Page 16 of Italian Baby Shock

Grace hadn’t got angry. She hadn’t screamed back. No, what she’d done then had been worse. She’d burst into tears, sobbing and sobbing, making Lark feel like the worst person in the world.

‘Please, Lark. I’m just trying to protect you,’ Grace had wept. ‘I’m just trying to keep us both safe. Don’t you want us to be safe?’

Of course she did. And things were already hard. She didn’t need to make them worse by upsetting her mother even more than she already had. So she’d swallowed her anger, done what Grace had asked and got into the car, and they’d left that small town, her mother silently crying all the way.

Anger hurt people. Yet Cesare Donati didn’t look hurt or upset, or even annoyed. He just sat there looking smug, as if her anger hadn’t touched him, and she had to admit that saying all those things to him in a fury had definitely felt...freeing.

‘If you’re waiting for me to apologise for that,’ she said stiffly. ‘You’ll be waiting a long time.’

Signor Donati’s blue gaze had become smoky, glittering as he studied her. ‘Apologise for what?’ His voice was deep and dark. ‘You can say anything you like to me.’ He was looking at her now as if he was hungry, as if she was a meal set before him and he was starving. ‘You’re pretty when you smile, little bird, but I think you’re beautiful when you’re angry.’

The excitement humming just beneath her skin crackled, her heart squeezing in her chest. No one had ever called herbeautiful before and definitely not after she’d shouted in a temper.

‘Don’t say that,’ she said huskily.

‘Why shouldn’t I? It’s true. And all those things you said were true too. You have every right to be upset about your child, and as for your virginity... Well.’ His gaze roamed over her as if he couldn’t get enough of the sight of her. ‘Let’s just say you gave me a precious gift and I treated it as such.’

Her mouth was dry, her pulse still racing. ‘I already told you, I only have your word for that.’

‘And I am a man of my word.’ One dark brow rose. ‘If you doubt me, perhaps you need another reminder.’

The hot coal inside her flared, a burning ember, and this time she didn’t know whether it was anger or something else, something hotter, something that matched the hunger in his eyes. Making her feel restless, making her ache.

He was turning her inside out, damn him. Making her feel as if she was a different person, someone angry and snappy and shrill. And no matter how freeing that might feel, she didn’t like it.

‘No, thank you.’ She tried very hard to ignore that hot coal. ‘I’m certain once was enough.’

Signor Donati said nothing, but his mouth curved and she found herself staring at the perfectly carved, full shape of his lower lip, the only thing that was soft about him. Everywhere else he seemed...hard. Certainly his chest had been hard when she’d reached up to push him, the muscles beneath the wool of his jacket like iron.

And that smile... There was a sensuality to it, a heat. A knowledge that taunted her, tugged at her. A knowledge echoed in the wicked glint of his blue eyes.

Her breath caught.

He was so devastatingly attractive and at the same time so completely smug, it was enraging.

He knows and you don’t, so why continue to let him have that power?

A very good question. She’d been telling herself for two years she didn’t want to know what had happened that night. She had Maya and she had to look to the future, not keep going over the past. But now Cesare Donati had come into her life and had casually upended it, and now she was questioning everything.

She didn’t like his certainty or how he had this knowledge of her that she didn’t herself. It made her feel vulnerable, and she didn’t want to feel vulnerable, not around a man like him.

She was also tired of not knowing. Tired of questioning. Tired of having no answers.

Perhaps now was the time to get those answers, take a little power back for herself.

‘What exactly did we talk about that night?’ she asked, for the first time not caring how demanding she sounded.

One of his perfectly arched, soot-black brows rose, that glint in his eyes becoming more pronounced. ‘Are you sure it’s our conversation you want to know about?’

Lark took another silent breath, the ache inside her intensifying. If she was honest with herself, although she did want to know what they’d talked about it, it was the other stuff she kept thinking about.

Other stuff? Such as how exactly you ended up in his bed and what you did there?

A flush crept into her cheeks. She wished she could deny those thoughts too, yet she couldn’t. Her brain couldn’t stop thinking about them. No, she needed to know. He was here and he could tell her, and she would be a fool to let the opportunity pass.

‘I want to know everything,’ she said. ‘Everything we did.’

‘Everything hmmm?’ He studied her in that unnerving way a moment more, then leaned forward, his hands clasped between his knees, his gaze on hers. ‘Well, first we talked. About books and movies. About the media and world events. About politics and scientific advances.’ He paused. ‘We also talked about our lives.’

---