But he had no idea if she was thinking the same thing. She was a closed book as far as her feelings for him were concerned. Oh, she loved the sex, he acknowledged cynically. He would have to be suffering from a real crisis of self-confidence if he couldn’t tell that what she experienced in his bed was pretty damned special.
But was it special enough for her to want to stay with him no matter what? he pondered as he gave in to the urge to swing his chair around so he could look at her sitting there with her hair tied back in that prudish knot and wearing that skimpy red top again that did not know the meaning of the word prudish.
Did she care—really care for him?
Sensing his attention on her, she looked up and smiled. It was a smile that always made him ache. Surely no woman smiled at a man quite that way without being in love with him at least a small amount?
Who knew? He then mocked that. Remember her background. Remember Edward and what brought you here to London in the first place. A woman with a secret lover knows how to lie with smiles, just as she knows how to lie in other ways.
Was the smile a lie?
You should detest her for what she is, a hard voice inside told him as he swung back to his busy screen again.
But he didn’t detest her; he was falling in love with h
er. He had known that bleak fact for many days now and no amount of sensible conversation with himself was going to change that fact.
But he needed to know what it was he was dealing with and the waiting was slowly killing him…
What was he thinking while he sat there pretending to concentrate on market fluctuations when she knew he wasn’t seeing a single figure flickering in front of his eyes? He was too still, too—tense, and that brief smile he’d offered her just now had been forced, Natalia was sure of it.
Was he worrying about the same thing she was worrying about? Was he sitting there wondering what the heck he was going to do if she was pregnant?
She wasn’t a fool; she knew that Giancarlo was not the marrying kind. She knew he adored her body and what she could make him feel, but that didn’t mean he wanted more from her than a few weeks of this sexual bliss they had managed to create for themselves. Take away the fear of an accidental baby and offer him back the life he’d had before he’d decided to play cupid for Edward and Alegra, and she was sure she would not be seeing his heels for dust as he disappeared into the sunset back to reality.
For this wasn’t reality. Not for him, not for her. They’d both been living in a tightly closed cocoon in which sex was all and everything, and feelings were not so much as discussed.
Was he worried that, when it came to it, she was going to cling to him like a vine and refuse to let go? Was he worried that he was going to feel duty-bound to offer more than he wanted to give, if they discovered that she was pregnant?
Oh, please, God, she prayed fervently. Don’t let me be pregnant, because I can’t marry him. I can’t stay with him beyond these next few weeks whether I am pregnant or not!
The stress in not knowing either way was beginning to get to both of them, she was acutely aware of that. So aware in fact that she didn’t dare tell him that they should have known yesterday. Didn’t dare think about it herself…
On a sigh Giancarlo gave up trying to appear absorbed in what he was supposed to be doing, and got up, then strolled over to brace his arms either side of her as if he were checking on what she was working on at the moment.
She smelled delicious, of something so delicate it teased his nostrils every time he came near her.
Stirred up his senses. ‘How about an early lunch?’ he murmured huskily, moving in to brush his mouth against her cheek.
She blushed; he felt the heat beneath his lips. It amazed him how she could still blush like that, especially after the weeks they’d spent being so intimate with each other.
Was the blush a lie too?
‘You’re insatiable,’ she condemned him—but she didn’t put up any kind of a fight as he pulled her to her feet.
‘I adore you,’ he replied, not even bothering any more to hold the endearments back. But then, he had stopped doing that a long time ago. She just hadn’t noticed. ‘Come to bed with me, cara,’ he commanded grimly. ‘I need you…’
I need you. Those three little words were like manna from heaven to her love-starved ears. He needed her, and when had she ever been able to deny that she needed him?
‘I seem to recall you needing me this morning,’ she reminded him as he began leading her along the hallway.
As arrogant as always, and so gorgeous it wasn’t fair, ‘I will take that as a challenge, signorina,’ he warned without pausing in his stride. He trailed her behind him down the hall and across the sitting room they rarely bothered to use, into a room they used all too frequently—but she didn’t demur.
For she knew she would rather be doing what they were about to do than what they had been doing, which was sitting there worrying—separately.
So, without a murmur she reclaimed her hand and took a few paces away from him. Then, with her back proudly facing him, she began to undress, coolly and unselfconsciously, aware of his eyes dark on her, and that the tension of earlier would be melting away in favour of this more appealing diversion.
So the top she was wearing came over her head, then she kicked off her shoes and shimmied out of her skirt, and, as a final touch, loosened her hair to let it flow over her shoulders before she turned to face him.