by Lucy Monroe
“Don’t worry about it. His opinion is the last one I would take on relationships.”
“What did you say to him?”
“To leave me alone and then I hung up.”
“If he calls again, I want to know about it.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t go all macho controlling on me, Angelo. I’m a grown woman and no one, not even you, is going to boss me around.”
“That’s not what you said last night.”
They’d played a variation on their favorite game the night before with him doing the directing. She hadn’t minded one bit, particularly when she’d gone to sleep so sated and exhausted she’d had a hard time waking up when their alarm went off that morning.
“It’s not the same thing and you know it.”
“No, it is not. For that was a game and this is very serious. I don’t want you to have anything to do with Baron Randall.”
“Do you really think I’m such a masochist I’d want to?”
“So, you believe he could still hurt you?”
This conversation was taking some very bizarre turns.
“No. I don’t care about him, therefore he cannot hurt me.”
“You said—”
“It was a figure of speech and don’t think you’re going to sidetrack me from the original topic getting all fixated on it. I’m not your pet dog to order around.”
Suddenly she was under him and his lips were hovering just above hers. “Trust me, I see you as anything but a pet dog.”
She was relaxing beside their private pool the next day when it occurred to her that Angelo had never once mentioned the name of the man he wanted to take down. She didn’t dwell on that for very long because something else came to mind that had the power to blast all other thoughts from her brain.
“Angelo…we need to talk.”
The urgency in Tara’s voice sent dread skating down Angelo’s spine. What could be wrong?
He cut his call short and turned to face her. She was wearing a yellow bikini that set off the sexy lines of her body as well as the tan she’d acquired since arriving in Sicily. However, her expressive eyes showed none of the latent desire that usually shimmered there.
“What is it, stellina?”
“We never talked about kids.”
“And this is so urgent because?” Was she pregnant?
The thought sent warmth skirling through him. It had been a very long time since he had been part of an intimate family. He liked the idea of her being pregnant with his child very much.
“We haven’t been using any form of birth control.”
She was just now noticing this? “I know.”
“You know?”
“Well, we were both there.” He smiled lazily. “It wasn’t something I could miss.”
“I didn’t notice!” she shrieked, not sharing his humor at all.
“Why are you so upset?”
“What if I’m pregnant?”
“Don’t you want to be pregnant?” That prospect had never occurred to him.
There was more of the traditional Sicilian male in him than he thought sometimes.
“That’s not the point.”
“Then, what is?”
“We didn’t even talk about it and for all we know, it’s a fait accompli.”
“Would that be so bad?”
His question seemed to shock her. “Did you do it on purpose?” she asked accusingly.
He was trying to hold on to his temper, but it was getting harder by the second. “Did you?”
“You know I didn’t!”
“Look, honey, the last thing I was thinking about on our wedding night was preventing conception. I wanted you so much, you had me tied in knots. Or don’t you remember? We were in Sicily before I even thought of it.”
“How could you be so irresponsible?”
“Me?”
“You. The only other lover I’ve ever had was Baron and that ended two years ago. Birth control wasn’t exactly a blinking blip on my radar.”
“And you believe it should have been on mine?”
“Wasn’t it?”
“You’re my wife.”
“So?”
“So, if you get pregnant, it will be a celebration.”
“It’s not the idea of me getting pregnant that has me worried!”
“That’s what you came in here going on about.”
“It’s the fact you didn’t even think about it, which makes me wonder how many other times you haven’t thought about it.”
“The answer is never.”
“But…”
“Contrary to what you apparently think, I’m no more interested in casual sex than you are and since a relationship is pretty difficult to develop when you’re working sixty-plus-hour workweeks, I’ve spent a good part of the last decade celibate.”
“But you’re not the celibate type.”
“A man, even a man like me, only has so much energy. I’ve poured mine into work.” Which no doubt explained his explosive reaction to her.
“You don’t make love like a novice.”
“Who the hell said I was a novice?” Where did she get her ideas?
“Don’t start yelling at me again.”
“I wasn’t yelling at you.” But he had to lower his voice a few notches or he was going to bring one of the servants running.
“If you’ve been celibate for ten years…”
“I said largely celibate, not…” Suddenly he realized how ridiculous this discussion was becoming. “Never mind. I have never had unprotected sex. All right? You are safe from disease if not pregnancy. By the time I thought of birth control with you, we’d already made love many times. If you do not wish to get pregnant and are not already, we can discuss forms of birth control.”
She deflated like a pricked balloon. “I suppose waiting to discuss it until we know if I’m pregnant makes the most sense.”
“You’re right. Maybe I should get a pregnancy test kit and then we can start making decisions.”
“Wouldn’t you rather see the doctor and be sure?”
“It takes forever to make an appointment and the test kits are something like ninety-nine percent accurate.”
“I’m sure the family doctor will be able to see you tomorrow.”
“The big reception thingy is tomorrow night. I’d rather wait until the next day.”
“I’ll have it taken care of.”
“Thank you.” She turned to go, but then stopped and spun back to face him. “Angelo?”
“Yes?”
“Do you want children?”
“Very much.”
She smiled. “Me, too. I would never consider a pregnancy accidental.”
“Nor would I. If you are pregnant, it is a blessing.”
She seemed to relax. “Yes. And if I’m not, we’ll decide if we want our blessings sooner than later.”
“I’m pregnant? You’re sure?” she asked the doctor, butterflies taking off in her stomach like Kamikaze pilots on a rampage.
“Sì, signora. It is good we can tell these things so early now, yes?”
“Yes.”
She stumbled out of the doctor’s office, her mind in a whirl. She was pregnant. With Angelo’s baby. Her hand dropped to her tummy. She didn’t feel any different, but she carried life inside of her, the product of her marriage to a very special man.
Angelo was going to be thrilled.
In fact, he was ecstatic. “You are pregnant with my baby? Already?”
She grinned at his jubilant response. “Yes.”
“I guess I am very potent for you.” His Sicilian accent suddenly evident.
She pressed herself against him, feeling evidence of that potency intimately. “Yes, dearest Angelo, I think you are.”
He growled and started kissing her.
They flew to New York two weeks later. Angelo insisted she take settling into her new home slowly, sleep late and arrive at the office no earlier than 10:00 a.m
. because of her pregnancy. When she argued she was pregnant, not an invalid, he told her he wanted to pamper her.
How could she refuse him?
She was eating her breakfast on their balcony that overlooked Manhattan when the doorbell rang. She got up to answer it, but Maria, the housekeeper got to it before she did.
She halted in the living room when she heard a familiar voice that made her muscles tense. What in the world was Baron doing here?
He walked into the room, his eyes fixed on her in some kind of ludicrous appeal. “Tara.”
“You have no business in my home, Baron. You know I don’t want to see you.”
“I came to save you from a monster much worse than the one you believed me to be.” He stood there, looking as handsome as he ever had, but she wasn’t moved in the slightest.
She just wanted him gone.
She rolled her eyes at his dramatics. “Godzilla?”
His jaw tautened. “Angelo Gordon.”
“My husband is not a monster. Get out of our home. Right now.” She called Maria’s name. “This man is about to leave. Please see him out.”
“Tara, you’ve got to listen to me. It’s for your own good.”
She totally ignored him and went back to her breakfast, shutting the terrace door on his voice.
She didn’t tell Angelo about the other man’s visit when she got to work because she figured later that night, when they were home, would be soon enough.
Looking scrumptious in a dark suit and pristine-white shirt, Angelo came into her office and asked if she wanted to join him for lunch.
She smiled up at him, wondering how much of what she felt for him glowed in her eyes. “I’d love to.”
“Great.”
They went to one of her favorite seafood restaurants and she was feeding a seemingly insatiable craving for rock shrimp in cocktail sauce when a shadow fell over their table.
“Tara.”
She looked up and barely stifled a groan of irritation. “What are you doing here?”
“You need to know the truth about your husband.”
“Go away, Baron.”
Angelo stood, towering over the older man menacingly. “Leave my wife alone, Randall.”
Baron backed up a step, but he didn’t leave. “Or you’ll do what? Ruin me?” He laughed, the sound hollow. “I’m already ruined and don’t think for a second I don’t know who is responsible.”
“You are responsible. Everything happening to you right now, you brought on yourself.”
What was he talking about? Baron was ruined? And he held Angelo responsible? “What’s going on?” she demanded.
“Does she know why you sought her out?” Baron asked, nodding toward Tara.
“Our relationship is none of your business,” Angelo bit out, sounding so feral, she shivered.
“Neat evasion tactic.” Baron sneered. “But since we both know you detest deceit of any kind, it isn’t going to work. Tell her the truth.”
“What truth?” But a sick suspicion was growing like a mushroom cloud after a nuclear explosion inside her. “Baron’s the man who seduced your mother, isn’t he?”
Angelo looked down at her. “Yes. I have more reason to hate the bastard than you do.”
Remembering all that he had told her, she could do nothing but agree. “Yes.”
But that told her nothing about how she fit into all of it and she was horrifyingly sure she fit somewhere.
Her agreement seemed to take Baron back for a moment, but then his expression turned ugly. “Maybe. But that means she’s going to despise you just as much for using her the same way.”
Angelo had used her? How?
“You’re way off base. Tara didn’t have a company I wanted so much I was willing to drive a woman to her death to get it.”
The words should have given her comfort, but there was too much tension in them for her to take them at face value.
“I didn’t kill your mother,” Baron snarled. “She was weak. She sold you out for a body to warm her lonely bed.”
Angelo punched him and Baron went down. “Don’t you ever speak of her like that. She was worth a hundred of you and her only weakness was her inability to see you for the selfish blood sucker you are.”
Baron got up, grabbing the table for support and then wiped at his now bloody lip. “You think you’re so damn good, but what you’ve done to Tara is no different. You used her to get what you wanted, didn’t you?”
Angelo ignored the other man’s accusation and put his hand out toward her. “Let’s go, Tara.”
She shook her head. She’d refused to listen to Baron twice now, but she wasn’t walking away from the accusations this time. Her husband had withheld the name of his enemy and now she knew why, but she wanted to know more. Like why Baron was so convinced Angelo was using her.
“What did I have that Angelo wanted?”
“The chance to get revenge on me.”
“I already had that,” Angelo said deridingly. Then he turned to her again. “It’s time to leave. Now.”
“But you wanted it all,” Baron said before she could react to the chilly command in her husband’s voice. “You wanted to take away everything I valued.”
“You didn’t value me. You dumped me.”
“Tara.” It was Angelo again. Demanding.
But she was done doing things his way. “Leave if you want, Angelo, but I’m not going until I have some answers. And right at this minute I don’t trust you to give them to me.”
Baron’s look of triumph almost changed her mind. “My marriage was temporary. I planned to come back to you and Angelo knew it.”
The man was unhinged and incredibly calculating. He’d married his wife planning to divorce her? Tara shivered in revulsion. “You’re not serious.”
But she had the awful feeling he was.
Deadly so.
“Oh, yes, very serious. Your precious husband went looking for you the minute his private investigator found out that I was still keeping tabs on you.”
The room suddenly felt too warm and dizziness washed over her as the full implication of what was being said hit her.
“You were keeping tabs on me? Like some creepy stalker?” She turned to Angelo. “And you knew about it?”
Angelo’s mouth set in a grim line. “He’s had you under surveillance since you broke up. His private investigator had instructions with the incentive of a bonus to squelch any romantic entanglements you might try to get into.”
She glared at Baron, ready to finish what Angelo had started. “Who do you think you are, the Godfather?”
“More like a man who doesn’t care who he hurts to have what he wants.” Angelo’s voice dripped acid.
“How did you know about it?”
“Hawk.”
“Your friend from the wedding?”
“His private investigator,” Baron replied before Angelo could answer. “Tell her how you bribed my private investigator to keep quiet about your relationship with Tara.”
“I can’t believe you’ve been watching me all this time. That’s illegal, you miscreant.”
He looked at her like he couldn’t comprehend why she was hung up on that detail. She could have told him if he asked. The truth that was being revealed about her husband’s pursuit of her hurt so much, she simply could not deal with it. She felt like a million little knives were shredding every happy emotion inside her.
“Tara, Angelo only went after you to get back at me.”
Angelo cursed, a word she’d never heard him use, forcing her to acknowledge his presence and the pain slashing at her insides.
She turned from Baron, dismissing him from her mind as if he no longer existed and faced her husband. “The first time we met…you used my report as an excuse to see me, didn’t you? You already knew who I was and what I had been to Baron.”
Angelo’s jaw set with rock like tension. “Yes.”
“I told you.”
The sound of Baron�
��s voice was like nails scoring a chalkboard on her nerves. She rose from her chair, her body vibrating with unbearable tension and fury, and faced her ex-lover and her husband.
“Listen to me closely, Baron, because this is the one and only time I’m going to say this.”
The look of smug satisfaction he’d been wearing disappeared at the tone of her voice.
“According to both you and my husband, he was aware of your bizarre efforts to keep track of me. That means that either he or Hawk has sufficient evidence to support charges being brought against you for stalking. Is that true, Angelo?” She asked the question without taking her baleful stare from Baron.
“Yes, stellina. True.”
She flinched at the endearment, but kept her gaze firmly fixed on Baron.
He had blanched, apparently finally coming to terms with the fact he had boxed himself into a dangerous corner where she was concerned.
“I want you to leave. I don’t ever want to hear from or see you again. If you ever attempt to contact me in any way or resume your pathetic little game, I will not only file both civil and criminal charges against you, but I will make darn sure your wife’s divorce attorney has all the evidence she needs to paint you in a light so deranged and amoral, you’ll be lucky to walk away from that marriage wearing socks under your shoes. Do I make myself clear?”
“Tara—”
“Do, I, Baron?”
“You’ve changed.”
“And you haven’t, but that’s not the issue, is it?”
“No, it is not,” Angelo answered, his voice colder than an Arctic wind. “The issue is that if Randall comes near you again, the picture you have painted for him will seem like the Elysian Fields compared to what I will do to him.”
“I’m leaving,” Baron gritted out, “but ask yourself if you should stay with a man capable of using you the way Angelo Gordon has.”
The parting words sent wounding shards into her already bleeding heart. She refused to give Baron the satisfaction of seeing her hurt, but what made it hard for her to even breathe was that no matter what sick motivation had prompted his revelations, he had been speaking the truth.
Angelo had used her to exact revenge against his enemy.
She didn’t mean anything to him. Not really. And that truth tore through her with all the emotionally destroying force of a level ten earthquake. She gripped the table rim in an effort to stay upright.
