Page 147 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

Something else besides the child she carries.

Doggedly, he went on eating, though for an instant the tender lamb tasted like cardboard in his mouth. He swallowed it down, reached for his wine. This whole evening had been his idea, and he must stick with it. It was...necessary.

Necessary to have made that apology to her, whether or not he’d meant it.

Necessary to attempt civil conversation with her.

Necessary for them to talk to each other. Get to know each other.

Because one day soon we will be parents.

It seemed impossible to believe that a single night had turned them into what they would be for the rest of their lives.

He pulled his mind away, finished off his lamb, pushed his plate away from him. He took another mouthful of wine. Time to make conversation again. To get to know each other a bit more. The way they had to.

He frowned inwardly. Her parents had been professionals, and so was her brother, it seemed. Had she really not done anything similar? Just worked as a clerk, or whatever, in her friend’s office?

He gave a shrug mentally. What did it matter? She wasn’t going to be working at all now. Courtesy of her pregnancy and his wealth.

No, don’t go there again. It is as it is. You will be funding her existence because you are funding the existence of the child that is yours. And you can afford it, so if she benefits from it, why care?

She had finished her fish and the waiter was gliding up again, carefully placing the dessert menus on the table, whisking away the empty dishes.

Vincenzo picked up his menu. ‘Do you care for dessert?’ he asked.

Memory shot through him again. That night at the Falcone she had ordered an icedparfait, he recalled now. And he had watched her spooning little mouthfuls, openly relishing them. He recalled that frisson now, untimely and unwelcome though it was, of watching her sensuous enjoyment. It had only fuelled his impatient desire for her, his wanting the meal to be over and the real purpose of being with her that night to begin.

He put the memory from him. It was inappropriate.

She’d picked up her menu, was scanning it assiduously.

‘I’m torn,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot to choose from...’ she mused.

‘I see there is a raspberry parfait on offer. You had something similar at the Falcone,’ Vincenzo heard himself saying, and instantly wished he had not.

Yet even as he cursed himself for referencing that fateful evening he became aware of something else he wished he had not done. And it wasn’t about the unwelcome outcome of that night.

It was about what had led to it in the first place.

Now that wall of hostility that had been there since she’d walked into his office to drop her bombshell all those weeks ago had gone, other things were taking its place. Things he did not want. Oh, he wanted a degree of basic civility between them—just as he’d told her when he’d made himself apologise, and when he’d said they must get beyond it—but now more was happening. Some line of self-defence had been breached. Something he’d been holding at bay. Something their mutual hostility had kept at bay...

But now it was running again...

He felt his gaze fasten on her. Though she looked very different from the way she’d looked at that party, her image now—nothing like a siren flaunting her sexuality—did not mean he could not see just how appealing her looks were. She might be wearing no make-up to enhance those blue-green eyes of hers, she might have her hair drawn back into a simple ponytail, and she might be wearing an open-necked shirt not designed for allure, but he was increasingly aware that it did nothing to detract from what nature had endowed her with.

If anything, it enhances it—shows off her natural beauty...

He felt it reach to him—not with the full-on, seductively sensual allure he’d been unable and unwilling to resist indulging in that night at the Falcone, but with a pull that made him want to go on letting his eyes fasten on her, appreciate what she had on show.

It was having an effect on him—an effect he did not want. Because it was irrelevant. His attraction to her, overpowering as it had been that night, was what had landed him in this situation—the very last thing he wanted now was for that to rear its head again.

He shifted in his seat, forcing his gaze away, wishing to God he’d not made that damn remark about their dinner together that evening.

‘In which case I’ll definitely avoid it!’ he heard her say, and by the way she said it she knew she had found the reference unwelcome as well.

His mouth tightened again. Something else they apparently had in common...

Not wanting to remember that night—think about it at all...

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