That was a strange question.
What did he want?
He thought he’d known the answer to that since he was six, when he’d returned to the orphanage after a month spent with the foster parents who’d decided not to adopt him after all. He’d cried that first night, and the older boys had bullied him for it.
Giving up all hopes of being adopted, he’d frozen his heart as a means of survival. When other children cried in the night for someone to love them, he’d become the one to tell them to shut up, to be tough, to go to sleep, so they’d be stronger to face whatever fresh hell the next day could bring.
When he’d left the orphanage on his eighteenth birthday, he’d met a pretty waitress. Isabella had been older, experienced, and was amused when Antonio fervently declared his love for her after their first night in bed. She’d been equally amused by his broken heart when she told him a few months later she was leaving him for a squat businessman three times her age.
“Sorry, Antonio.” She’d shrugged. “Pierre has a new BMW and a flat in Paris. You have nothing to offer.”
“Nothing but my heart,” he’d choked out.
“Money is what matters. Money is what lasts.” She’d patted him on the shoulder like a dog. “You’re young. You’ll learn.”
And he had. Isabella had helped him see that, whatever awful flaw had caused him to be constantly rejected since he was born, it could be hidden by a big enough fortune.
He’d gotten a job on a small airfield and soon started his first airline with a single rickety, leased plane. He’d built his company through sheer tenacity and will. He’d succeeded where better-funded, better-connected men had failed.
And five years later, when Isabella had come crawling back, this time he’d been the one to be amused. He’d tilted his head, coldly looking her over. “Sorry. You have nothing to offer.”
Antonio didn’t make excuses. He didn’t give in to feelings. He controlled his own fate.
Then how to explain the inexplicable reaction now pounding through his body?
What did he want?
He wanted Hana as his mistress. But could he want more? Did he want to be a father?
A baby. Antonio tried to even imagine it. A child growing up, learning to walk and talk. Going to school. Learning sports, learning to read. A child. A son or daughter, looking up at him with smiling eyes—
“Why are you pursuing me?” Hana demanded, breaking his reverie. “I’ve already given you my answer. I won’t be your mistress. What else can you possibly hope to gain?”
“Where is Tanaka?” he said suddenly. “Why isn’t he here guarding you?”
“Ren had to leave for Osaka,” she said unwillingly.
His dark eyes gleamed. “So you told him you didn’t love him, and he couldn’t take it.”
Folding her arms over her chest, she said pointedly, “He didn’t need to guard me. I didn’t plan to see you again.”
“We need to discuss our baby—”
“My baby,” she said fiercely. “Just mine. It’s what I want. It’s what you want. So why won’t you just go?”
Pacing a few long strides across the suite’s luxurious main room, he stopped. He glanced out the windows, where twilight had begun to fa
ll. He slowly turned to face her. “I can’t.”
He was startled to see sudden tears in her eyes. “You only want me because you think you can’t have me. If I actually let you into our lives, if I tried to depend on you, you’d be gone in a second!”
“Hana—”
She turned her body away from him. “Just go. And this time, don’t come back. I mean it.”
Antonio’s hands tightened at his sides.
How could she be so unfeeling? How could she not see how difficult this was for him? He was struggling with the question of his life: Who was he as a man? Could he be more?