“What you’re thinking.”
“I don’t see how that’s relevant to the discussion we need to have.”
The more she resisted, the more he wanted to know. It hit him that, despite having been acquainted with her for the past three years, he really didn’t know anything about her. Other than that she had worked for Cabrera Wines, had a sister named Johanna and, until four months ago, she’d been a virgin.
“Humor me. Answer one question and then I’ll devote myself to an entire five minutes of serious discussion. Ten,” he conceded as she opened her mouth to object. “Ten whole minutes.”
“Probably ten minutes longer than you’ve ever gone,” she grumbled.
He started to correct her, to tell her about the hours he’d spent poring over numbers and reports with his chief financial officer or the seven board members he’d taken out to individual lunches, spending anywhere from an hour to three explaining why Cabrera Shipping should remain in his hands.
But he stopped. That part of his life, the reality that took place behind the media’s coverage of his supposedly glamorous existence, was private. Calandra had already shown herself to be difficult to impress on multiple occasions. The thought of sharing that little bit of himself, the one piece of his life he took pride in, only to be faced with her judgmental silence, was not something his pride cared to experience. God knew he’d faced enough indifference from Javier to last a lifetime. Setting himself up for the same disappointment with the woman who was carrying his child was not an option.
Coward, the little devil on his shoulder whispered.
Yep, he mentally replied.
“Well?” he asked, his voice light and not showing an ounce of his inner turmoil. “Ten minutes for your thoughts?”
She looked out again, her gray eyes roving over the rooftops of Paris.
“I was thinking...” She paused. Her chest rose and fell. He noticed the swell of her breasts—how could he not—but also the look of resolve on her pale face.
Again, that little flicker that he was missing something. There was so much he didn’t know about her.
“I was thinking how good it will be to bring my...our,” she amended with a glare in his direction, “our child to the top of the Tower one day.”
Her words surprised him. She didn’t strike him as the type to daydream or think about the future, unless it involved the seating charts she’d laid out oh so meticulously for Adrian’s events.
“That sounds nice.”
“I’ve met my part of the bargain.” She glanced at the silver watch clasped around her wrist. “Ten minutes starts now.”
Right back to business.
“I want to be involved in our...” His voice trailed off. “Are we having a boy or a girl?”
“I don’t know.”
He frowned. “Aren’t they supposed to be able to tell by now?”
“I want to be surprised.”
Another unexpected revelation. “But you plan everything. You counted how many roses were in each vase at that party in Switzerland. All fifty vases.”
“And now I want to be surprised,” she retorted.
He held up his hands in surrender. “I’m not opposed.”
Silence and that frigid stare. He sighed. This was not going well at all.
“Calandra, as I stated before, I have no interest in taking the baby away from you. I don’t know the first thing about kids. And I have no desire to part a child from a parent who obviously loves it so much already.”
Her eyes softened. The effect was almost jaw-dropping. Her face relaxed, her mouth going from its customary strict line to tilting up at the corners. Instead of rigid and powerful, she appeared...approachable. Feminine.
Desirable.
“Thank you, Alejandro.”