Page 23 of The Baby His Secretary Carries

“I’m so sorry you had to see them today, Gio. Do you want to tell me—”

“No,” he said flatly. “I never want to talk about them so don’t bother asking.”

She pursed her mouth into a circumspect pout. “So you weren’t in love with your fiancée? Your heart wasn’t broken when the wedding was called off?”

“No,” he said with a choke of jaded laughter.

“Then why haven’t you found someone else since?” Her lashes came up and it felt very much like she picked up a curtain and peered inside him.

“Fine,” he muttered. “I was stung by it.”

Rejection was something that landed in a very deep place when he experienced it. That’s why he took steps to avoid caring too deeply about anyone. That’s why he hadn’t pursued someone new.

There was also that other piece. The part where he hadn’t been interested in anyone except a woman who was off-limits. There had been a certain comfort in that situation, where he saw Molly intermittently. He could hear her laughter down the hall or watch her ass leave a room, but he couldn’t pursue her and therefore didn’t risk a rebuff.

“I don’tcareif this ends in three weeks.” That was a lie. It would grate like sandpaper. “But this engagement has become about more than easing my grandfather’s mind. It signals that I am securing the Casella legacy. Our engagement solves a lot of problems for me.”

“How nice for you. It creates an infinite number for me,” she said tartly.

“But you’ll go along with it,” he pressed.

Her gaze cast about the room as though looking for some other solution. When it landed on her personal phone, her brow pleated.

“For nineteen days,” she conceded.

A thousand questions leaped to his lips, the top one being “Who is he?” But he quelled them, coming back to sit next to her and picking up her phone again.

“Put your hand on my face. I want the ring to be visible. No, come closer or it will look ridiculous.” He scooped his arm around her and pulled her snug against his side. “Better.” Much better. She was a lovely armful of soft curves that melted into him.

“Don’t take so many! I don’t have time to delete a thousand useless photos.”

“Kiss my cheek.” He kept clicking as he extended his arm higher, trying different angles.

“No more kissing.” Her fingertips were against his jaw, but one extended to cover his lips.

Her touch was lovely. The startling caress amplified his craving for her. He turned his head to look at her and found her expression admonishing, yet filled with yearning.

Don’t lead me on.

“For the camera,” he said in a voice that emanated from the bottom of his chest. He dipped his head closer, allowing his lips to hover near hers, and clicked blindly.

She closed her eyes and said his name in such a helpless tone that he lowered his arm, dropping the phone between them.

He should have moved away, but he stayed right there, waiting for her lashes to flutter and lift. Her eyes were filled with more than longing. He readhungerand it made his whole body brick up.

Her gaze softened and her head tilted. Her hand on his cheek flexed, urging him closer.

A primitive noise left him, one that was possessive and carnal. He wrapped both his arms around her, taking the kiss she offered. Claiming it. It was the kiss he’d wanted for a year or more. Ever since Valentina had introduced her new assistant and Molly had nervously licked her lips while her cheeks turned pink.

She tasted of anise and tea and capitulation. Her hand slid around his neck and her mouth opened to his, drawing him into a long, dark tunnel of sensuality. He filled his hands with her curves, greedy for the flare of her hips and the small of her back and the swell of her breast.

A sobbing noise resounded in her throat, but she wasn’t pulling away. She was pressing closer. Her knee bumped his.

He hooked his hand behind her leg and pulled her astride his thighs as he sat back on the sofa, dragging her to straddle his lap.

She gasped in surprise, drawing back to blink in startlement, but when he cupped her beautiful ass and slouched so she was pressed more intimately against his unmistakable arousal, her eyes hazed with lust. She dove her fingers into his hair and bent her head to kiss him with aggressive abandon.

He drank her unbridled desire straight, wanting the blindness it offered. Wanting to roll her beneath him and discover the full depth of her passion while proving to both of them that he was the only man who mattered to her.

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