LITMIR.BIZ

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over Rome as the early winter sunshine danced on the rooftops of a city she’d always longed to visit.

      ‘We will do no such thing.’ Again she questioned her motives for being here. ‘I want nothing. You can go back to your wild lover-boy existence. Goodbye, Dante.’

      She took a deep breath as he squared his shoulders against her verbal attack, then walked briskly to the door of his office. All she wanted was to escape. To run away and hide so she could nurse her wounds and rebuild her damaged dreams of a happy-ever-after. How stupid she’d been to harbour any hope that he would stand by her, take on the role of father. What she’d read in Celebrity Spy! should have been enough to extinguish those hopes long before she’d boarded the plane.

      She heard his curse before she saw him as he put himself between her and the door, and she wondered if he’d guessed she couldn’t see him from her left side—or anything else, for that matter. Was he exploiting the weakness she took such great pains to conceal?

      ‘Let me pass,’ she demanded as anger and disappointment collided inside her, making her voice sharp and fierce.

      ‘You are not going anywhere. We have things to discuss, things to settle.’

      ‘Such as?’ She folded her arms beneath the knitted poncho she’d opted for early this morning as she’d left her small flat in London.

      * * *

      Dante looked at Piper and fought the urge to step back and let her go. He knew she was capable of walking away with something he’d never wanted—a child. But his business mind had worked overtime as she’d spat fury and fire at him. Piper carried his child—the one thing that might now be the answer to all the problems which had erupted since that damn article.

      ‘My child.’

      He couldn’t and wouldn’t think any further about the plan that had formulated in his mind.

      ‘The one you tried hard to deny could even be yours until I mentioned the paternity test?’

      The accusation in her voice cut deep, touching a part of him he hadn’t known existed.

      ‘You are carrying my child, my heir, and no matter how that has come about I will support you. Of that there is no question.’ Outwardly he was in control...inwardly his past mistakes rushed at him. But he couldn’t turn his back on his flesh and blood. He might have got it wrong in the past, but this was his child. ‘But naturally there will be conditions attached.’

      ‘I don’t want your grudging support, Dante. I want more than that from you for my child—or nothing at all.’

      The indignation in her voice reverberated around the office and her green eyes looked so fierce he actually wanted to kiss her. To feel her lips against his once more and kiss away all that fury, replacing it with the passion he knew only too well existed within her.

      ‘I don’t care what you say you want. You wouldn’t have come all this way to tell me you are carrying my child if you didn’t want something, Piper.’ He liked the feel of her name on his tongue, but still suspicion niggled at him. ‘Perhaps I was right the first time. Is it money that will buy your silence?’

      Her green eyes blazed with fury and anger emanated from her in palpable waves. ‘I want no such thing, and I can see I have made a very big mistake in thinking you would be even remotely interested in our baby.’

      She turned and grabbed the door handle, pulling the door open, but his reactions were quick and he pressed his palm against the door, slamming it shut before she’d even opened it wide enough to walk through.

      ‘You are not going anywhere until this is sorted, mia cara.’ He leant close to her left ear and whispered his warning, surprised when she jumped away, turning to glare once more at him. The threat in his voice had made her look vulnerable, and his proximity made her as nervous as a kitten, but still she pulled herself together and prepared to fight.

      ‘I am not your mia cara.’ She all but spat the words at him, like a wild cat which had been cornered. ‘And I want nothing from you. Forget you ever saw me.’

      How could he forget her when ever since that night in London she’d been in his thoughts? An unnamed lover who’d given him her virginity and a night he would never forget.

      Benjamin Carter’s suggestion floated once again on the periphery of his thoughts. Piper’s arrival at his office couldn’t have been more perfectly timed. Her news—unwelcome at any other time—fitted perfectly into his rapidly forming plan. He needed a wife and she carried his child.

      ‘That will not happen—not when you are carrying my child.’ He held her arms gently, preventing any further attempts to flee. ‘Marriage is the only option.’

       CHAPTER TWO

      ‘MARRIAGE?’ THE WORD spluttered from Piper and she blinked at Dante, acutely aware of his hands holding her and scorching her skin through the layers she wore, setting free memories she’d rather not deal with right at this moment.

      ‘If you didn’t come here for money then it must be for a ring on your finger.’

      The callous tones of his accented voice were splintered with bitterness, shattering any faint and futile hopes that what they’d shared in London might have been the start of something. That his rash proposal was for real.

      Who was she trying to fool? She had been nothing more than an amusing diversion from a dull dinner party. And wasn’t that precisely why she’d slipped from his bed in the early hours, stealing a last lingering glance at him as he’d slept? She’d hoped to save her job and her reputation by leaving before the hotel had come to life, but even that attempt had been in vain.

      ‘Have you any idea how arrogant you sound?’

      Where had the considerate and charming man she’d left that dinner party with gone? Was this the real Dante, or was he just shocked at the news she’d brought?

      The idea of being pregnant after a one-night stand with a man she’d known she’d never see again had been a complete shock to her. So much so that she’d bought all four pregnancy tests in stock at the small pharmacy near her flat in an attempt to convince herself that she’d got it wrong, that their one night of non-committal but passionate sex hadn’t resulted in pregnancy. Each time she’d used a test she’d become more panic-stricken.

      ‘Do you have any idea how ridiculous it was for you to come here, tell me such news and expect me to stand aside while you leave?’ Anger laced his accented words. ‘You might have left me once, but it will not happen again, mia cara.’

      ‘But marriage?’ she protested, desperate to make him see how impossible such an idea was. All she’d wanted was for him to know, to be told to his face that he was going to be a father. It would have been what her father would have wanted her to do. ‘We don’t know anything about each other.’

      ‘I know where you like to be kissed and how very sexy you look when you are naked. I think that is a good enough start, no?’

      He smiled a slow, seductive smile and her heart almost stopped beating as she remembered how he had kissed her, how she’d all but begged for more, not wanting him to stop, wanting only to lose herself in the oblivion of the passion he’d showed her.

      ‘Exactly the kind of answer I’d expect from a man like you.’ Her temper fired and she drew in a deep breath, challenging the charm he seemed so incredibly capable of even in such a situation.

      His eyes darkened and his brows furrowed together. ‘A man like me?’ His accented words were filled with suspicion.

      ‘There must be some truth in that article in Celebrity Spy!’ She faltered as his eyes narrowed and she knew she’d touched a raw nerve. But hadn’t he charmed her, seduced her, all without them even exchanging names?

      ‘Do you normally believe everything

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