by Tara Pammi
“We don’t have to be married for that. We could share custody.”
“My child is not spending half its life traveling between you and me like a soccer ball. We will be a family—a proper one.”
“I’m not sleeping with you.”
He laughed—the first sound he’d made that was filled with genuine amusement. “Afraid you won’t be able to resist? Don’t worry, Kim. I’ve learned that there are some things in life that can damage even dirty-fighting and wicked me. Like sleeping with you.”
“Finally something we agree upon,” she said loudly, trying to drown the thundering of her own heart. It figured that now he had caused maximum damage Diego had no interest in her. Why that should bother her of all the things that had happened today was beyond her.
Really, she was becoming a regular passenger on the cuckoo train.
She slid into the couch again, her knees shaking beneath her, trying to grasp the rollercoaster she was signing up for.
“So—a sexless, everlasting marriage to a man who hates me, who owns the biggest share of my company and who will no doubt find unadulterated joy in telling me what a horrible mother I make for the rest of my life? Sounds like a perfect recipe for happily-ever-after.”
“Happily-ever-after? Is that what you want, princesa? Would you even know it if it bumped you on your over-achieving head?”
Hulking over her, he surrounded her, his gaze drilling holes into her.
“For the last time—your company is just a bargaining chip for me. I only ask that you do your best for our child. And as to sex—” his voice lowered to a sinuous whisper, his breath tickling her lips “—if you really want to change that part of the equation we can revisit it—say in a couple of years?” Dark enjoyment slashed the curve of his mouth.
She pulled her gaze upward. The whole situation she found herself in was absurdly comical. If only it wasn’t her life. “A reward system? Great. Sex for good behavior?”
His mouth curved again, in a smile that dimpled his cheek, pure devilish amusement glittering in it. Her breath stuck in her throat. She had always loved that dimple. On any other man it would have looked effeminate. On Diego it touched his ruthless masculinity with a mischievous charm.
“See—just the way you like it. Everything reduced to a simple business transaction. Be a good little wife and you can have all the sex you want.”
CHAPTER FOUR
STANDING IN FRONT of the elevator on her floor, Kim studied herself in the gleaming doors and breathed in gulps of air. So much for her hope that she might be one of the women that Mommy Mary mentioned, who had breezy pregnancies, nesting instincts and glowing skin.
Right.
What she had was nausea, exhaustion, acne—and mood swings as though she had just gotten off of antidepressants. And nothing but an unrelenting detachment at the sight or talk of anything baby-related.
Only a ninety-hour work week, with the added stress of handling PR about the new investment and the expansion of her company, had kept her from spiraling further down.
Two days after he had cornered her in her apartment Diego’s legal team had contacted her own. She refused to feed her curiosity by asking where he was. Negotiations had been completed in a day and she now had two million dollars to sink her teeth into. It was more than she had expected in her wildest dreams.
She should be overjoyed—she had the investment and she was being awarded the prestigious Entrepreneur of the Year award by the Business Bureau Guild tonight.
But she couldn’t turn her mind from thoughts of Diego. It was like a rerun of six years ago, when she had returned to New York, her heart in pieces, wondering if he would call her, if he would come after her...
Not even a month since he’d come back into her life and he was already reducing her to that pitiful self—to someone who signed up for getting hurt so easily.
Maybe she should have accepted Liv’s offer to attend the awards ceremony with her and Alex. But she was still avoiding Liv and her well-meaning questions, and arriving with them would only give rise to more of the speculation that was beginning to mess with her head.
Running her company meant she always worked sixteen to eighteen hour days, and that didn’t leave time for abiding friendships—or anything else for that matter. It was how she had tailored her life. And she loved it just that way.
Except for the strange tightness in her chest at the thought of the evening ahead, alone.
She stepped into the elevator and heard the swish of the doors closing behind her. Leaning her head against the cool mirrored surface of the wall, she fought the tears clogging her throat, a volatile rush of emotion flooding her.
In a way, the threat to her company’s expansion had taken her mind off the pregnancy. Now there was nothing to do except face the void inside her. What she wouldn’t give to feel one positive thing about this pregnancy...even if it was something as trivial as relief that the nausea was abating.
She reached the front lobby and asked the doorman to hail a taxi. She walked out behind him and pulled her wrap tighter around her shoulders. A black limo came to a smooth stop at the curb.
She stepped out of the way as a chauffeur opened its door. And felt Diego’s presence behind her, emerging from her building.
“Ready to go?”
Her heart kicking against her ribcage, she turned around so quickly that she almost lost her balance. Diego’s hand shot out to hold her before she stumbled to the ground.
His arm around her waist, he pulled her to him, enveloping her in a purely masculine scent and hard muscles that made her feel soft all over.
Warmth flooded her, flushing out the inexplicable loneliness of a minute ago. She breathed in a big gulp of air, expanding and contracting her lungs.
Her stomach lurched in an altogether different, pleasurable way. Why couldn’t he make her nausea worse?
Dressed in a gray Armani suit that hugged his broad shoulders, with his hair slicked back from his forehead, she wondered if he had materialized right out of her thoughts. He exuded raw magnetism, sliding her heartbeat ratcheting up and her already active hormones into overdrive.
His bronzed skin gleamed with vitality in the streetlights, his slightly bent nose and glittering eyes adding to his allure. Languid sensuality cascaded from him.
Even in the chilly New York evening she felt the heat of his perusal on her skin.
“Careful, pequena,” he whispered.
A frisson spread in ripples from where his big palm stayed over her back. His grip on her waist tightened as he felt her shiver, the heat from his callused palm singeing her skin through the silk material.
“I know those heels are part of your image but you need to be careful.”
She raised her gaze to him, tingling everywhere he touched her. She searched his face hungrily. After his absence for a week she had started believing he regretted his commitment to her—at least the personal part of it.
The moment she found her balance he let her go. As though he didn’t want to touch her unless absolutely necessary. Whereas she still tingled everywhere from the briefest of contacts.
“What are you doing here?” she said loudly, trying to speak past the continued boom of her heart.
“I’m coming with you to the awards ceremony.”
She closed her eyes and counted to ten, hating herself for the excitement sweeping through her. This was the result of depriving herself of basic human company. This stupid, dangerous thrill at the prospect of an evening with Diego. “Why?”
His smile seemed feral. “To see the whole world praise my wife and fall at her feet for her brilliance.”
“Yeah, right. Where exactly did you come from?”
His gaze devoured her, swift and dismissive. “The penthouse.”
“The penthouse? What were you doing in the penthouse?” she shot at him, regretting the question the moment she’d said it.
Was he visiting a woman up there? Did she really want to know what Diego got u
p to in his free time? It had been hard enough to resist gobbling up information about him in the past six years.
“Moving in,” he said, with an exaggerated patience that wound her up a little more. “As will you. It will be our home. Until we figure out something more permanent.”
“You moved to New York? When? Why?” She refused even to acknowledge the other suggestion he’d slipped in. Equal parts of dread and hope thrummed through her. Because, despite every protest she made with Diego close, the knot in her stomach about her pregnancy relented just a little.
“Why do you think I’ve moved here?” His mouth twitched. “Have you noticed your brilliance deserts you when I’m around?”
“There’s nothing new about that, is there?” She sighed. Really, it was better to accept it than fight it. “For every inch you move closer it’s like my IQ drops a few points. My brain works sooo much better with a continent separating us.”
He took a step closer and she could smell the scent of his soap and skin combined. Her heart raced. She made a ca-ching sound. “Down five points.”
His gaze alight with laughter, he ate up a little more of the space between them. She felt the heat of his body tease her skin, tug lower in her belly.
She made another sound with her mouth. Only it emerged croaky and faint this time. “Down five more.”
He neared her, tugged at her wrap, which was trailing toward the ground, and tucked it neatly around her bare shoulders. Encompassed by his wide frame, she felt the world around her fall away. His fingers grazed her nape in the barest of touches and lingered. Need rippled across her, every inch of her hyper-sensitive to his nearness.
She wet her lips. “Annndddd...I’ll probably spell my own name wrong if you ask me now.”
Throwing back his head, he laughed. It was such a heartfelt sound that she couldn’t help but smile, too. And marvel at the breathtaking beauty of the man. She felt the most atavistic thrill, like a cavewoman—the very thing she had accused him of being—that he was choosing to spend the evening with her.
He moved away from her, his mouth still curved. “We want you functioning with your normal brilliance tonight, right?”
She should be glad he had some kind of control, because apparently she had none when it came to him. Swallowing her body’s frustrated groan, she looked away from him. “Have you really moved to New York?”
He studied her with a lingering intensity. The laughter waned from his face. “Aah...you thought I wasn’t coming back.”
“I went by your past record.” She gave voice to the thought that wouldn’t leave her alone. “Of course I forgot that this time you have something precious to come back for.”
He closed his eyes for an infinitesimal moment, his posture throwing off angry energy. When he spoke, his gaze was flat, his voice soft with suppressed emotions. “Are you accusing me of something, pequena?”
She shook her head. She was too much of a coward to hear what she already knew—that she hadn’t mattered enough for him to come after her six years ago.
With his hand at her back, he nudged her toward the waiting limo.
She settled into the seat, scrambling to get her wits together. Acknowledging that her common sense went on a hike when he was close was something; mooning over him was another. She crossed her legs. Her dress rode up to her thighs and she tugged the fabric down, heat tightening her cheeks. Watching her like a vulture, Diego didn’t miss anything. She pulled her wrap tighter and sat straight, like a rigid statue.
One glance in the tinted windows was enough to throw her further equilibrium.
She was due for a haircut, which meant her hair didn’t have the blunt look she preferred but curled around her face in that annoying way. And she hadn’t had the strength, for once, to straighten it to its usual glossy look. She had applied a little foundation and her usual lip gloss. But she looked pale after another sleepless night. She plumped her hair with her fingers on one side, so that a curl covered it.
She fidgeted in her seat and pulled the edges of her wrap together. Again. She should have changed, even if it had meant she would be late. Because the dress just...clung too much. The fabric cupped her breasts tight. One could probably even make out the shape of her...
Damn it. Nothing about the evening felt right.
Diego’s attention didn’t waver from her for a second.
She looked at him and uttered the first thing that came into her head. “Do I look okay?”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s a simple question, Diego.”
“Really? I didn’t think you needed assurance in any walk of life.”
“Well, you’re wrong. I have lots of moments where I think I might just break,” she said, with a catch she couldn’t hide, “and this pregnancy is bringing out the worst in every way possible—mood swings, nausea. And you’re not making it easy by...”
He pulled her hand into his and squeezed. His touch anchored her—a small but infinitely comforting gesture. “Tell me how I can help.”
“For starters you can tell me—” she sucked in a deep breath “—how I look.”
His gaze flicked to her, roguish amusement glinting in it. “Okay. Take off that wrap.”
Her mouth clamped shut, Kim sat rigid, her hands fisted in her lap.
“Do you want my opinion or not?”
“Yes.”
He grabbed the edge of her cashmere wrap and pulled it.
His gaze traveled over her slowly, methodically, from her hair to her shoulders, left bare by the strapless beige silk dress which hugged every curve. She sucked in her breath as it hovered over her midriff.
It felt like forever before it moved to her bare legs and her feet clad in Prada pumps.
He cleared his throat. “You look different,” he finally said.
Of course he was going to squeeze the moment for everything. “What kind of different?”
Amusement glinted in his gaze. “Are you fishing for a compliment, minha esposinha?”
“Maybe... And stop calling me your wife.” She smoothed her hands over her thighs. The soft, lush silk only heightened her anxiety. “This is not me. I much prefer—”
“Conservatively cut clothes that say ‘look at my brain, not at my breasts.’”
Did he miss anything? “I have to present the right image, work harder than a man for the same level of respect. Not everyone in the business world is as forthcoming as you are with their confidence in my capabilities—much less their...money...” she finished slowly, realizing how much truth there was in her words.
She knew firsthand how ruthless a businessman he was, that the only allowances he made were for hard work. He might have invested in her company in the most twisted way possible, but he hadn’t had to. If he’d truly wanted to leave her with no options he could have really let it all go down the drain...
“Thank you for your investment—for your trust in me,” she said, trying to breathe past the tightness in her chest.
He shrugged. “Only a fool would doubt your company’s success, or your ability to run it whatever your personal life.” His gaze moved over her again quickly. “Although I have to tell you it doesn’t really work.”
She blinked, her skin tingling at his appraisal. “What doesn’t?”
He smiled, apparently finding her stupidity very amusing. “Whatever you wear—even those trousers and shirts that you are so fond of—it doesn’t hide the fact that you’re hot.”
Something latent uncoiled in his gaze—a spark—but was gone before the meaning of his words even sank in. How did he do that? How was he so effortlessly able to look at her with so much desire in his eyes and in the next bank it down to nothing?
She stared at his dark head as he powered up his tablet.
She had thought nothing had changed in him in six years. She was wrong. A lot had—and not just his success.
The man she had married had been a passionate twenty-one-year-old, quick to anger and to love. His emotions had simmer
ed on the surface almost like a glow, a blaze of undiluted energy that lured everyone toward him.
His drive to succeed, his determination to squash anything that lay in his way—she had understood that ambition. But this new, refined man...he had a disconcerting calm, a control to him, that gave no clue as to what was simmering beneath the surface. Unless he told her with that piercing honesty.
She had expected him to question her about the pregnancy. He hadn’t. She had expected him to walk away without a backward glance. He hadn’t. And on top of that he was really here, in New York. Because he wanted to give their marriage a real try.
She couldn’t get the measure of him because everything she had taken for granted before was now hidden beneath a veneer of sophisticated charm, of polite courtesy.
But she knew the man beneath it, and she didn’t buy that façade for a second. If she lowered her guard, if she let him into her life any more than she absolutely had to, she had a feeling he would only strike again. And this time she wouldn’t be able to walk away unscathed.
A scowl on his face, he flicked the tablet off. He leaned forward in a sudden movement, his jaw tight. “So, why the change in how you dress?”
She had a feeling he’d meant to say something else—as if he was working to control himself first. “It’s a friend’s design. I agreed to do her a favor and wear it tonight. Except she tricked me and didn’t deliver it until an hour ago. She knew I wouldn’t—”
“You wouldn’t wear it otherwise? Smart woman,” he said. “She knows that the only way to get you to do something for others is to trick you or to manipulate you.”
His words pricked her with quiet efficiency. “Is this what you mean by creating a happy environment to raise a kid? Throwing continuous barbs at me? Because I’ve seen that marriage. I’m a product of that marriage. And, believe me, it only screws up the kids.”
She leaned back against the seat, feeling as fragile as a piece of glass. How stupid had she been to believe even for a moment that there could be truce between them? Six years of separation wasn’t enough to thaw this anger between them. Or the attraction, for that matter.
