Page 13 of The Venetian One-Night Baby

‘Yes, but what’s going on?’ He stepped into the room before she could stop him and closed the door behind him.

Sabrina took a few steps back and hugged her arms around her middle, her eyes skittering away from his. ‘I have something to tell you...’

Here we go. Max had been here so many times before. The I want more than a one-night stand speech. But this time he was okay with it. More than okay. He could think of nothing he wanted more than to have a longer fling with her. Longer than one night, that was. A week or two, a month or three. Long enough to scratch the itch but not long enough for her to get silly ideas about it being for ever. ‘It’s okay, Sabrina. You don’t have to look so scared. I’ve been thinking along the same lines.’

Her smooth brow crinkled into a frown. ‘The same...lines?’

Max gave a soft laugh, his blood already pumping at the thought of taking her in his arms. Maybe even here in the quiet of the library while the guests were partying in the ballroom. What could be sexier than a clandestine affair? ‘We’d have to keep it a secret, of course. But a month or two would be fun.’ He took a step towards her but she backed away as if he was carrying the Black Plague.

‘No.’ She held up her hands like stop signs, her expression couldn’t have looked more horrified than if he’d drawn a gun.

No? Max hadn’t heard that word from a woman for a long time. Weird, but hearing it from Sabrina was unusually disappointing. ‘Okay. That’s fine. We’ll stick to the original agreement.’

She gave an audible swallow and her arms went back around her middle. ‘Max...’ She slowly lifted her gaze back to his, hers still wide as Christmas baubles. ‘I don’t know how to tell you this...’

His gut suddenly seized and he tried to control his breathing. So she’d found someone else. No wonder his offer of a temporary fling had been turned down. She was sleeping with someone else. Someone else was kissing that beautiful mouth, someone else was holding her gorgeous body in their arms.

‘It’s okay, Sabrina.’ How had he got his voice to sound so level? So damn normal when his insides were churning with jealousy? Yes, jealousy—that thing he never felt. Ever. Not for anyone. The big green-eyed monster was having a pity party in his gut and there was nothing he could do about it.

One of Sabrina’s hands crept to press against her stomach. She licked her lips and opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t seem to get her voice to work.

Max called on every bit of willpower he possessed to stop himself from reaching for her and showing her why a temporary fling with him was much a better idea than her getting involved permanently with someone else. A hard sell to a fairytale girl, but still. His hands stayed resolutely by his sides, but his fingers were clenching and unclenching like his jaw. ‘Who is it?’ There. He’d asked the question his pride had forbidden him to ask.

Sabrina’s brow creased into another puzzled frown. ‘I... You think there’s someone...else?’

Max shrugged as if it meant nothing to him what she did and whom she did it with. But on the inside he was slamming his fist into the wall in frustration. Bam. Bam. Bam. The imaginary punches were in time with the thud, thud, thud of his heart. ‘That’s what this is about, isn’t it?’

‘Have you found someone else?’ Her voice was faint and hesitant as if it was struggling to get past a stricture in her throat.

‘Not yet.’

She closed her eyes in a tight squint as if his answer had pained her. She opened her eyes again and took a deep breath. ‘In a way, this is about someone else...’ She laced her fingers together in front of her stomach, then released them and did it again like a nervous tic. ‘Someone neither of us has met...yet...’

Max wanted to wring his own hands. He wanted to turn back time and go back to Venice and do things differently. He had to get control of himself. He couldn’t allow his jealousy over a man who may or may not exist to mess with his head. He took a calming breath, released it slowly. They would both eventually find someone else. He would have to get used to seeing her with a husband one day. A man who would give her the family she wanted. The commitment and the love she wanted. And Max would move from woman to woman just as he had been doing for the last six years. ‘So, you’re saying you’re not actually seeing someone else right at this moment?’

‘No.’ Her face screwed up in distaste. ‘How could you think I would want to after what we shared?’

‘It was just sex, Sabrina.’ He kept his tone neutral even though his male ego was doing fist pumps. Damn good sex. Amazing sex. Awesome sex he wanted to repeat. Then a victory chant sounded in his head. There isn’t anyone else. There isn’t anyone else. The big green monster slunk away and relief flooded Max’s system.

‘Yeah, well, if only it had been just sex...’ Something about her tone and her posture made the hairs of the back of his neck stand up. Her hand kept creeping over the flat plane of her belly, her throat rising and falling over a swallow that sounded more like a gulp.

Max was finding it hard to make sense of what she was saying. And why was she looking so flustered? ‘I’m not sure where this conversation is heading, but how about you say what you want to say, okay? I promise I won’t interrupt. Just spit it out, for God’s sake.’

Her eyes came back to his and she straightened her spine as if girding herself for a firing squad. ‘Max... I’m pregnant.’

CHAPTER FIVE

MAX STEPPED BACK as if she had stabbed him. His gut even clenched as if a dagger had gone through to his backbone. Pregnant? The word was like a poison spreading through his blood, leaving a trail of catastrophic destruction in its wake. His heart stopped and started in a sickening boom-skip-boom-skip-boom-skip rhythm, his lungs almost collapsing as he fought to take a breath. His skin went hot, then cold, and his scalp prickled and tightened as if every hair was shrinking away in dread.

‘You’re...pregnant?’ His voice cracked like an egg thrown on concrete, his mind splintering into a thousand panicked thoughts. A baby. They had made a baby. Somehow, in spite of all the protection he had used, they had made a baby. ‘Are you sure?’

She pressed her lips together and nodded, her chin wobbling. ‘I’ve done a test. Actually, I’ve done five. They were all positive.’

Max scraped a hand through his hair so roughly he nearly scalped himself. ‘Oh, God...’ He turned away, a part of him vainly hoping that when he turned back he wouldn’t find himself in the library of his parents’ mansion with Sabrina telling him he was to be a father. It was like a bad dream. A nightmare.

His. Personal. Nightmare.

‘Thanks for not asking if it’s yours.’ Sabrina’s soft voice broke through his tortured reverie.

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