Page 65 of The Italian's Pregnant Enemy (A Diamond in the Rough)

Along with the swirling, cavernous feeling of need that he was assaulted by.

A need to protect her when he knew the world would not always allow it. A need to have her so that he could exist in the space that was not consumed with his desire for her.

Dio, but it was unbearable.

And he had to sit with the unbearableness of it until she returned hours later. And then, only then did he have her. And have her he did. On the couch, in the shower. In his bed.

Until he erased the memory of affection and replaced it with lust. Until he blotted out those open-ended emotional concerns from earlier and spun them into sex. Because that at least he knew he was good at. That at least he knew he could give her. It was a connection that was real and strong.

And it was what he would lean on.

Because in that at least, he knew his power.

As for the vagaries of the rest of the world and fatherhood?

It was best not to ponder it too deeply.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ROMEWASSPECTACULAR. Lyssia couldn’t recall the last time she had been there. She had been a child, she was pretty sure, and dragged on a business trip of her father’s after her mother had died.

Most of her time in Italy had been spent in the northern part of the country, and while she had done a fair amount of traveling, there had never been much occasion to go to Rome.

She watched Dario’s face as they descended on their private jet, and then even closer still as they drove through the city, so overcrowded and teeming with people.

“I can’t believe you lived on the streets here,” she said.

He flicked a glance at her. “I survived.”

“Does this feel like home to you?”

“No. This was home to a boy long since dead.”

And yet, she knew that wasn’t true. He was Italian. This was part of who he was. He sought to deny it. Because it was painful. She knew what it was like, to wonder what could’ve been. She wondered if those thoughts consumed him now.

She didn’t say anything, however.

Instead, she kept her peace until they arrived at the hotel they would be staying at. Gloriously appointed, and of course with the room on the top floor because Dario simply had to look down on the world.

He had been so trapped before. She really could understand.

Their connection had always been powerfully sexual. But he had been even more intense this past week. Every interaction between them ended with sex. She wasn’t complaining, it was just that she could feel him trying to avoid something via their passion.

It made her feel terribly sad for him.

And for herself. Because she was still trying to figure out exactly what she could give him.

What he could get from her that he couldn’t get from anywhere else.

Her father arrived in Rome later that day, and the three of them went and had dinner near the Colosseum. It was crowded and dizzying, but she enjoyed it. She liked even more listening to Dario speak Italian, translating easily for them, and becoming more relaxed as the evening wore on.

He was relaxed, and she hadn’t thought he would be. Whenever tension crept up in him, when they crossed a certain street, or the wind changed, she touched his hand. He would relax again. And she liked the feeling he was able to be happy here partly because of her.

I will have wealth, my wife and my child.

He’d said that about Rome. Perhaps this was what he’d needed to face it again. To feel different enough.

He was a fascinating man.

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