Page 17 of Italian Baby Shock

Oh, God. What on earth had she told him about herself? ‘What about our lives?’

‘You told me about your mother and your years on the run spent hiding from your father in Australia. About what a wonderful mother she’d been to you, yet how fragile, and how you had to take care of her because of her mental health.’

Oh, no. It was worse than she’d thought. She’d literally spilled her guts to him. What had he done to make her trust him that way? She didn’t understand. She might have understood if she’d met himafterthe accident, because then she could explain her apparent openness with him as a side effect of the brain injury. But notbefore.

‘Why on earth would I have told you any of that?’ she asked.

‘We’d had a cognac or two and you told me you were in Rome because you’d just lost your mother and had wanted a holiday to get away. So I told you that I too had just lost my aunt.’

That did not make her feel any better.

She’d shared everything of herself with him and he still remembered. Yet while he might have shared with her, she’d forgotten. She’d forgotten everything. Tension gripped her.

‘I was drunk?’ She didn’t want to ask, but she made herself. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

‘No.’ His gaze very direct. ‘You weren’t drunk. I wouldn’t have taken you to bed if you had been, please believe that.’

She had no reason at all to believe that, yet there was no doubting the look in his eyes. He meant what he said.

A small thread of relief wound through her. ‘Okay, so if I wasn’t drunk, why would I have told you all of that?’

‘Because you were lonely and wanted someone to talk to, and we had a common experience.’

Lark shifted uncomfortably in her seat, remembering the family she’d seen at the Colosseum and how lonely that had made her feel. How the realisation had settled down in her that now that her mother was gone, she was essentially alone in the world. She didn’t have any siblings and since her mother’s parents were dead, the only other family she had was her father. But she had no desire whatsoever to connect with him.

For some reason, though, the person she’d chosen to connect with was sitting across from her now, in the shape of this arrogant, maddening, devastatingly attractive man.

‘Why on earth would I chose you?’ she asked.

‘Let me remind you.’ That smoky glint in his eyes glittered and he reached to take her hand where it lay on the armrest, holding it in his and turning it palm up.

He moved so quickly she had no time to protest and then at the feel of his fingers on her skin, she found she couldn’t speak anyway. It was as if the humming static of his touch had deprived her of speech.

‘I had just told you that I lost the aunt who’d brought me up,’ he murmured, holding her hand in his much bigger one, his fingers long and blunt and capable. ‘And you leaned forward and took my hand just like this.’

His touch was warm and he cradled her hand gently in his, stopping her breath. And she knew she should pull away, but for some reason she could only sit there as he brushed his thumb over her palm. The contact sent a burst of sensual electricity crackling over her skin and every thought flew straight out of her head.

She swallowed, staring into the vivid blue of his eyes.

‘We stared at each other,’ he went. ‘Just like this. With our hands touching.’

‘And then what happened?’ she heard herself ask.

‘And then?’ The hungry glitter in his eyes was the only warning she got. ‘Then I did this.’

And before she could move, he pulled her out of her chair and into his lap.

Cesare was playing with fire and he knew it. Yet he hadn’t been able to help himself. He’d been exquisitely aware of her presence since the moment they’d boarded the plane. She’d been sitting bolt upright in her seat, studying the agreement he’d drawn up with fierce attention, and he knew that sitting near her would be a mistake. That he might try something ill-advised, something that he shouldn’t do such as reminding her again of their night together.

He shouldn’t, not when it was easier all round if those memories stayed forgotten. Yet there was a part of him—and no prizes for guessing which part—that desperately wanted her to remember every single second of the night she’d spent in his bed.

So he’d paced up and down the aisle of the plane, talking to various people, including his closest friend, Aristophanes Katsaros, renowned mathematical genius and self-made billionaire owner of one of the biggest finance companies on the planet.

Aristophanes, who rarely paid much attention to anything that wasn’t equations or financial algorithms and had long made it known that he wasn’t interested in having a family of his own, had been congratulatory about Cesare’s new fatherhood status.But also dismissive of Cesare’s self-control when it came to Lark.

‘What does it matter if you have her again?’ he’d said in his usual bored way. ‘It means nothing, not if you don’t want it to. Sleep with her or don’t, another woman will come along in a couple of days anyway.’

Aristophanes was famous for having his assistants choose and manage his lovers, including putting them into his schedule, since he was far too busy to manage them himself. Cesare had asked him on more than one occasion what he did if his assistants chose someone he wasn’t attracted to and Aristophanes had merely shrugged and told him that was impossible, since his assistants rigorously followed the checklist Aristophanes had given them.

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