LITMIR.BIZ

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child—his son—was only part of it. The truth was, he’d expected Anais to appear on his doorstep within twelve hours or so of that morning-after phone call, and she hadn’t. He didn’t know what to make of that. Or, to be precise, one irrepressible part of his body knew exactly what to make of it now it had tasted her again—it counted this as an unacceptable loss and wanted her even more—while the rest of him was as close to confused as he’d been in years.

      Not confused, exactly, he corrected himself as he strode down Central Park West toward the ICE headquarters farther south. He was only dimly aware that the other pedestrians cleared the way before him, which probably meant he was scowling ferociously. But he refused to call it confusion, this heavy, spiked thing in him. It was anger. It was self-righteous indignation, and he’d earned it, by God. It had nothing at all to do with the bright images of their night together that coursed through his head and made him worry he might embarrass himself in the middle of corporate meetings. Nothing to do with that at all.

      It came down to one simple point, he told himself as he walked toward his office. If it was all right for Anais to raise their child without him, well, then, that must mean it was all right for him to do the same thing.

      Even if the child in question appeared to be the spawn of the devil on an extended sugar high.

      His phone kept buzzing in his pocket but he ignored it. It was either a member of his family or of his staff. The earrings Giovanni had demanded he find were the lesser of the two priceless items Dario had brought back from Hawaii, and he kept forgetting he needed to get them out to the Hamptons and into his grandfather’s hands. He made a mental note—because delivering the earrings would stop the calls at least.

      And the office could damn well wait until he got in. He’d only fire everyone who crossed his line of sight in his current mood, and more than that, he’d probably enjoy it a lot more than was good for anyone involved. He kept walking. Slowly, surely, the more blocks he covered the more New York worked its usual urban magic on him, the rhythm of the city getting into his blood the way it always did. One block, then another, and he felt the cloud of it all shift, then begin to lift. He was almost feeling back to his normal self when he stopped at a newsstand outside his office building for the paper.

      For the first time since he’d turned his back on a stunning tropical view to find his past standing in front of him in a long black dress, Dario felt pretty good.

      Until, that was, he saw his own name splashed across the tabloids. Bold and unmistakable.

      For a moment he didn’t move. He couldn’t, no matter how the man behind the counter glared at him and the people behind him muttered. He stared at the obnoxious headlines in sheer disbelief, as if that might make sense of them.

      It didn’t.

      Di Sione in Bitter Custody Battle with Secret Wife—“He Wanted Nothing to Do with Me or My Baby Until Now!”

      “He Left Me Years Ago to Make His Fortune, but Now He’s Stolen My Baby,” Cries Abandoned Anais!

      Is ICE’S Front Man Cold Enough to Kidnap His Own Child?

      And there was Anais’s face, treacherous and tearstained, as if she’d camped out in front of the paparazzi giving interviews. It occurred to him that she must have done exactly that. She was front and center on the three largest tabloid papers, her supposedly heartbroken photos side by side with the harshest-looking pictures Dario had ever seen of himself. He couldn’t imagine where they’d even found such photographs. He looked like a serial killer.

      His stockholders were unlikely to find any of this particularly delightful.

      Gritting his teeth, Dario pulled out his still-buzzing phone. Marnie, repeatedly, with a series of 911/SOS texts besides. His lawyers, every fifteen minutes to the second. Numbers he assumed were the usual carrion crows of the so-called press, looking for his response or his reaction, as ever. Some of his usually hands-off siblings, no doubt almost as astonished to discover they had a previously unknown nephew as he’d been to find out he had a son. And his grandfather, who surely deserved better at his advanced age than to see another one of his descendants splashed all over the papers in yet another scandal.

      He didn’t return any of the calls.

      He stalked into the cavernous entry hall of his building and stood stonily in the elevator as everyone else in it pretended not to stare at him, and he wasn’t at all surprised to find Marnie waiting for him when he arrived at his floor.

      “I’m so sorry,” she began the moment he stepped out of the elevator car, which was never good. “I assume you know about the tabloid situation?” He only glared at her. “Of course you do.”

      “I’ll want a copy of each paper that ran this story and the direct number of its managing editor within the hour,” he bit out.

      “Of course, but—”

      Dario didn’t wait to hear but what. He started moving toward his office in the far corner of the otherwise open, wood-and-steel space, Marnie scurrying along beside him.

      “Get Legal on it. I’m not afraid to take every last one of them to court for publishing this crap.”

      “Yes,” Marnie said, “I will, but really—”

      He raked a hand through his hair and unclenched his teeth. Or tried, anyway. “Do we know if the stock has taken a hit? Has it gone that far?”

      “Mr. Di Sione, I’m sorry, but she’s here.” Marnie took a deep breath when he scowled at her, but then pushed on, confirming that this unpleasant day really had gone from frying pan to fire, just like that. “Your—Mrs.—Anais is here. In the conference room, waiting for you. Right now.”

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      DARIO STOPPED WALKING. Abruptly.

      He was aware of too many eyes on him, from people who should have been concentrating on their work instead of on this explosion of his personal life into the public domain. God, but he hated this. He’d hated it when he’d been a kid and his parents’ tempestuous lives and tragic deaths had brought the Di Sione family entirely too much unwanted attention. It was worse now.

      And even so, he was aware that what leaped in him at the sound of her name was not quite temper or fury or any of the things it should have been. It was that traitor inside his chest, and worse, entirely too much of that same old hunger he’d dared to imagine he’d slaked the other night.

      What a laugh. There was no slaking his desire for Anais. There was only indulging it or recovering from that indulgence, and nothing in between.

      Dario tried to focus on his secretary. “I was unaware that I’d lifted the standing security alert on her. She should be in a jail cell, not polluting my conference room.”

      “Yes, well.” Marnie shifted her weight from one foot to the other, but held his gaze with such directness it made her sleek, steel-gray bob shake slightly where the razor edge of it scraped her chin. “She told the security officers downstairs that if they didn’t let her come up she’d hold a press conference on the front steps. I thought this was better.”

      Dario made a low noise that was far too close to a growl, but he knew it wasn’t Marnie’s fault. And there were a thousand things he could have done then. He could have turned and left the building. He could have had Anais wait for him all day while he dealt with the piles of actual work he needed to do. He could have had her thrown out, anyway, and damn her threats.

      He didn’t do any of those things.

      And later, he couldn’t remember leaving the elevator bank at all, but there he was, pushing through the glass doors of the conference room, every atom of his being focused on the slender woman who stood at the windows with a studied insouciance that made his blood boil.

      And other parts of him stand up and pay far too close attention.

      “The

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