‘Did you list me as missing?’
‘Of course I did!’ Gianni growled, as if he was insulted by the idea that she could think otherwise.
‘I so wish you’d found me first…’ That thought had translated itself into charged admission before she could think better of it. She tensed. All the barriers she had tried to put up against Gianni had somehow tumbled down. It made her feel very vulnerable.
‘Luck wasn’t on my side. You walked out of the apartment of your own free will. There were no suspicious circumstances, so the police weren’t interested. Adults have the right to lose themselves if they want to,’ Gianni informed her wryly.
As they reached the park exit the limousine drew up, and Milly climbed in without protest.
Only a couple of hours ago she had hated Gianni D’Angelo like poison. He had been the destroyer. He had been the target of all her furious disbelief and bitter resentment. But now, as he used the car phone and talked in fluid Italian, she studied him with helpless intensity. The strong bone structure, the straight, arrogant nose, the firmly chiselled mouth. The dangerous dark eyes that knew too much, saw too much, and which he could turn on her like a weapon to express more than most people could say in five minutes. Those eyes were spectacular in the frame of that lean, dark face.
His gaze narrowed slumbrously, his arrogant dark head tilting back almost as if he was inviting her appraisal to continue. The elegant, sexily indolent sprawl of his long, lean, powerful body made her breath shor
ten in her throat, her heart thump against her breastbone. He really was so beautiful…
Colour ran up beneath her complexion and she tore her attention from him, dismay and embarrassment darting through her. How could she be thinking such thoughts now? And she could feel herself wanting to trust him, but how could she trust him when she couldn’t even trust herself? If she had learned anything over the past hours, it was that every single thing came at a price.
‘Did you say you wanted me back because of Connor?’ She got even redder as she spoke, knowing that she was being too blunt.
‘No,’ Gianni drawled, with all the cool she lacked. ‘I wouldn’t pretend even for the sake of my son. If you tried to deny me access to him, I would fight you through legal channels, but I believe you already accept that Connor has a right to get to know his father.’
‘Yes.’ Milly was impressed by that clear-minded reading of the situation. Succinct, realistic, fair.
On the drive through town, the limo pulled up on the main street. Gianni buzzed a window down. One of his security men passed in a large shallow box stamped with the logo of a newly opened pizza parlour. Seconds later, the limo rejoined the traffic.
Gianni settled the box on her lap without ceremony. ‘You’re crazy about pizza.’
‘Am I?’ Pizza wasn’t something that featured on the menu in the Jenningses’ home, and Edward despised all fast food.
‘You didn’t even have breakfast this morning. You need to eat something before we go and collect Connor.’ Gianni poured her a soft drink from the built-in bar. ‘Why are you staring at me?’
‘No reason…’ Possibly it was the combination of the vast, opulent limo, the humble pizza box and Gianni’s total lack of snobbery. Or possibly it was the regularity with which he seemed to act to ensure her well-being. And always without comment or fanfare, as if it was the most natural thing in the world that he should take care of her.
Touched by that comforting thought, after the lack of caring Edward had demonstrated when the chips were down, Milly opened the box. She lifted out a warm, flavoursome wedge and was surprised to feel her tastebuds water. ‘Aren’t you having any?’
‘I’m not hungry.’
But Milly was ravenous, and nothing had ever tasted so good as that pizza. When she could eat no more, she sat unselfconsciously licking her fingers clean until some sixth sense made her lift her head. Gianni’s burnished gaze roamed intently from her wet fingertip to her moist pink rounded mouth and flashed a message of very masculine hunger straight into her widening eyes. The atmosphere was electric.
Her breathing fracturing, Milly shifted on the seat. A starburst of heat blossomed between her thighs, making her flush with discomfiture. Shaken by a response that she couldn’t control, she shivered. All of a sudden she was painfully conscious of the ripe fullness of her breasts and the swollen tightness of her nipples. The sexual sizzle in the air unnerved her. And Gianni’s tension was patent. Feverish colour lay in a hard line over his taut cheekbones. Her pupils dilating, she stared wordlessly back at him, torn by a bewildering mixture of excitement, fear and fascination.
‘I know I can’t touch you. Don’t tease me,’ Gianni breathed in charged reproof.
In sudden embarrassment, Milly closed her eyes to shut him out. ‘I’m not like that…like this!’ she stressed in denial.
‘Stretch your imagination. Once you regarded a healthy desire to rip my clothes off as the most natural thing in the world.’ His deep-pitched drawl was as abrasive as sand sliding over silk. ‘It was the same for both of us. I once withstood a flight of sixteen hours just to spend two hours with you and then fly right back again.’
That deep, dark drawl scent erotic images that made her squirm skimming into her mind’s eye. He had flown halfway across the world just to spend two hours with her? She was stunned by that knowledge. And was there a woman alive who wouldn’t feel her self-esteem enhanced by such an extravagant gesture?
‘Every time we made love felt like the first time. Endless variations on the same glorious theme. The hunger was never satisfied. I don’t like anything that comes between me and control,’ Gianni confessed huskily. ‘But nobody else has ever made me feel the way you can make me feel. So if I’m not ashamed of it, why should you be?’
And Milly listened, of course she listened, drinking in every word, taken aback and then impressed by his honesty. It no longer felt quite so indecent to experience a sudden violent longing to be in his arms. Past chemistry had to be operating on her, a powerful physical sense of familiarity. And at least Gianni really genuinely wanted her, she found herself thinking helplessly. Edward hadn’t, not really.
And Gianni had nothing to gain and no reason to lie to her. She respected his need to forge a relationship with his son. He already knew she wouldn’t try to keep them apart. He was being so kind today. So why had he seemed so very cold and hostile to her yesterday?
Perhaps he had just felt awkward. Perhaps he had been apprehensive of her reaction to the idea of having to share her son. She had been overwrought, confused and angry. Her initial reactions to him would have been far from reassuring, she decided.
‘I’ve booked the suite above mine for you and Connor,’ Gianni divulged lazily as the limo pulled up outside Connor’s nursery.