Page 14 of The Italian's Pregnant Enemy (A Diamond in the Rough)

She turned around, her heart thundering. “I don’t need any help.”

“You look as if you do.”

The bath images came to her mind again.

He did not have the right to look so good this early in the morning. He was wearing a tight white T-shirt and black sweatpants and she could see every muscle through that T-shirt.

She would do well to remember that he was an asshole, and just because she had noticed that he was attractive did not mean that she needed to focus on him being attractive.

It mattered much more how somebody was on the inside, anyway. Every child knew that.

That was kindergarten stuff.

Sadly, when she looked at him she did not feel kindergarten stuff.

But on the inside, he was mean. So it didn’t matter how beautiful he was. It didn’t matter that his abs were visible through a T-shirt. Abs couldn’t talk to you about your day. Couldn’t offer you emotional support.

“I’m good.”

He shifted, and her eyes went to his muscular thighs.

They could not listen to her talk about her day either, but would probably be useful in lifting her up and carrying her around. She imagined the way that he had thrown her suitcase over his shoulder last night. How much more easily could he pick her up and...

What was that about? She was not that woman. She was not the kind of woman who lost her head over raw masculinity. She wasn’t... The truth was, she wanted to be close to Carter. It wasn’t really about sex. It was, but it wasn’t. For some reason, her thoughts of Dario seemed to be a bit too much about sex.

She needed to get out of here.

“The phone in my room wasn’t working.”

“No,” he said. “It wouldn’t be.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Have you looked out your window?”

“No.”

“You might want to do that.”

She scampered from the room and went into the dining area, where there was a large set of corner windows. She looked out and she saw nothing but white.

“Um... What?”

“We are snowed in,” he said.

“No,” she said. “How could that be? This is a modern luxury resort!”

“Yes, and it exists in a world with weather,” he said, his tone maddeningly dry.

“But this wasn’t called for.”

“Apparently there was a major event last night. A wind change that blew a storm front this direction. It dumped an unprecedented amount of snow by here.”

“You can’t mean that we’re actually snowed in in this house. You mean like onto the mountain.”

“I do not,” he said. He strode from the room, without saying anything, and she followed him. As fast as her legs could take her.

He opened the front door to the outside, and there it was. An absolute wall of snow. Blocking the way out.

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