Page 117 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

Accidental One-Night Baby

Julia James

Siena took a breath, short, sharp, and summoning up her courage stepped into the lift that would take her to the one man in the world she did not want to see again.

Vincenzo Giansante.

He’ll think you’re chasing him—and he’s made it clear he’s done with you.

Siena’s mouth tightened. Vincenzo Giansante had, indeed, made it crystal clear he was done with her—had walked out in the briefest way possible in the bleak light of the morning after the night before.

Well, now she was walking back into his life—to tell him what she still could scarcely believe herself, ever since seeing that thin blue line form on the test stick.

He has a right to know—any man does—whether I want him to or not.

The lift jerked to a stop, the metal doors sliding open. For a moment she just wanted to be a coward and jab the down button again. Then, steeling herself, she walked forward.

For all the donkey sanctuaries and welfare charities for the wonderful and vital work they do

CHAPTER ONE

VINCENZOGIANSANTESTOODlooking down at the woman in his bed. She was asleep still, and he did not wish to wake her.

But it needed to be done.

For a moment, though, he went on looking down at her, only half covered by the quilt, exposing her sculpted, naked back. She lay on her front, one hand near her slender throat, the other flung wide, across the empty side of the bed. Her long dark hair streamed over the pillow, and her face was turned towards where he had until recently lain.

His face was expressionless, but thoughts moved behind his eyes. Had he really done what he had the night before? The evidence was here in front of him, in the dim light seeping past the hotel room curtains, shafting from the lit en suite bathroom. She’d slept through his shower and getting himself dressed for the day ahead. But then, after all, there had been little enough sleep during the night...

He pulled his mind away. Best not to think back that far. Best not to think of how he’d slowly, sensually peeled from her the short, clinging dress that had so perfectly moulded her perfectly proportioned body...how he’d slipped the catch of her bra so that her ripe breasts spilled free for him to cup them with his palms, feel how they engorged and crested at his touch...how she’d leant back into him, her mouth reaching for his, her hand winding around his neck, lips opening to his...

Fatally, he felt memory impacting his body, making him want to reach down and stroke the silken mass of her tumbled hair, move down beside her, scoop her lissom, yielding body to his again, taste and take all that she had offered him last night...all that they had both so lushly indulged in...

But that was not possible—and would not be wise.

Why had he succumbed as he had the night before? Whatever had it been about her that had made him focus on her at that party in one of the hotel’s private function rooms, when his plan had only been to network with those who might prove useful to him in business here in London?

Whatever it had been, the allure of those wide-set, long-lashed, sea-blue eyes with their intriguing hint of green had made him want to look and look again at the face that somehow combined a fine-boned delicacy with dramatically contoured cheekbones and a lushly curving mouth. At the slender but oh-so-shapely body, and the clinging dress with its deep cleavage, its thigh-skimming hemline that exposed the length of her stockinged legs, their length emphasised by the five-inch heels that had brought her closer to his own six foot height.

Whatever it had been, and whyever he had made the decision to let himself indulge in her—and an indulgence it had been—he knew now that it was necessary to call time on it.

He reached out a hand, lightly touched her bare, exposed shoulder. She barely stirred, so he said her name.

‘Siena...’

Her name had been the means of extending their initial conversation, after he’d made his split-second decision not to rebuff her. To allow himself the indulgence of talking to her, looking her over. Just as she had been doing to him. He’d been aware of it immediately, in the widening of her eyes, in the tell-tale colour flaring briefly across those sculpted cheekbones, the slight but revealing parting of her lips, the even more revealing breathiness. All had told him that she was reacting to him as strongly as he was reacting to her.

Their subsequent conversation had merely been a means to an end. Her Italian name, given after the Tuscan city of the same name, had provided a link to his own nationality, leading her to ask where he came from in Italy, which had led on to why he was in London, which had led on to yet more anodyne exchanges that had allowed them both to continue with the actual purpose of their conversation—which was, after a suitably appropriate and not too unsubtle interval, to allow him to suggest that if she had no pressing reason to linger at the party they might remove themselves to dine at the hotel, in order to continue their acquaintance away from the noise of the party.

And that would lead to one place only—as both of them had known. The Falcone restaurant had been only across the lobby. She had come with him—why would she not?—and from then on the decision had been made.

And now...?

Now he must make another decision. Had already made it—must simply abide by it. Execute it. Without further hesitation. Without reconsidering. Without any second thoughts at all.

Without regret.

Regret was not something he could indulge in. He’d indulged in quite enough already. Time to be tough—including on himself.

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