Never.
And I mean never.
Chapter 3
Rosa
I stand in the lobby of one of Rome’s finest hotels and smooth down my skirt. I’ve heard of people living in the penthouses of hotels during the 1940s and 50s, but honestly, whoever does that anymore?
Of course, a real life Italian playboy with more money than sense. Still, it’s a turn up for the books. Who’d ever have imagined I’d meet one of those let alone sleep with him? Then carry his baby inside my body.
A liveried porter meets my gaze. I nod confidently at him and start walking towards the golden reception. I’m not kidding. It actually looks like it’s carved out of a massive block of gold. A dark-haired beauty greets me politely.
“I’m here to see Mr. D’Angelo. I believe he resides here.”
The reaction is impressively quick. Her smile freezes in its upward track. “Of course you are,” she says in a bored voice. “Is he … expecting you?”
I feel my hackles rising. What does she think? I’m one of those women who just turn up unannounced to throw themselves at the playboy of the century? I take a deep breath. I stop my fingers from tapping the polished counter. It’s not her fault. This probably happens a lot. It’s totally understandable. Must be extremely annoying. I look around me. “Do you have a café or a bar here?”
“We have both.”
“Where is the café?”
Holding the bored, superior expression, she points down a corridor. “Turn left at the end of it.”
I smile. “Good. Could you kindly tell him that I will be waiting in the café?”
“Rosa?”
Damn. The deep smooth voice makes a shiver run down my spine. I don’t turn around, but I see him in the expression on the face of the beauty in front of me. Hell, if anyone had told me someone could change like that I wouldn’t have believed it. Like a two-bar heater she begins to radiate and glow from the inside. I want to stay and watch, but I have bigger problems to face.
Slowly, I turn around, the smile I had practiced in the mirror plastered on my face. Oh, my God, no wonder I slept with him. I was tipsy that time, but in the light of the day, I feel my heart begin to pound. Only gay guys are ever this good looking. Look at that plump bottom lip. I remember sucking it into my mouth. Oh shit. This is not exactly going to plan.
I clear my throat. “Dante.”
He smiles slowly, his eyes roaming my face. “Ciao bella.”
I close my eyes for a second. Yes, I remember now. He is not daddy material. I’ve just got to break the bad news to him and catch my plane, which leaves in less than three hours.
I open my eyes. “Can I talk to you for a bit?”
“Of course. We can … talk upstairs. It’ll be more comfortable.”
“No,” I blurt out. “We’ll talk in the café. I’d like a cup of coffee.” I jerk my chin towards the café.
His eyes widen with surprise. Fucking bastard! He actually thought I flew all the way over here to have sex with him! God, the arrogance of some people.
“I have coffee upstairs,” he drawls.
“I’m sure you do, but the café is nearer. Besides, I don’t have a lot of time. My flight is in less than three hours.” Put that in your pipe and smoke it, you ripped, sexy Casanova, you.
Now his eyebrows take an upward flight. “But bella, I have a bed upstairs.”
I need to spill some hot coffee on him. I open my mouth to say something cutting, so it might have been a good thing that we are interrupted by another sultry beauty. She is flowing out of a black mini dress. She also has the most perfect face I’ve ever seen. I should get her number. One of the photographers I know is looking for just that type of sulky beauty for a shoot in Morocco.
“Dante,” she pouts. She has the kind of voice that grates on my nerves. Way worse than a fingernail on a blackboard.
He turns to look at her. I watch with interest as her face too flickers and starts shining like a light bulb.
He frowns at her. “What are you doing here?”
“I should be asking what are you doing with that prostitute?” she asks in Italian, glaring at me. Luckily, or unluckily for me I learned both French and Italian when I decided to go into fashion. Though I butcher the language when I try to speak it, I can understand it.
“Don’t worry,” I say, breaking into the loving couple’s little domestic interaction. “I won’t keep him long. I have a flight to catch in …,” I look at my watch, “exactly two hours and forty-nine minutes.”
Some of the hostility leaves her eyes. “Oh.” She winds herself around him and looks adoringly up at him. “Shall I wait for you to finish?”
Dante throws a mocking look my way, before he turns to her and says, “Go upstairs, take your clothes off, and sit on my bed with your legs wide open.” He looks again at me and there is a challenging glint in his eyes, but I manage to keep my face totally impassive.
I know he only did that to rile me, but my stomach clenches hard. I am suddenly so jealous and furious I feel like punching him in the face.
“I’ll be waiting for you at the café,” I say as calmly as I can, and begin walking in the direction of the corridor.
He falls into step next to me. “Do you know you look even more beautiful today than you did the last time I saw you? You are … glowing.”
I don’t look at him. “Will you give it a rest?”
“I think you should report it to the police.”
My heels click loudly on the granite floor as I walk briskly towards the café. “Report what?”
“Someone stole your smile.”
If I wasn’t so angry I might have smiled, but I was alternating between jealousy at the thought of the beauty going to his suite to wait for him, and boiling fury at his arrogance. “Very funny. Ha, ha.”
“Why are you so angry, bella?”
“Will you quit calling me that?”
“Why not? You are beautiful.”
We have reached the café so I huff audibly and walk into it. There is only one table taken up by an elderly couple. Gentility oozes out of their pores. They glance discreetly at us as we enter. Well, they are about to hear an earful. “I didn’t come here to be flattered, or to sleep with you so you can stop laying it on so thick.”
“Why did you come?”
I head toward the table at the very back of the opulent room. As my butt hits the plush armchair, a waiter in a dark suit materializes at our side. He has cunning dark eyes. He smiles up at Dante with an expression that hovers between obsequiousness and greed. I guess Dante must be a great tipper.
“Your usual, padrone?” he asks in Italian.
Dante nods.
Then the waiter turns toward me. “Signorina,” he greets with a little foxy nod.
I order an espresso.
“Nothing to eat?” Dante asks, one dark eyebrow raised.
I shake my head.
“I can recommend the club sandwich,” the waiter adds.
“Thank you, but no,” I say.
He nods politely and makes himself scarce.
I try not to watch as Dante lowers his magnificent body into the armchair opposite me.
He catches my eye and gives one of those nonchalant shrugs that only people from the Mediterranean can get away with. “So … to what do I owe the pleasure of this meeting?”
I clear my throat. “I have some news for you, although it actually does not need to affect you at all …if you don’t want it to.”
He smiles mockingly. “And what would that be?”
I take a deep breath. “I’m pregnant.”
He stills, but the words that come out of his mouth don’t match the stillness. “Congratulations, bella.”
This is not at all how I envisioned this exchange. It is all going wrong. I shift uncomfortably. “It’s yours.”
For just a fraction of a heartbeat something flashes in his eyes. He is not Dante D’Angelo the playboy. He is a sophisticated entity that I have
underestimated. During that infinitesimally small fraction of time I feel the ground beneath me shift. Everything is not as it seems. Then the mask drops back into place, and he sits forward, his eyes narrowed. “You are pregnant with my child?”
I nod.
“How do you know it is mine?” he asks softly.
“Because I haven’t been with anyone else for more than a year.”
He stares at me, surprised. It’s insulting, but how can I blame him for feeling surprised. Two hours after meeting him I was in his hotel room with my legs around his neck.
He leans back and regards me without any expression at all. I don’t say a word, but I must confess this is not at all the reaction I thought I would get.
He massages his bottom lip with his thumb.
It triggers a memory. Without thinking, my tongue comes out to lick my own lips.
The waiter comes back still smiling smarmily. He settles all the items onto a tray on the table as if he is performing a magic trick. I smile my thanks, but Dante completely ignores him. I watch Dante reach for the sugar tongs before looking up at me. He raises his eyebrows.
I shake my head and he drops two cubes into his own espresso. His expression is so veiled. I can’t make out anything of what is going on in his head. He takes the little spoon from the saucer. God, those brown hands. I remember them inside me. I take a sudden sharp breath, and his eyes rise up and meet mine. He stares at me while he swirls the sugar into his coffee. I want to look away, but I can’t. He lifts his cup to his lips and downs his espresso with a slight tip of his head. He puts the cup down.
“I presume that you are planning on keeping our child if you are telling me about it.”
My heart stops beating. Holy hell, did I just hear him say our child? “Yes, I am planning on keeping it, but I don’t expect any support, or help from you. You are not required to do anything.”
“Hmmm.” He leans back, his knees wide open, and looks at me. It is a totally confident, dominating Alpha pose.
I shift nervously in my seat. “I just wanted you to know, because it’s right that you should. If you don’t want me to tell him about you when he is old enough now is the time to speak.”
His eyes are like lasers. “What if I want to be in my child’s life?”
My eyebrows rise. “Of course, you’re welcome to visit him anytime you want. I have no problem with that. In fact, I think it would be a good thing for the kid.”
“What if I want to have him live with me?”
I blink. “What?”
“What if I want to have him live with me?”
“I heard you, I just didn’t understand what you meant.”
“I want you and the baby to live with me.”
This time my mouth drops open. “What?”
“I want you and—”
“Don’t do that. This is not a joke. I can’t live with you. To start with you live in a hotel.”
“I could live in a house,” he says quietly.
“Is this your idea of a serious conversation?”
“Why not? We could live together in this beautiful city. Share the burden of parenting.”
I snort. “Oh yeah? So what you are suggesting is we live together, but live separate lives. You’d be free to bring all your women home and I’d have to listen to them screaming away in your bedroom.”
A small smile tips the side of his lips. “You could be the one screaming in my bedroom.”
“That’s never going to happen.”
“Have you forgotten, Cara, how much you screamed when I was inside you?”
My whole face burns with embarrassment. “You are no gentleman.”
“There you go. We already understand each other perfectly.”
“You’re mad. Such an arrangement would never work. I’d end up stabbing you in the eye while you are sleeping.”
He frowns. “A child needs both its parents, Rosa.”
“Look, this is not a conversation I came to have with you. I’m not going to live with you. I have my life in England, and my career that I have worked so hard to build. So please forget any crazy idea that I’m going to come here to Rome to play house with you. We are not in love. I’m not even sure I like you. This was an accident and while it’s not the greatest news in the world, it doesn’t have to be the worst. We can both be mature about this.”
His expression doesn’t change and I take a deep breath and carry on.
“I’ll contact you after the baby is born, and if you still want to be in his or her life we’ll work something out. I’m not an unreasonable person. I want my child to have access to its father, especially if he wants it too.”
My little prepared speech is over so I stand and look down at him. Jesus, is there any angle from which this guy doesn’t look good? Thank God, I won’t be seeing much of him because he causes my body to go haywire. “Well, I should be going. You have a naked woman waiting upstairs for you and I have a plane to catch. So … ciao, Bello.”
His lips curve upwards, and a completely wicked smile plays on his mouth. “Have a safe flight.”
Bastard. I don’t hang around.
Chapter 4
Dante
I watch her leave. Her back rigid, and the soft curves of her small ass hidden under her manly jacket. And those calves. I remember the feel of them. My gut tightens with the memory. She has great legs. Long and shapely. I still remember opening them. What was between them.
My cock is suddenly achingly hard.
The waiter comes to tell me that a woman has called down from my suite to speak to me.
“Tell her to get dressed and go home.” My voice is cold and callous.
His eyebrows flick upwards. He nods politely. “Certainly, Signori Dante.”
He walks away and I look at her coffee cup. Untouched. She didn’t even pretend to drink it. I steeple my fingers together and think of her furious face. I have known countless women and, in my experience, the women that look strong and tough on the outside are like marshmallows on the inside. The ones you have to watch out for are the ones that appear vulnerable and soft on the outside. They are the ones with the hearts of tempered steel. I know hidden away inside that hard exterior is a heart of gold.
Still, it’s a strange and unexpected thing that she should hook me so easily. She is not beautiful in the traditional sense. Her mouth is too wide, her jaw too strong, but there is something about her that I find more beautiful than any woman alive. She makes my blood stir in a way that no other woman has.
That dim morning I was awake. I heard her picking up her clothes from the floor, once accidentally bumping into a chair and cursing quietly. I should have been glad. The next morning is always the tricky part of every hook up and she was taking that unpleasant task away, but some part of me didn’t want her to go. I wanted to stop her from leaving. I couldn’t understand it. When she was gone I stood at the window and watched her leave the hotel. She looked so small, her red hair like a flame in the wind.
That morning I left England. The country seemed grey and wet and utterly without charm. I took a flight to Monaco. I knew women there. Lots of eager, beautiful women who knew how the game was played. I gambled, I partied, and I tried to forget her, but she was always there. In a dream, in the flash of another woman’s skirt.
I never forgot her laugh. Sexy and deep-throated.
I told myself I had a lifestyle and she wouldn’t fit in, but I couldn’t stop missing the feel of her skin, the way she called out my name when I was deep inside her. My mother told me when I was twenty-three. You can run as far as you want, my son, but you can never run away from your fate. I never believed it, but fate had come to look for me. How mother will laugh when I tell her.
I let her run once. I’m not doing it again. This time everything will be different. She won’t stand a chance. I want her and I want my child.
And I know just how to get them too.
Chapter 5
Rosa
I cross the grand l
obby. My heart is pounding. I’m not sure what I feel. I think I am angry, but I can’t be sure. My body feels stiff and tight. It’s a feeling I’ve never had before. I walk out of the hotel and into the street. Shocking. That man’s behavior is shocking. He treated the whole thing as if it was a joke. Incredible. Just incredible.
A car screeches to a halt next to me.
Jesus, I just walked in front of a cab. I turn my head and see a man in a taxi. He is red-faced with anger. He swears at me in Italian. I step back and automatically apologize. The man makes a rude gesture with his hand. Yeah, fuck off.
A man’s voice comes from my right and I turn towards it.
“Are you all right?” he asks in Italian. He has kind eyes.
I nod and thank him. After he walks away, I manage to flag down a Milano 22 cab. My hands shake as I open the door.
“Fiumicino,” I tell him, and with a nod he steps on the gas. I stare blankly out of the windows as he swears and curses at the other drivers on the road. After I have paid him I go into the airport and check in. I am in no mood to shop so I wander through the terminal aimlessly. When my flight is called, I get on the plane and find my seat. Obediently, I fasten my seatbelt when the sign comes on. I stare out of the window as the plane takes off. Goodbye, Rome. The air hostess comes around with the drinks trolley, and I ask for an apple juice. The woman sitting next to me reads a book while I lean back and close my eyes.
When the plane touches down, I walk down those anonymous corridors with all the other passengers. I pass through Immigration and, since I have no luggage, walk through the green Nothing to Declare door and out through the swing doors.
There are people waiting at the barriers for their loved ones. I planned to take a taxi back, but to my surprise, I see Star. Her large bodyguard is standing behind her. As usual, he looks like he has a poker up his ass. Surrounded by men in dark suits carrying placards with the names of the passengers, Star looks like a beautiful angel. She catches my eyes and frowns at me worriedly. I smile reassuringly at her and she smiles back.