by Jennie Lucas
Cristiano barely restrained a scowl. His hand brushed hers as he took the papers and pen. Her cheeks went bright red, and she dropped her hand. “Thanks. Goodbye.”
He watched incredulously as, without another word, she headed for the door.
“That’s it?”
Hallie glanced back with a smile. “You wanted to be rid of me.”
He couldn’t believe it could be so easy for her to leave him when it was so hard for him to let her go. When it took all his self-control not to ask her to—
“Stay for a drink,” he heard himself say. “Just one drink. To toast the future.”
The corners of her lips curved into a humorless smile. “Isn’t Natalia waiting for you?”
“Who?”
“Who?” She snorted. “The gorgeous supermodel you were taking out tonight.”
“She’s just a friend,” he said impatiently. He knew the Russian girl wanted more. But what did he care about her? Seeing Hallie today had brought back everything he’d tried to forget over the past year, everything he knew was forbidden but that he still wanted. “Share a drink with me.”
For a second, Hallie hesitated. Then she straightened, glaring at him. “After the way you treated me, do you really think I would ever choose to spend more time with you?” She lifted her chin. “I never, ever want to see you again. Goodbye, Cristiano.”
She turned away, clutching the check against her heart. She left him without looking back.
Cristiano stood in his private office, stunned.
Hallie would cause no legal trouble. The cost of his night with her had been minimal, one he’d been more than willing to pay. And now she was gone. For good.
His jaw tightened. It was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? He’d wanted to permanently rid himself of the temptation she offered. He’d never felt so attracted to anyone.
He’d slept with beautiful women before. The danger—the difference—was in Hallie’s voice, so rich with heartbreak and longing. And in her deep brown eyes, which had looked at him with such frank joy. In her low, husky laugh that had melted him with her warmth and delight.
She’d made him feel things against his will.
Not with his body.
His soul.
So after he’d fired her he’d ordered his secretary to block Hallie’s calls if she ever tried to contact him again.
Yet, tonight, he’d been the one who had asked her to stay. And Hallie, without any apparent difficulty or regret, had gotten what she’d wanted and easily walked away.
His pride was in shock.
As a matter of course, Cristiano always put his own selfish desires first. You had to look out for number one.
He’d just never imagined a kindhearted country girl like Hallie could do the same.
Rubbing the back of his head, he put his checkbook back in the safe. He told himself he’d go meet Natalia and spend the evening at yet another bland charity gala, but the thought seemed ridiculous.
Hallie had looked delicious, her body even more curvaceous than he remembered. She had a new maturity about her. Her dark eyes had become guarded, he realized. Not as honest and clear as he remembered. She’d held something back. Some mystery. Some secret.
Cristiano closed the safe, then stopped.
Something didn’t make sense.
When Hallie had first met him in the lobby, she’d been nervous and tense. I have something important to tell you, she’d said. But what was it? Simply that she’d hired a lawyer?
Except she’d never actually said that. Cristiano had. She’d been slow to talk and so he’d filled in all the blanks. When he’d offered her money, she’d been surprised, even shocked. Surely that was why she’d asked to speak to him privately. Because her lawyer had told her to.
Unless she didn’t actually have a lawyer.
Unless she’d come to him for some other reason. A reason she’d decided to forget once he’d offered her a check.
Cristiano’s eyes widened.
He strode out of his private office and down the sweeping stairs that overlooked the huge, gleaming lobby with enormous chandeliers hanging from thirty-foot ceilings. His eyes scanned over the crowd of wealthy tycoons and beautiful starlets that filled the lobby and main bar of the Campania on a typical Thursday night.
He saw Hallie on the other side of the lobby, near the door, talking to two young women, a plump redhead and a pregnant blonde. Hallie smiled, her joy obvious even from this distance, as she reached out to take something from the blonde.
A baby stroller. Looking down at it, she smiled and cooed.
Cristiano’s blood went cold.
A baby stroller.
A baby.
Later, he wouldn’t even remember how he had reached her. His brain was blank, his body like ice as he walked through the faceless crowd toward Hallie Hatfield and the baby stroller she gripped by the handle. When he drew close, he heard her soft laughter as she turned to her friends. The other women’s eyes went wide as Cristiano put his hand on her shoulder.
Hallie’s face was still smiling as she turned. Then the blood drained from her face.
Cristiano looked from her guilt-stricken face down to the small, dark-haired, fat-cheeked baby drowsing in the stroller. He slowly lifted his eyes back to hers.
“Is this your baby, Hallie?”
The fear in her eyes told him everything he needed to know.
The other two women stared between them, wide-eyed.
“You didn’t tell him?” the blonde said.
“Oh, Hallie,” the redhead whispered.
“Please, just go,” Hallie choked out to them. “I’ll call you later.”
The blonde looked like she intended to argue, until the redhead tugged on her arm and drew her away.
Standing alone with Cristiano in the crowded lobby of his flagship hotel, Hallie took a deep breath. “I can explain.”
Cristiano looked back down at the baby. A baby with dark eyes exactly like his own. Suddenly he knew exactly why Hallie had come here today. And exactly why she’d changed her mind.
He controlled his voice with effort. “You have a baby.”
She bit her lip. “Yes.”
He lifted his cold gaze to hers. “Who is the father?”
Hallie said pleadingly, “Please, Cristiano, don’t...”
“Who, damn you.”
She flinched. When she spoke, her voice could barely be heard over the noise of the lobby. “You.”
That single word exploded through him like a grenade.
He had a child?
Heart pounding, Cristiano looked at the tiny, yawning baby. Emotions rose, choking him. Savagely repressing his feelings, he looked at her.
“You are sure?” he said flatly.
“Yes,” Hallie replied in the same tone. “You know I was a virgin when—”
“I know,” he bit out. “But perhaps after...”
“You think I rushed into bed with someone else after that?” Her expression tightened. “You are the only man I’ve ever been with. Jack is your son.”
He had a child? A son?
His name was Jack?
Cristiano’s throat tightened. “Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”
“I tried.” Hallie’s beautiful caramel-brown eyes narrowed. “I left two messages with your secretary.”
Cristiano hadn’t gotten those messages because he’d told his secretary never to tell him if Hallie called.
But he didn’t want to hear reasons he might be at fault. He wanted to blame only her. “We used protection,” he said accusingly. “How did this happen?”
She raised her eyebrows. “You are the one with all the experience. You tell me.”
He ground his teeth. “You should have tried harder to contact me.”
“After the way you treated me,” she said, “I shouldn’t have tried at all. Why give you the chance to reject our baby like you rejected me?”
His shoulders tightened as her shot hit home.
“So you were just going to walk out of here tonight.” His voice had a hard edge. His throat felt raw. “Once you had my check, you had no reason to tell me about my child. You were going to keep him a secret from me for the rest of my life, weren’t you?”
Not meeting his eyes, Hallie gave an unsteady nod.
His hands clenched at his sides. “Why?”
“I’ve never known what it was to hate someone, Cristiano,” she whispered. She lifted her gaze to his. “Not until you.”
He was shocked by the fury and hurt he saw in her eyes. “I could not have hurt you that badly,” he ground out. “We barely knew each other.”
“You were so seductive. So tender. You made me think you cared, just a little.” She ran an unsteady hand over her forehead. “But as soon as you got what you wanted, you showed me it was all a lie. You left me jobless, homeless. Pregnant and alone. I gave birth alone. I took care of him alone. Do you know how hard it is to look for a job when you have a newborn? I struggled to put a roof over Jack’s head while you pretended we didn’t exist.” She looked around the luxurious lobby. “While you drank champagne and went to parties.”
Her words made him feel oddly guilty. He didn’t like it. “You never told me—”
“I came here to beg you for money, Cristiano.” Her beautiful brown eyes were suddenly luminous. “To beg, so I wouldn’t have to stay at a homeless shelter tonight. Can you imagine how that feels, asking someone you hate for help?”
No. Cristiano couldn’t imagine lowering his pride to such an extent. Even when he’d been orphaned in Italy, desperately poor, he would have starved before he’d have done it.
But women were different, he told himself firmly. They didn’t have the same fierce pride as a man.
“Then I offered you the check,” he said, “and you decided to take the money and run.”
“I’m doing you a favor,” she said vehemently. “It’s not like you’d want to be a father. So just forget I came here. Forget he was ever born.”
Turning, Hallie started pushing the stroller away.
As he watched them go, the hotel’s marble floor became suddenly unsteady beneath Cristiano’s feet.
A flash went through him, memories of when he was six, when he was ten, of being dragged from one sagging apartment to the next, based on the preference of whichever useless new man his drunken mother had taken as her latest lover. He’d felt helpless as a child, lonely, never staying in one school long enough to make friends.
Most of the household’s scant money had gone to alcohol. There had been very little for food and none for Cristiano’s clothes, which the local priest quietly donated.
He’d never had a father, unless you counted Luigi Bennato, whom Cristiano assuredly did not. He’d never had a father to look out for him or protect him, even as a baby.
Without thinking, Cristiano stepped forward and grabbed Hallie’s shoulder.
“I won’t let you do this,” he said hoarsely. “I won’t let you take our baby away.”
“Why?” she said scornfully. “Because you want to be a father?” Her eyes glittered. “Don’t make me laugh. You’re a selfish playboy, Cristiano. An indecent excuse for a man. You couldn’t love someone if you tried, not even your own child. And now that I have enough money to support my baby, I don’t want any part of you.”
CHAPTER TWO
STANDING IN THE hotel’s glamorous lobby with her arms folded, Hallie glared up at Cristiano as if she weren’t in the least afraid. But the truth was her whole body was trembling with the effort it took to defy him.
She wished she’d followed her initial impulse when Cristiano had first come into the lobby, and turned and run.
But he’d have caught up with her before she’d even made it out the hotel’s revolving door. A single glance at his supremely masculine, muscular body and the cold ruthlessness in his hard gaze was enough to tell her that.
Everything about Cristiano was dark, Hallie thought with a shiver. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Dark tuxedo. A five-o’clock shadow that stroked his hard cheekbones to the slash of his jawline and, most of all, his dark fury as he came closer to her, his hand still on her shoulder, his hulking body almost threatening.
“So this is what you think of me.” His black eyes narrowed to slits. “That I’d coldly write you a check and abandon my child to your care.”
She was quivering but refused to be cowed. “Money is all you could ever offer as a father. Why don’t you just admit it?”
His grip on her shoulder tightened. “You lie to me, you take my money. Then you insult me to my face?”
He had a point, which made her want to throw the check back in that face. Her hand was already rising to do it when she remembered Lola’s harsh words. “Is pride going to feed your baby?”
With an intake of breath, Hallie clutched the check more tightly. This money would be her baby’s security and hope for the future. It would also give Hallie a chance to finally give up her stupid dream of becoming a singer and let her train for a real job, like an accountant or a nurse.
She wasn’t going to let pride ruin her life. Not anymore.
Or Cristiano Moretti.
“You should thank me,” she said.
He grew very still. “Thank you?”
“We both know, whatever you might say now, that you couldn’t truly commit to anyone, even a child.”
“How do you know?” he ground out.
“You, commit? For a lifetime?” She gave a choked laugh. “You couldn’t even commit for a night.” She tilted her head. “Were you that quickly bored, the night we were together? Or did you have another date afterward?”
His expression changed infinitesimally. “You think I sent you away because I was bored with you?”
Hallie thought of the glamorous supermodel she’d just seen on his arm. “What else?”
She couldn’t let him see how badly that hurt her. When he’d first taken her in his arms that romantic night, she’d been so naive. She’d thought it was fate, an irresistible force drawing them together. She’d thought it was magic.
Hallie had been startled when he’d walked into his penthouse early that afternoon. She’d been warned to be invisible and that her cleaning must be spotless. After spending so much time dusting pictures of his handsome face, seeing Cristiano in the flesh had shocked her.
Cristiano Moretti was a dream come to life. A famous playboy, the self-made Italian hotel billionaire who dated princesses and heiresses.
And inexplicably, he’d wanted her.
One moment she and Cristiano had been talking by the bed; the next she’d been in his arms. After so many bleak years of anguish after losing her family and her home, when her handsome billionaire boss had lowered his lips to hers, Hallie had imagined all the pain was behind her. She’d thought her life had just changed for the better.
And it had, in one way: her baby. Jack was all that mattered now.
“I’m leaving,” Hallie said defiantly. “Once I cash your check, I promise you, we’ll be gone for good.”
Cristiano lowered his head until it was inches from hers. “And I promise you. You’ll do nothing of the kind.”
Her mouth went dry. As their eyes locked, her heart pounded in her throat as she realized her stupid, idiotic mistake.
She never should have openly defied Cristiano. Because he’d taken her words not just as a challenge but as an insult to his masculinity. To his honor, even.
All this time she’d been thinking about her pride. She hadn’t considered his. And now he would make her pay for it.
“You don’t want me,” she whispered, her voice almost pleading. “Y
ou know you don’t.”
His dark eyes seemed like deep, fathomless pools as his gaze ripped into her soul. Then he straightened.
“You’re wrong about that. I’ve wanted you for a year. And now I will have you.”
“What are you talking about?”
His gaze fell to the stroller and his expression grew cold. “He’s my child, Hallie. I’m not going to let him go.” He focused on her. “Or you.”
“I won’t be your mistress, if that’s what you mean,” she said, struggling to keep her voice calm, not to show her rising fear.
“I know.” Cristiano’s black eyes suddenly glittered, and he smiled. “Because you’re going to be my wife.”
* * *
His wife.
Cristiano watched Hallie’s eyes widen in shock.
It was strange, he thought. He hadn’t known he was going to demand marriage until the words came out of his mouth. His whole life, he’d never once been tempted to marry. Of course he’d never imagined he’d be a father, either. And as he spoke the words, he suddenly realized he did want to marry her.
Call him an indecent excuse for a man?
Say he was incapable of committing for longer than a night?
Tell him he couldn’t even love his child if he tried?
No.
Cristiano wouldn’t abandon his newborn son to endure the same helpless childhood he’d known. Not when he himself had spent most of his adult life seeking vengeance on the father who’d abandoned him before he was born.
But he couldn’t wrench his son away from Hallie, either. Mother and child were obviously bonded. Still, he needed to take control of the situation.
Marriage was the brutally simple solution.
“Marry you?” Hallie choked out, searching his gaze as if waiting for the punchline. “Are you crazy? I told you—I hate you!”
“And I’m none too fond of you.” But as he put both hands on her shoulders and looked down at her, his nerve endings sizzled from the contact. He might be angry, but he’d told her the truth. He hadn’t stopped wanting her for a year.
Her gaze fell unwillingly on his lips before she glared up defiantly. “Why would I marry you?”
