He would have to believe that when Lauren had woken him from the first sleep he’d had in forty-eight hours by sliding her caressing hand into his shirt, it had been from genuine desire, not ulterior motives.
The pulse of desire that hit with that possibility was a sledgehammer straight into his gut, bathing him in heat. His hungry gaze moved restlessly to eat up the way her shorn head revealed her slender neck and the graceful slant of her nude shoulders. Her deshabille gave off a sexy, yet ingenuous appearance.
Don’t fall for it, he cautioned himself, but couldn’t help thinking that no matter whose baby grew in her belly, she was still a woman without a husband to provide for her. She was susceptible and he was, at his core, a protective man.
He was duty-bound to protect his family, though. And what did it matter whether she had married for love or not? She was also admitting to resentment that her husband had been away a lot. What she’d done during those long absences was very much up for scrutiny. Perhaps he should take her at her word that she wasn’t asking him to be a father, only wanted to warn him about an impending media storm.
“Where are you planning to go?” he asked, hitching the knees of his pants as he sank into the sofa opposite her.
“I told you. To my room.” She darted out her tongue to catch the juice from the orange that ran down her finger.
She might as well have stroked that tongue where he’d feel it most. His loins were still pooled with simmering heat and he reacted as though she had licked him, the strain turning into an erection so swiftly, he stifled a grunt of pain. If he could have stood, he would have walked out on her.
“You said you were leaving the country,” he reminded in a hostile clip that caused the brightness in her gaze to dim. Good. There was no room for sensuous picnics between them.
“Italy,” she replied stiffly.
He choked, certain he’d misheard. “Like hell you are. That’s my home.”
“I’m sorry, do you own the entire country? The brochures didn’t say.” That sexy mouth had a quick motor behind it, didn’t it?
“Did I misunderstand what you said about minimizing damage? Or do you only intend to be discreet where it affects your interests?” he asked.
“It’s not like I’m going to call up your family and introduce myself! I want to look up my own, if you must know.”
He leaned back, stretching his arms across the sofa so he wouldn’t lean forward and throttle her. A ferocious sensation accosted him each time he came back to her assertion that the baby was his, like poking an abscessed tooth with his tongue. He dismissed it, focusing on the more immediate problem.#p#????#e#
“This is the first I’ve heard that you have Italian relatives. Who are they? Where do they live?”
“My mother’s father was Italian, not that she’d admit it.” She broke off a piece of banana and carefully nibbled. “My grandmother came home pregnant. Mom was her love child.”
Lauren’s lashes flickered as her gaze dropped and her brows tugged together. He heard her thoughts. Her baby wasn’t a love child. What was it then? A mistake? The product of a one-night stand? His?
The questions carved an ever-deepening hollow behind his breastbone, one that he pitilessly ignored.
“The man who would be my grandfather was married,” she continued. “His wife was very sick. They had a daughter and he didn’t feel he could leave either of them. That’s what he told Mamie. I don’t know if it was the truth, but Mamie loved him.” A smile of wistful affection quirked her lips. “Until the last day of her life.”
“Odd that you didn’t inherit her sense of loyalty, given how much she meant to you.” It was a nasty thing to say, but he didn’t like how easily she was drawing him into her poignant little web.
She took the insult with a tiny sniff of hurt, then opened guileless eyes and responded, “My Italian blood must have led me astray.”
He ground his teeth. “You have no concept what kind of lion you’re riling, do you, cara? I may wear bankers’ suits, but I know how to scrap.”
She paled a bit as she carefully wiped her fingers on the cloth napkin he’d provided, but she didn’t intimidate. Her gaze was level when she met his.
“Honestly, Paolo? There’s only one thing you could do to truly hurt me. That would be to take this baby away from me. I don’t think you’d harm either of us and it doesn’t sound like you want to fight me for it, either. You’d have to admit it’s yours, and you hate me too much to do that.” Her lips went bloodless as she pronounced that. Her eyelashes flickered as though she didn’t quite understand how that could be.