LITMIR.BIZ

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you have to decide who you’re willing to hurt, and how badly. ’Cause in a custody war, it’s never just the other parent who takes it in the neck. Nine times out of ten, it’s the kid who suffers most.” Morty paused. “I can give you the number of a barracuda lawyer who will cause the sky to rain fire on this woman. But is that what you really want?”

      As his Rolls-Royce crossed the Seine and traveled up the Avenue George V, Cesare’s grip on his phone slowly loosened. By the time he ended the call a few minutes later, as the car pulled in front of the expensive five-star hotel where he’d stayed through the business negotiations, Cesare’s expression had changed entirely.

      The valet opened his door. “Welcome back, monsieur.”

      Looking up, Cesare didn’t see the imposing architecture of the hotel as he got out. Instead he saw Emma’s troubled expression when they’d parted in the Champ de Mars.

      She was expecting him to start a war over this. Christo santo, she knew him well. Now that he knew about Sam, she expected him to fight for custody, to destroy their peace and rip their comfortable life into shreds. And then after that, after he’d made a mess of their lives for the sake of his pride, she expected Cesare to grow bored and quickly abandon them both.

      That was why she hadn’t told him about the baby. That was why she thought Sam was better off with no father at all. She truly believed Cesare was that selfish. That he’d put his own ego over the well-being of his child.

      His lips pressed into a thin line. He might have done it, too, if Morty hadn’t made him think twice.

      You have to decide who you’re willing to hurt, and how badly. ’Cause in a custody war, it’s never just the other parent who takes it in the neck. Nine times out of ten, it’s the kid who suffers most.

      Before his own parents died, Cesare’d had a happy, almost bohemian childhood in a threadbare villa on Lake Como, filled with art and light and surrounded by beautiful gardens. His parents, both artists, had loved each other, and they’d adored their only child. The three of them had been inseparable. Until, when he was twelve, his mother had gotten sick, and her illness had poisoned their lives, drop by drop.

      His father’s death had been quicker. After his wife’s funeral, he’d gone boating on the lake in the middle of the night, after he’d drunk three bottles of wine. Calling his death by drowning an accident, Cesare thought, had been generous of the coroner.

      Now his hands tightened. If he didn’t go to war for custody, how else could he fulfill his obligation to his son? He couldn’t leave Sam to be raised by another man—especially not Alain Bouchard. Sam would grow up believing Cesare was a monster who’d callously abandoned him.

      Cesare exhaled.

      How could he bend Emma to his will? What was the fulcrum he could use to gain possession of his child? What was her weakness?

      Then—he knew.

      And if some part of him shivered at the thought, he stomped on it as an irrational fear. This was no time to be afraid. This time, he wouldn’t be selling his soul. There would be no delusional love involved. He would do this strictly for his child’s sake. In name only.

      He had a sudden image of Emma in his bed, luscious and warm, naked in his arms....

      No! He would keep her in his home, but at a distance. In name only, he repeated to himself. He would never open his heart to her again. Not even a tiny corner of it.

      From this moment forward, his heart was only for his son.

      Grabbing the car door as it started to pull away, he wrenched it open and flung himself back into the Rolls-Royce.

      “Monsieur?”

      “I changed my mind.”

      “Of course, sir,” replied the driver, who was well accustomed in dealing with the inexplicable whims of the rich. “Where may I take you?”

      Emma expected a battle. He would give her one. But not in the way she expected. He would take her completely off guard—and sweep her completely into his power, in a revenge far sweeter, and more explosive, than any mere rain of fire.

      “Around the corner,” Cesare replied coldly. “To a little jewelry shop on the Avenue Montaigne.”

       CHAPTER SIX

      EMMA JUMPED WHEN her phone rang.

      All afternoon, since she’d left Cesare in the park, she’d been pacing the halls of Alain’s seventeenth-century hôtel particulier in the seventh arrondissement. She’d been on edge, looking out the windows, past the courtyard gate onto the Avenue Rapp. Waiting for Cesare to strike. Waiting for a lawyer to call. Or the police. Or... She didn’t know what, but she’d been torturing herself trying to imagine.

      When her cell phone finally rang, she saw his private number and braced herself.

      “I won’t let you bully me,” she whispered aloud to the empty air. Then she answered the phone with, “What do you want?”

      “I want to see you.” It shocked her how calm Cesare’s voice was. How pleasant. “I’d like to discuss our baby.”

      “I’m busy.” Standing in the mansion’s lavish salon with its fifteen-foot-high ceilings, she looked from the broom she hadn’t touched in twenty minutes to Sam, lying nearby on a cushioned blanket on the floor, happily batting at soft toys dangling above him in a baby play gym. She set her jaw. “I’m working.”

      “As mother of my heir, you don’t need to work, you know.” He sounded almost amused. “You won’t worry about money ever again.”

      He was trying to lull her into letting down her guard, she thought.

      “I don’t worry about money now,” she retorted. As a single mother, she’d been even more careful, tucking nearly all her paycheck into the bank against a rainy day. “I have a good salary, we live rent-free in Alain’s house and I have a nice nest egg thanks to you. I sold your watch to a collector, by the way. I couldn’t believe how much I got for it. What kind of idiot would spend so much on a— Oh. Sorry. But seriously. How could you spend so much on a watch?”

      But Cesare didn’t sound insulted. “How much did you get for it?”

      “A hundred thousand euros,” she said, still a little horrified. But also pleased.

      He snorted. “The collector got a good deal.”

      “That’s what Alain said. He was irritated I didn’t offer the watch to him first. He said he would have paid me three times that....” She stopped uneasily.

      “Bouchard takes good care of you.”

      Cesare’s good humor had fled. She gritted her teeth. What was the deal between those two? She wished they’d leave her out of it. “Of course Alain takes care of me. He’s an excellent employer.”

      “You can’t raise Sam in his house, Emma. I won’t allow it.”

      “You won’t allow it?” She exhaled with a flare of nostril. “Look, I told you that Sam’s your child because it was the right thing to do...”

      “You mean because I gave you no choice.”

      “...but you can’t give orders anymore. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re no longer my boss.”

      His voice took on an edge. “I’m Sam’s father.”

      “Oh, you’re suddenly sure about that now, are you?”

      “Emma—”

      “I can’t believe you asked me for a paternity test! When you know perfectly well you’re the only man I’ve ever slept with in my whole life!”

      “Even now?”

      His

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