Page 122 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

His voice wasn’t a murmur any longer. It was smooth. But smooth in the way that the water flowing over the edge of Niagara Falls was smooth. Deadly smooth...

He was still sitting back in that massive leather chair of his, one hand resting on the chrome and leather arm, one on the mahogany desk’s surface. He was quite immobile, his face completely expressionless. His eyes unreadable.

Those eyes had once, that fateful evening, flickered sensuously over her, telling her that they was liking what they saw, quickening her pulse, making heat beat up inside her...

Now, she only frowned. ‘Congratulations...?’

‘Yes.’ His voice was still smooth. ‘This must be a happy time for you—and for the father.’

She stared at him. Not understanding.

He lifted his hand off the desk, holding it up as if to silence her when she was already silenced.

‘Whoever he may be,’ he said. His expressionless eyes rested on her for a moment. ‘You cannot expect me to believe I am the only candidate for that honour?’ he said softly. ‘After all, you were in my bed within hours of meeting me.’ His voice was a murmur again. ‘How many other men have enjoyed a similar...felicity since myself?’

The breath went from Siena’s lungs—instantly sucked out by what he had just said to her.

What she could notbelievehe had just said to her.

He went on speaking. His hand still raised to silence her. He looked completely relaxed, but there was something in his inexpressive face, his expressionless eyes, that chilled her even more than his words.

‘Do not, I beg you, seek to verbally contest the logic of my statement. Instead, what I would recommend is the following course of action. Get your doctor to request a paternity test for all possible candidates, and when the result is known, proceed on that basis.’

He got to his feet, walked around the desk. But not towards her—to the double doors leading out of his office.

As he walked, he went on speaking. ‘You have had a wasted journey. This matter could have been dealt with remotely, in the way I have just recommended.’ He reached the door, opened it. ‘And now you must leave. I have an appointment in a few minutes.’

He held the door open for her.

Siena, frozen where she stood, jerked forward. There was emotion inside her, but what it was she did not know. Her feet carried her across the thick carpet, past him standing there, then past the PA at her desk in the outer office, and then on out on to the corridor beyond. She jabbed numbly at the elevator button, saw the doors sliding open to allow her to step even more numbly inside.

The lift dropped down.

And as it did, hollowing her out, she felt two overpowering emotions flooding into the hollow like a suffocating tide.

Mortification.

And an anger so great it made her shake with it.

Vincenzo walked back to his desk, resumed his seat in his capacious chair. His face was still without expression, and yet emotion was scything through him. Silently and lethally.

This was not the first such try-on he’d experienced. There’d been an ex in his early twenties—a decade ago—who had claimed she was pregnant. It had been when he’d first started making money, and the connection between the two had not been lost on him. He’d called her bluff and waited it out. She’d turned out not to be pregnant at all.

So, is this one pregnant?

He stared out across the room, his eyes hard. Well, time would tell. If she really was pregnant then it would not be long before he’d get a request for a paternity test. And then...

He sliced the thought away. He would deal with it as and when—and, above all,if.

Until then she would cease to exist for him—again.

Megan eyed Siena warily.

‘What did he say?’ she asked, even more warily.

Siena was walking around the room—striding around it. Megan’s sitting room was small, but handsomely appointed, leaving very little space for walking about, let alone striding.

‘Oh, he was very economical with his words! Didn’t waste a single one! He recommended sending out paternity tests to all the candidates—’

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