“He’s a grad student on break—”
“I don’t care who he is. Don’t talk to strangers.” He pulled into the villa’s drive, reducing her leisurely twenty-minute walk to half a minute with his arrogant, caveman foot on the gas.
“Strangers like you? Because you sure aren’t the man I gave you credit for being!”
He said nothing, just braked to a firm stop and sat there with hollow cheeks, hands gripping the wheel of the car so hard his knuckles stood out white and sharp as the glaciers across the lake.
“I would ask you why you did it, but I already know. You hate me and Ryan was your best fr—”
“I thought something horrible had happened to you today! Does that sound like I hate you? Look at my hands. They’re still shaking.” He showed her one that was a hair off rock steady. “What does that tell you?”
“That you’re a really good actor.”
CHAPTER SIX
SHE SLAMMED OUT of the car and went into the house. He followed, aware that he’d already revealed too much, but he couldn’t leave things like this.#p#????#e#
“Stupid electronic locks,” she muttered with a baleful glance when he entered. “I’m looking for the manual, you know. I’m going to change the number.”
“You didn’t answer when I called out to you.” He set her shopping bags on the sofa. “I knew you were upset last night. I shouldn’t have left you like that.” Paolo ran a hand down his face trying to erase those few minutes of recalled terror when he couldn’t find her in this house. “You have no idea what that was like. None.”
“You honestly thought I had drowned myself in despair? I’m not depressed, Paolo. I’m angry. So angry you can’t even imagine. And where can I let it out? On a dead man? No one wants to hear that the Great American Hero was a common cheat. If they did, all those women who slept with him and all those men who knew about it would be saying something, but they’re not! They want their mythical hero.”
She gestured expansively as she spoke, animating the full injustice. “Meanwhile, I get to maintain the lie. I get to look like the dopey wife who didn’t have a clue, and in six months, I get to look like the inconstant spouse. Thanks to you.”
Lauren’s pointed finger of accusation could have been a bullet, Paolo felt it go through him so tangibly.
“If you were the least bit worried about me, you’d take responsibility and help me through all of this.” Her voice grew jagged. “But you just want me to quit making life difficult for you. Well, happy day for you, I’m going south and you can forget I exist.”
If only, he thought while “No” formed like a diamond inside him. He spoke it quietly and without compromise. Dio! If she met up with another smooth-talking backpacker who thought he could get lucky with her—
Paolo had hit a wall when he’d seen her nestled so close to the stranger, her pixie face as trusting as ever, the young man dazzled and eager. Paolo had already been frantic and that had been a new threat he was completely unwilling to tolerate. Another man in her life? Like hell.
He instinctively knew the action he wanted to take to curtail such a thing, but he had spent years training himself not to react from his gut. Better to look at this from all sides first.
“You’re not the boss of me, Paolo.” Lauren carried her bags to the kitchen island and began putting away the contents. “If I want to go, I’ll go.”
True, he didn’t have much influence over her and that needed to change. This was a turning point. Keeping her at a distance was not working. Hiding her away was a temporary measure at best. He’d been reacting out of shock since she’d ambushed him in New York, but her pregnancy would be discovered. His reputation would need triage no matter whether the baby turned out to be his or not.
He still shied from embracing the baby as his own. Logically he knew it was not only possible but probable, but his heart would not let down its guard. A large part of that was his reluctance to trust Lauren—or rather himself. Believing could turn out to be wishful thinking born out of how susceptible he was to her.
For some reason his libido caught fire at the mere thought of her. Despite their argument yesterday, he’d barely slept as he relived Charleston. She wasn’t exactly dressed to entice today, wearing a knitted pullover and fresh jeans, but the blue cables draped softly over her narrow shoulders and thrusting breasts, while the jeans cupped her bottom faithfully, giving her a leggy yet curvy silhouette that drew his eye and held it.