Page 50 of The Italian's Pregnant Enemy (A Diamond in the Rough)

But for a moment, they had just felt like two people who were connecting. Talking. Like two people who had chosen to share each other’s company, rather than what they were. Two people performing a very specific farce for the world. One that had nothing to do with how he listened to her or made her feel validated or interesting. One that had nothing to do with her at all. It was all about him. Him and his reputation. And as he lifted the lid on the velvet box that contained the engagement ring, she forgot to breathe. Because she was struck dumb by how hurt she was. By how unfair this felt.

Because it was beautiful, this moment. Because she realized she felt some things for him that she would rather not. At this inopportune time.

Where he was there, being gorgeous and all the things he ever was, but fundamentally not... Hers.

She’d said yes to him. To this. But the enormity of the emotional mountain that separated them was so vast she didn’t see how they could ever overcome it. And worse, he wouldn’t want to.

And she had no choice. No choice but to smile. No choice but to extend her hand while everyone in the restaurant looked on. And he took the most enormous ring she had ever seen out of the box and slid it onto her finger. She had never imagined this moment. Not really. Right then she realized it could only have ever been with him.

Because something about Dario had gotten under her skin and stayed there from the moment she’d first seen him.

Yes, when they’d first met she’d been a child, and it hadn’t been at all like that. But she had lost someone then. And then... He had been there.

He had felt like arrival in many ways, and sometimes he still did.

He was significant, though. In a way she wouldn’t be able to easily describe to anyone.

Right then, it felt confusing. Right then it felt horribly, and terribly poignant.

If she were going to write an article about it, then it would be a fairy tale.

They had known each other all of their lives. They were so different. They had both lost their mothers.

They had always been sparring partners. But then they’d become lovers.

They had fought their way through personality clashes and misunderstandings through an attraction that was undeniable. He had listened when she needed someone to talk to. He had encouraged her to be the best version of herself.

She only needed him to be him.

She made him tell her the nicer things about himself. Made him admit that he was a human and not a robot.

But that wasn’t the truth.

It was just all the beautiful clues that he had strung together to lead to this moment. The assumptions that would be employed in order to make all of this seem magic. Rather than cold and calculated.

And part of her still felt caught up in it. Part of her still wanted to weep. Part of her still wanted to pretend that it was a fairy tale.

He stood, then lifted her up out of the chair and pulled her into his arms.

He hadn’t touched her like this in six weeks.

The restaurant was their captive audience, and she had no time to respond before he brought his mouth down to hers, kissing her deep and long. Kissing her with intensity.

She clung to his arms, to keep herself from falling, from melting into a puddle at his feet. God knew she possibly might.

His mouth was firm and knowing. Not just of sex in general, but of her. As if he could reach in and read the deepest, most personal fantasies that she had.

His tongue swept hers, and she was transported. Back to that moment in the chalet when it had just been them.

This pure sort of reckoning of all that existed between them.

And when it was over, she felt dizzy, and displaced. Resentful that they were here in New York, and not back in their own cocoon.

But this was now. It was reality. They were having a baby. They were getting married. Her life was completely different now from how it had been. Her future was going to be something entirely separate to what she had imagined it would be.

Everything. Everything was different.

She had no idea how to reconcile that.

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