LITMIR.BIZ

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for all involved.”

      “How long have you lived with your grandparents?”

      “Since I was a baby,” she said, her heart aching for a different reason now. The old feelings of shame and inadequacy and confusion suffused her. “My mother died when I was little and my father sent me to my grandparents. I grew up there.”

      “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what it’s like to lose a mother, but I can’t imagine it was easy.”

      Lia shrugged. “I don’t remember her, but I know she was very beautiful. A movie star who fell in love with a handsome Sicilian and gave up everything to be with him. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out.” She moved a slice of omelet around on the plate. “My father remarried soon after she died.”

      She could see him trying to work it out. Why she hadn’t gone to live with her father and his new wife. Why they’d left a baby with her grandparents. Bitterness flooded her then. She’d often wondered the same thing herself, until she was old enough to know why they didn’t take her back. She was simply unwanted.

      The words poured out before she could stop them. “My father pretended like his new family was the only family he had. He did not want me. He never sent presents or called or acknowledged me the few times he did see me. It was as if I was someone else’s child rather than his.”

      Zach reached for her hand, enclosed it in his big, warm one. “Lia, I’m sorry that happened to you.”

      She sniffed. “Yes, well. Now you know why I had to tell you about the baby. I didn’t have a father. I wanted one.”

      “Yeah,” he said softly, “I understand.”

      Ridiculously, a tear spilled down her cheek. She turned her head, hoping he wouldn’t see. But of course he did. He put a finger under her chin and turned her back again. She kept her eyes downcast, hoping that if she didn’t look at him, she wouldn’t keep crying. She didn’t want to seem weak or emotional, and yet that’s exactly how she felt at the moment.

      Thinking of her childhood, and the way her father had rejected her, always made her feel vulnerable. Another tear fell, and then another.

      Zach wiped them away silently. She was grateful he didn’t say anything else. He just let her cry.

      “I’m sorry,” she said after a minute. “I don’t know why …” Her voice trailed off into nothing as she swallowed hard to keep the knot in her throat from breaking free.

      Zach let her go and scraped back from the island. Another moment and he was by her side, pulling her into the warm solidness of his body.

      She pressed her face against his chest and closed her eyes. Her arms, she vaguely realized, were around his waist, holding tight. He put a hand in her hair, cupping her head. The other rubbed her back.

      “It’s okay, Lia. Sometimes you have to let it out.”

      She held him hard for a long time—and then she pushed away, not because she didn’t enjoy being in his arms, but because she was enjoying it too much. Her life was confusing enough already.

      “I haven’t cried over this in years,” she said, not looking at him. “I’m sure it’s the hormones.”

      “No doubt.”

      She swiped her palms beneath her cheeks and wiped them on her leggings. Dio, how attractive she must be right now, with puffy eyes and a red nose.

      “It won’t happen again,” she said fiercely. “I’m over it.”

      He lifted an eyebrow. “I wonder—do we ever get over the things that affect us so profoundly? Or do we just think we do?”

      Lia sniffled. “I’d like to think so. Not that the past doesn’t inform our experience, but if all we do is dwell on it, how will we ever have much of a present?”

      She felt a little like a hypocrite, considering how often she’d felt unwanted and out of sync with her family. But she didn’t let it rule her. Or she was determined not to. Perhaps that was a better way of saying it. It crept in from time to time, like now, but that didn’t mean it was in charge.

      His eyes glittered in the morning light. “Precisely. And yet sometimes we can’t help but dwell on a thing.”

      She knew what he meant. “Your dreams.”

      “That’s part of it.”

      Lia closed her eyes for a moment. She was in over her head with this. How could what she’d been through compare to his ordeal? Shot down, injured, nearly killed, watching others be killed before your eyes. It made her shiver.

      “I think maybe there’s something in our psyches that won’t let go,” she said. “Until one day it does.”

      He looked troubled. “There were things that happened out there, things—”

      He stopped talking abruptly, turned his head to look out the window. His jaw was hard, tight. But he swallowed once, heavily, and her heart went out to him.

      “What things?” she whispered, her throat aching. When he turned back to her, his eyes were hot, burning with an emotion that stunned her. Self-loathing? It didn’t seem possible, and yet …

      He opened his mouth. And then closed it again. Finally, he spoke. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “No.”

      Jesus, he was losing his mind. She’d been here for two days and he wanted to tell her everything. He wanted to take her to his bed, strip her naked and worship every last inch of her body. Which she would not allow him to do if he told her his darkest fears. His deepest secrets.

      If she knew how flawed he was, she’d run far and fast in the opposite direction. She’d take that baby in her womb and get the hell away from him. Hell, she’d probably get a restraining order against him.

      Her eyes were wide and blue as she sat on that bar stool and looked up at him. Innocent.

      God, Lia was so very innocent. She would never understand what he’d been through, or what he’d almost done out there in that trench. Hell, he didn’t understand it himself. He lived with the guilt every minute of his life and he still didn’t understand it.

      She was at a loss for words. He could see that. She dropped her gaze again, and he stepped away from her, breathed in air that wasn’t scented with her intoxicating lavender and vanilla and lemon scent.

      His body was hard. Aching. He hadn’t needed a woman this much in … well, he couldn’t remember. The last time had been with her. He wanted her again.

      Now wouldn’t be soon enough. But she was sweet and delicate and pregnant. She did not need him making sexual demands of her just yet.

      Zach rubbed a hand over his head. He couldn’t think straight. His entire plan had been to protect his family from scandal—but really, was that the reason? His father had been in office for over two decades now. Would the news his son had knocked up a girl really shock anyone enough that they might not vote for him if he ran for president?

      But what if Zach knocked her up and abandoned her to raise the child alone? Yeah, that might raise some heads. But so what?

      It was his life, not his father’s. Besides, his father had people who spun these things for him. Any scandal of Zach’s, unless it involved criminal activities, wasn’t likely to touch his father’s career—or the funding for the veterans’ causes that Zach worked so hard to obtain.

      His plan, such as it was, had little to do with protecting anyone, if he were truthful.

      And everything to do with the odd pull Lia Corretti had on him.

      He wanted her, even if his brain had had trouble figuring that out at first. He’d nearly sent her away. He could hardly credit it at this moment.

      “I’m sorry,” she finally said. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

      His

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