Page 38 of Hidden Heir With His Housekeeper

Her skin flushed as she lifted her fork and concentrated on her food to beat back the latest wave of anxiety.

Mason Foxx was still a virtual stranger. She needed to get to know him better before she made any more assumptions about him. Good or bad.

They’d both apologised for past hurts, the wrongs they’d done each other. She had no idea what he could possibly mean by ‘next steps’. But the fact it sounded so ominous could have more to do with her own insecurities, and the huge power imbalance between them, and that heat which would not die, than any malign intent on his part.

She still didn’t even know what he felt about the pregnancy—other than angry she hadn’t told him sooner. So it made sense to nurture this tentative truce.

And to avoid getting hung up on his scorching hotness!Sheesh.

Unfortunately, as they ate in silence—him demolishing the tasty pasta dish, while she picked at hers—the knot in her stomach and the hot brick in her abdomen refused to get the memo.

CHAPTER NINE

‘YOUWEREVERYHOT, and I responded to you in a way I hadn’t thought I’d ever respond to anyone... Sexually speaking.’

Mason polished off the last of the seafood linguini, his voracious appetite for food covering his voracious appetite for something else entirely—as the words Beatrice had murmured about their night five months ago spooled through his head on a loop. And forced him to acknowledge something he’d been refusing to engage with for five solid months.

He still wanted her.A lot.

Their unfinished business wasn’t just sexual any more, might noteverhave been just sexual—but sex was the one thing he felt comfortable focusing on. Her confirmation that her reasons for choosing him to take her virginity had never had anything to do with her father only made him eager to focus on it more.

Because that volatile sexual chemistry—which he had felt the first moment he had laid eyes on her—hadn’t dimmed in the slightest.

It also explained a lot of things which had been confusing him for five months. Why he hadn’t been able to forget her. Why he’d spent a fortune tracking her down. Why he’d dropped everything and flown out to the Italian Riviera. Where the weird kick of joy as well as shock had come from when he’d spotted her in the maid’s uniform and discovered she was pregnant with his baby.

On some basic, elemental level he just wanted her to be his.

He didn’t believe in fate, or kismet, or love at first sight, or any of that other romantic stuff people used to justify their basic instincts. But he did believe in biology and chemistry. Which had to be why he had staked a claim to Beatrice that night, which couldn’t now be broken.

The baby was an abstract concept to him in a lot of ways. He had never thought of becoming a father, probably would have laughed in the face of anyone who had suggested he would everwantto get a woman accidentally pregnant. But with Beatrice, he couldn’t suppress the thought that their current situation didn’t feel like a trap so much as an inevitability.

An inevitability he could use.

He had no idea how long the need, the yearning, the urge to possess her and protect her would last. After all, he’d never felt this way about anyone before—as if he had a sexual connection with them that was so strong and real and intense it might actually go beyond the physical. But one thing was certain—after five months of being desperate to find her, he planned to explore it.

As he watched her pick at her food, though, he could sense her nerves.

However hard she had worked to reinvent herself, one thing remained the same—she was still vulnerable. Much more vulnerable than she probably realised.

She had been blindsided by their intense physical connection that night too. Which was even less of a surprise. She had been a virgin, plus she had spent her life up to that point being bullied and coerced by her father. He hadn’t lied when he’d told her he knew what that felt like. How it could destroy your self-esteem. Although he wished he hadn’t revealed quite so much.

Thank God he had managed to stop himself blurting out the truth about his mum too.

She didn’t need to know about the things he’d done to survive, to escape. Because then she might start questioning whether she wanted him within fifty feet of this baby.

Theirbaby.

He swallowed the last bite of pasta as the waiter arrived, disturbed to realise that Beatrice’s reaction to his past might matter to him. He’d always been determined to curate his own story, but now, more than ever, he was glad he’d kept the sordid details of his past out of the public eye.

He certainly did not want her to know that his mum had abandoned him—or she might wonder why she had. Which was something he’d asked himself a thousand times over the years... And the only answer that made sense was that there was something in him his mother had been unable to love.

He didn’t need Beatrice’s love, but he was beginning to realise he wanted a commitment from her. So, letting her know that even his own mum hadn’t wanted to stick around was not a smart move.

‘Il dolci, Signor Foxx?’ the maître d’ asked.

‘No desserts, thanks, Giovanni, we’re finished here,’ he announced. ‘Charge my credit card and add a five-hundred-euro tip and, thanks, it was delicious.’

Giovanni beamed, then whisked the plates away. As the man disappeared, Mason dropped his napkin on the table and stood.

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