Page 17 of His Unexpected Heir

Without thinking, she moved a hand to cover her stomach, protecting her unborn baby from the sudden pain. “Well, when is dinner? I didn’t mean to sleep all afternoon.”

How those two issues were connected was anyone’s guess. But it seemed like the thing to say.

“Dinner is ready,” the dour-faced housekeeper announced.

For a moment, Astra considered announcing that she wasn’t hungry and that she’d pass on dinner. But her stomach protested the idea and firmly announced to everyone in the room that she was starving.

“Excuse me,” Astra muttered, once again covering her stomach. “I guess I’m just…” she shook her head, not sure what she “just” was.

“Eldora is an excellent cook,” Antonio announced, then gestured to the dining room off to the left of the great room, indicating that Macie and Astra should precede him.

Antonio watched as Macie hesitantly stepped into the dining room first, then he followed Astra, wondering why she was wearing such a large sweater tonight. The spring air was chilly, but not so cold that one would need something that heavy. Besides, it hid her very nice derriere. There were a lot of things that he remembered from four and a half months ago – and her derriere was one of them. He remembered cupping her butt in his hands, thinking that his hands just covered those perfect globes.

There were other parts of her body that he’d enjoyed holding. Hell, he’d loved holding all of her!

Reminding himself that Astra was not going to be a romantic partner, he pulled the starched, linen napkin out from under the utensils and laid it over his lap.

“How was your flight?” he asked, trying to break the silence.

“It was fine,” Astra replied.

“It was better than fine!” Macie laughed. “I was seated next to the most interesting woman. She was a florist that…” And for the next ten minutes, Macie regaled Astra and Antonio about the mundane topic of plants. All of which, Macie seemed to enjoy.

Unfortunately, it bored Astra and Antonio to tears.

When she finally ran out of steam, there was a long silence while Eldora removed the salad plates from the table and set out the soup course.

“I saw you go out for a ride this afternoon,” Astra commented, desperately trying to find a subject to fill the painful silence.

“Yes.”

That was it? Astra watched as Antonio concentrated on the cold, flavorless soup.

“You enjoy riding?”

“Yes,” came the next, abrupt, response.

“That’s good. I tried riding and–”

He didn’t even look up as he interrupted, “I believe we’ve already established that you are a miserable horseback rider.” He glanced at her before looking down at the soup again. “You don’t ride. You bounce. I’m sure neither you, nor the horse, enjoyed the experience.”

Antonino knew that he was being rude, but didn’t care. He wanted to dismiss Eldora, order Macie to get the hell out of the dining room, then pull Astra into his arms. He didn’t care why she had ignored his phone calls anymore. He could smell her soft, feminine scent and it was driving him mad! He wanted to pull her into his arms and spread her out onto the dining room table so that he could explore every part of her body. He wanted to demand to know why she’d rejected him.

And yet, he didn’t care why, as long as he could kiss her again.

Since Astra had made it clear that she wasn’t interested in him in that way, he instead focused on his food, on ensuring that he finished every last drop of the miserable soup. What kind was it? The soup was so bad, he couldn’t even define a flavor.

He would fire Eldora and pension her off, but the chauffer his father had previously employed had explained how much the housekeeper loved her job and that Eldora would be completely lost if she couldn’t clean the castle and cook for him.

He was too damn soft, he thought.

Normally, Eldora was a good cook. Her meals had been delicious, if simple. But tonight, he was actually embarrassed at the miserable fare.

Maybe he could just hire a cook. He could keep Eldora on as the housekeeper. Hell, he could even hire several more cleaning personnel, so that she wouldn’t have to do it all herself. Antonio understood the housekeeper enjoyed her job, but there were rooms that hadn’t been dusted in too long. Eldora was no longer up to the challenge of maintaining the whole castle and he’d have to do something about the situation, especially since he planned on selling the damn place as soon as he could fix the villagers’ morale issues.

However, those plans wouldn’t solve the problem of what to do about Astra.

Turning to look at her for the first time since sitting down to dinner, he finally came up with an appropriate conversational topic. “How about if you tell me a bit about your ideas for bringing the community together?”

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