling proud? He’d spent his life avoiding such possibilities with a vengeance. So why didn’t he break out in a cold sweat as he’d expect? Why did he feel such a sense of exhilaration at the idea?

      He was going to be a father.

      He was going to have a child.

      And, no matter what Philly said, he would make sure that child was properly taken care of.

      What was her problem, anyway? He’d just offered her a house, a housekeeper, nursing care for her mother and an income. She wouldn’t have to lift a finger. It was a great deal.

      So why wouldn’t she accept? What did she want? He’d made her a reasonable offer. More than reasonable. And she’d turned him down flat.

      He sighed deeply, his forehead and hands pressed against the glass as he looked down to the street below. It was a long way down. He’d been down there, at rock bottom and lower, not even within cooee of a rung to begin the long, lonely climb up the ladder.

      And he’d made it. All the way to the top on his own. No one to help him, no one to turn to for support but a drunken foster mother who had drunk his foster money blind and the faded memory of a family tragedy that had taught him never to get close to anyone.

      He lashed out with his foot, slamming his shoe into the reinforced glass and making the entire window shudder before he spun around and tracked a course СКАЧАТЬ