Page 34 of Mafia Pregnancy

I put my hand on her arm. “How was it different?”

“Because you weren’t my boss then. You were just...” She trails off, shaking her head.

“I was just some guy you picked up at a party?” My stomach clenches as I dread hearing her answer. I don’t want to be just that to her, a random one-night stand who was fun but nothing more.

She shies away from answering. “It doesn’t matter. That was then, and this is now. This have changed.”

I have to resist the temptation to kiss her again, knowing it might spark round two, and this really isn’t the appropriate place for fucking her. “Now that you work for me, this has to stop?”

“Yes.”

“What if there was another way?” I watch her expression carefully. “We could keep this between us. No one has to know. Just us for now.”

She starts to shake her head, but I step closer. “Unless there’s someone else in your life who wouldn’t appreciate this?”

Her eyes flash with something sharp and defensive. “You think that’s what this is? You think I’m playing some kind of game? That I’d sleep with you if I cared about someone else?”

“I have no idea what this is.” I reach up to trace the line of her jaw. “You tell me to stay away, then respond to me like you’re starving for my touch. You avoid me for weeks, then fall apart in my arms the moment I get close to you.”

Her glower deepens. “I’m not falling apart.”

“Then what would you call what just happened?”

She doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t leave either. The silence stretches between us, heavy with things neither of us is saying. “I have responsibilities,” she says finally. “Complications you wouldn’t understand.”

“What kind of complications?”

Her features spasm for a moment as if she’s struggling to hide her reaction. “The kind that mean I can’t afford to want things I can’t have.”

I caress her cheek. “What makes you think you can’t have this?”

“Reality. Common sense. Everything about this situation.”

I cup her face gently. “What if I told you I don’t care about any of that?”

She meets my gaze directly. “You should care. We both should.”

“But we don’t, do we?”

She closes her eyes, leaning into my touch despite her words. “This is going to end badly.”

“Maybe it will.” I brush my thumb across her cheekbone. “But it doesn’t have to end today.”

When she opens her eyes, I see the war playing out in her expression. Want versus fear, desire versus self-preservation.

“I should finish my work and go home,” she says quietly, but there’s a new steel in her voice.

“You should.” I don’t move my hands from her face. “Yet you’re not going to, are you?”

She steps back, forcing me to drop my hands. “Yes, I am.”

“Danielle—”

“No.” She smooths her polo shirt, rebuilding her professional composure. “This was a mistake. Again.”

I shake my head. “Was it? It doesn’t feel like it.”

“It definitely was, at least for me.” She meets my gaze directly, and I see hard resolve. “I can’t keep doing this.”

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