Pregnant With The Billionaire's Baby: Valentino's Love-Child / Innocent Secretary...Accidentally Pregnant. Carol Marinelli

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      He mentally shook his head at that. He would never have guessed that she was so ingrained in the life of his family. He still was not sure how he felt about that, but he wasn’t going to dwell on it tonight. Tomorrow was soon enough to try to figure out how the woman who had shared his bed for almost a year was such an enigma to him.

      Just as it would be soon enough to reinstate his necessary rules for the women who shared his bed. Or perhaps he should reconsider those rules for Faith. At least a little.

      After all, she was more than a mere bed partner.

      She was his friend.

      A friend he apparently knew less about than any of his business rivals. And he trusted her enough to share an intimate side of his life.

      * * *

      FOR THE SECOND time ever, Faith woke in the arms of her lover.

      Tino had allowed her to sleep in his bed? In his family home?

      Maybe he really had given her more last night.

      Or had that move been an unconscious one? It didn’t really matter if he had considered it, or acted on instinct—it had to mean something.

      Just as his promise not to go searching for that perfect Sicilian paragon right away meant something. Gio was Tino’s heart, but the dedicated father had still reaffirmed his commitment not to date other women while he and Faith were together.

      She’d thought her heart was being ripped right out of her chest when he said he thought Gio might need a new mother, but that mother could not be Faith. She’d been angry and hurt and scared and a lot of other emotions that confused her because she couldn’t be sure if they were genuine or induced by the pregnancy hormones rampaging through her body.

      The two pregnancies she’d had before had sparked serious inner upheavals as well. She and Tay would have argued constantly if he hadn’t taken her hormone-driven insecurities in his stride. Would Tino have the same patience? Did she want him to? There had been instances when Tay’s tolerance had felt more patronizing than understanding.

      Right now she felt she was out of control when it came to her feelings and she didn’t enjoy the experience. There had been times the night before she’d been sorely tempted to sock Tino good and hard, but then the pendulum that was her emotions had swung to needing the reassurance that sex provided.

      She didn’t think Tino was any surer of his feelings than she was. Because in the same conversation he’d spoken of getting Gio a Sicilian mother, he’d also spoken of not wanting to end things with Faith. He knew she wouldn’t be any man’s mistress.

      Early in their acquaintance, she’d made sure he was aware of how she felt about those kinds of double standards.

      Their intimacy last night had been awesome, she couldn’t deny it. She’d felt more connected to Tino than ever before. He’d been so intent on giving her pleasure, but more than that, he’d given her something of himself. It was in the way he’d moved inside her, with an undisputable tenderness that brought tears to her eyes just before they’d found the ultimate pleasure together.

      As much as she hated to, she forced herself to slide from his embrace. Even if she thought Tino could handle it, she did not want to be caught in his bed by anyone in his household, but especially by Gio. She loved the little boy too much to spring such a relationship on him without some sort of leading up to it.

      He might be playing matchmaker, but that didn’t mean he was ready for the reality of his father having a lover, a woman who had taken his mother’s place in the huge four-poster bed. She still could not believe they had made love in his bedroom. That not only had he initiated the lovemaking, but he had carried her in here.

      She took a quick shower in his en suite, halting midstep on the way out by the sight of the statue on his dresser. It was of a faceless woman, her arms outstretched to a man holding a baby boy. The man was faceless and so was the baby, but she knew it was male.

      How could she not? She’d done the statue. The original, complete with perfect replicas of her own face and that of Taylish holding a little boy whose features were an amalgam of both of them resided in her studio at home.

      “My mother bought it for me.”

      That didn’t surprise Faith. Nor did the fact that Tino was awake. He slept too lightly not to have woken to the shower running. “Do you like it?”

      “Very much. It reminds me of when Maura was alive.”

      “Oh.” Of course…there was nothing in this statue to show the deep sorrow that etched her face in the original.

      “It is as if she has her arms open, welcoming Gio and myself into them.”

      “Or as if she’s letting you go.” That’s what she’d titled the first one she’d done, but when she created another faceless rendition, she’d simply called it Family.

      “Is that wishful thinking?” Tino asked, an edge to his voice.

      She turned to face him. “What do you mean?”

      “Are you hoping my wife has finally let me go so that I might claim someone new in her place?” There was nothing to give away what he was thinking in his face.

      It didn’t matter. The only course open to her—especially now—was honesty. “If I say yes?”

      “I will remind you that if I ever do remarry it will be to a Sicilian woman, someone who can give Gio that little part of his mother at the very least.” Pain flashed in his eyes, quickly followed by guilt and then both were gone, leaving only the stoic expression behind.

      Promise not to date others notwithstanding, she could really have done without that reminder. The knowledge he was still so adamant about not marrying her hurt. Badly. And she was absolutely certain that pain was not a hormones-gone-wild-induced emotion.

      “Why did you let me sleep here last night?” she had to ask as she fought against showing the pain his words had caused.

      “I fell asleep.”

      “You never just fall asleep.”

      “There is a first time for everything.”

      So it had been subconscious. She’d wondered and now she knew. He didn’t know why he’d brought her to his bed in his family home. And honestly? That didn’t matter right now. What did matter was that he regretted it. That much was obvious. Anything else he might be feeling was hidden behind the enigmatic mask he wore.

      And she should not be surprised.

      She was the first woman to share that bed since the death of his wife. As hard as his regret was for her to bear, the situation was equally difficult for him. Only in a different way.

      She’d had her own moments of letting go in the years since Taylish and their unborn son had died. She knew how wrenching they could be. Regardless of her own feelings right now, she could not ignore the pain twisting inside Tino. It was not in her nature to do so, but beyond that—she loved him.

      She caressed the statue. It was a beautiful СКАЧАТЬ