LITMIR.BIZ

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had brushed her off, started to turn away, then had spun back and pulled her into him like a lifeline.

      He had opened her right up for the passionate kiss he’d drawn from her with seductive ease. She’d forgotten everything, most especially that she was newly married. Nothing had come back to her until Paolo had drawn back to murmur something against her lips and Ryan’s voice had interrupted at the same time. Then Paolo’s gaze had turned cold and vindictive. Women were fickle and treacherous and easy, he’d implied with a rake of his gaze down her wedding gown as she had moved to her husband’s side.

      After behaving like that, she should have seen that he would lump her in with the woman who’d turned him into such a cynic about female honesty. Lauren put out a hand to steady herself against the cold mirror, biting back a protest that she was different. She had no way to prove it though. Not when she’d been the one to initiate the lovemaking in Charleston.

      How obtuse was she that she hadn’t seen this coming? But she’d known she was above women who played foul so it had never occurred to her he’d accuse her of such a thing. Lauren had never been a flirt, or a strategist, or a manipulator. Paolo saw her through his tainted glasses, however, and it made her feel dirty.

      Why did she care, though? She’d been prepared to raise this baby alone from the moment she had suspected she was pregnant. She had come to New York convinced she didn’t need or want his support on any level.

      While a hidden part of her had basked in the chance to draw a little of Paolo’s attention one more time.

      Even though his regard had always scared her a little. Like a possum under a suddenly bright light, she’d always skittered away or curled into herself or into the nearest shadow—preferably those cast by larger-than-life people like Ryan. But she had thought, right up until Paolo’s first caustic remark tonight, and especially after his tenderness in Charleston, that he’d felt at least a little warmth toward her.

      His expression held nothing but cynicism and contempt, however, as he waited for her to absorb his rejection of her claim.

      She hid her devastation behind a proud posture, keeping her back arrow-straight as she finally preceded him from the elevator, faltering when she realized this wasn’t her floor but a private suite. “What—”

      “We need to talk,” he said, stabbing security buttons beside the elevator panel. “In private, and uninterrupted.”

      “Are you out of your mind? Dragging me to your room is what started this!” Despite her apprehension, an irrepressible jolt of anticipation hit low in her belly. The unwanted receptiveness to his advances made her feel intensely vulnerable. For another long second, she couldn’t move, couldn’t look at him.

      “Throwing Charleston in my face right now is a mistake, I assure you,” he said dangerously. “How far along are you?”

      She set a tender hand on her waist, breathless with alarm. She was locked in a situation she should have been smart enough to avoid while sensual memories wouldn’t shake from her scattered mind. And she felt weak. It occurred to her how badly she had neglected this baby today, too preoccupied with facing Paolo to take care of herself and the growing life inside her.

      “You can do the math,” she murmured.

      “Three months since we were together, but I can see the weight gain starting. Is that why you slept with me? To disguise some married man’s bastard?”

      “Oh, stop it!” she spat. “Have I asked you to be a father?” After losing her own and suffering Gerald as a substitute, she’d concluded that father figures were overrated. Her grandmother had filled all the necessary parental roles just fine, thanks.

      Wanting to finish with him before her delicate hold over her control slipped completely, she paced into the lounge, bypassing the narrow aisle between the sofa and coffee table for the wider band of area behind the furniture. As she spun, her skirt billowed in a way her lungs couldn’t. She was aware of his scrutiny like a scientist behind a mirrored wall, watching a distressed animal seek escape from its cage.

      “Yes, people are going to notice soon that I’m pregnant,” she stated, trying to drag deeper breaths into her compressed lungs. “They’re going to speculate that it’s yours. I owed it to you to prepare you for that, so here I am.”

      “So you’re keeping it.” The words were flat and uninflected.

      It was an unexpected blow that winded her.

      “Of course I’m keeping it! I’ve waited years for a baby.” She tried to say it calmly, but she couldn’t help the residual fury over Ryan’s duplicity, letting her try to explain to his mother why they weren’t conceiving when he had privately known exactly why. “How can you suggest I not keep it? You’re Catholic. And don’t you dare ask if I slept with you to get pregnant. I’ll slap you, I swear I will. I thought I was infertile.”

      She spun again, still pacing, feeling like one of those little metal ducks quacking her way along the upper ledge of a carnival tent. Paolo’s laser gaze seemed to track her like the red dot of a sniper’s rifle while he weighed her words.

      “I know this baby looks like a disaster, but it’s a miracle.” Her agitation at having to explain without being able to explain kept her blood vessels tight, her muscles tense, her focus dim and narrow on the walls rushing by.

      “I’m willing to minimize the damage by leaving the country, but it’s going to come out, Paolo.” She’d managed to ignore her anxiety over that eventuality, but it threatened to overwhelm her as she spoke of it. Her feet moved quicker and she felt the walls closing in. Her mother’s shame and disappointment, Ryan’s mother’s horrified incomprehension…It would be a nightmare and Lauren didn’t even have her grandmother to stand by her.

      What she wanted, what she’d come here for, was rescue, she realized. Deep down, she had hoped for the same help and support he’d offered in Charleston.

      She wasn’t going to get it though. She really was alone in this.

      Eyes stinging at how inexorable it all was, Lauren made herself halt, growing aware that she was gasping breaths in, but was forgetting to let them out. A clammy sweat condensed on her skin and her vision faded to white. She was hyperventilating and even though she tried to make herself stop, panic at not tasting any oxygen stole her self-control, making her try harder to catch her breath.

      Paolo said her name in a sharp tone. She blindly looked to where she thought he was, but she couldn’t see him. Her hearing was muffled as though her ears were filling with water. She moved her lips, trying to tell him, trying…

      Paolo had never seen anyone crumple like that and it stopped his heart. Somehow he kept her from hitting the floor, catching her in his arms while his knees took the brunt of the marble beneath the thin rug. Gathering up miles of silken fabric with a slender, limp shape inside, he pushed to his feet, heart pounding with dread as he deposited her on the sofa.

      Her color was ghastly. All he could think was that she was miscarrying when she’d just called her baby a miracle. He had an inkling of how devastating that sort of loss could be and couldn’t stomach it happening to her.

      Razor wire coiled in his chest, squeezing mercilessly as he fumbled his mobile from his pocket and tried with trembling hands to locate the number of the pediatric heart specialist sipping champagne in the Grand Ballroom.

      Lauren’s lashes fluttered before he found it. Her dazed eyes blinked open and something warm and lovely shone up at him before confusion clouded in. She automatically tried to sit up, but fell back quickly. Her breaths sounded like anxious gasps, frightening him.

      “I can’t breathe.” She reached for her back. “Open my dress.”

      “What?” Dio! He could kill her he was so terrified. Clattering his mobile onto the coffee table he rolled her into the sofa back and used both hands to release the tiny hook-and-eye closures down her back. There were a million of them and his fingers were big and clumsy. “I was trying to call a doctor.

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