by Lynne Graham
The man’s eyes widened, the irises so dark as to be almost black against his olive-colored skin.
Tess’s lips parted.
“Stefano?” she whispered, gripping the handle of the stroller for balance. “Is it really you?”
She knew those dark eyes. That handsome face. Those cruel, sensual lips. She knew every bit of him. She’d dreamed of him, day and night, for over a year.
“Tess,” he murmured.
His low, husky voice caressed the short syllable of her name. So he was real, then. He was real.
“You came back for me,” she whispered. Joy rose inside her, brighter than all the lights of Broadway and Times Square put together. “You came back!”
His jaw tightened. He looked down at her from his lofty height, his broad shoulders towering over her. “What do you want?”
What did she want? She wanted to throw her arms around him, to cry out her happiness to all the world. After a difficult year, with everyone mocking her, this proved that happy endings still happened as long as your heart was true and you had faith. She’d been right!
But, as Tess moved to throw her arms around him, Stefano stepped back from her.
Something was wrong. She bit her lip, bewildered. “I am so happy to see you. Did you just get back?”
“Get back?”
“To New York.” When he didn’t answer, she continued with a blush, “Our night together, you said that you had to return to Europe but you’d be back soon—”
“Oh. Yes.” His chiseled face was dark with shadow beneath his hard cheekbones as the lights of passing traffic moved past them on the avenue. “I’ve been in New York often this summer. And now for Fashion Week, of course.”
“You’ve been here all this time?” A chill went through her as her joy withered inside her. She whispered, “And you didn’t want to see me?”
Stefano frowned. His voice was a low baritone. “I liked you very much, Tess. It was an amazing night. But...”
“But?” she croaked.
Coming closer, he looked down at her, his dark eyes glittering. “But it was just a night.”
To him it had just been a one-night stand, nothing more? One night, easily enjoyed and easily forgotten?
Tess’s cheeks went hot as she remembered telling him in bed, in the hushed quiet before dawn with their naked bodies still intertwined, “I’m already falling in love with you.”
In her innocence, Tess had meant every word. She’d been intoxicated by sensual pleasure she’d never imagined. In just twelve hours, he’d given her the most intense happiness of her life, more emotion and joy and beauty than she’d known for twelve years before. If that wasn’t love, what was?
Now, looking at his coldly handsome face, Tess realized that her honesty had been a fatal mistake. Because when she woke the next morning, he’d been gone.
“Your Highness!” A young girl caught up behind him on the sidewalk. She was obviously a model—tall, slender, dark-haired and incredibly beautiful in a white dress that set off her dark skin. She held out a small notebook to Stefano. “You forgot this.”
“Thanks, Kebe,” he said gruffly.
She tossed her dark curls. “See you in Paris.”
She left in a perfect catwalk stride.
“Who was that?” Tess whispered.
“A friend,” he said. His dark eyes flicked briefly to the sleeping baby in the stroller behind her. “Well. It was nice to see you again.” His expression was cool. Courteous. Distant. “Goodbye.”
Pain and shock spread through Tess’s body, making her knees shake.
He hadn’t been looking for her.
At all.
He’d rejected her long ago. She just hadn’t known it till now. Stinging tears filled her eyes.
All this time she’d dreamed of him as a romantic hero who was desperate to return to her. The truth was that Stefano simply hadn’t wanted to see her again.
Over the last year, as Tess had dropped out of college to work full-time at her uncle’s bakery, struggling to provide and care for their baby, Stefano had been traveling the world, enjoying himself. In fact, it seemed he’d just been out on a date with a beautiful girl who looked barely eighteen. Whom he’d promised to see again in Paris.
Stricken, she looked at him with tears in her eyes.
Stefano’s expression hardened. “Tess, it was for the best.”
Wordlessly shaking her head, she backed away. For so long, she’d held out hope, imagining one perfect love brought by destiny, by fate. She’d remained faithful to Stefano’s memory, dreaming of the day her handsome prince would return on a white horse to whisk her and the baby to his castle.
But Stefano was no prince.
Her friends and family had been right.
Tess gripped the stroller for support as anguish and exhaustion punched through her.
They’d been right.
“Come now. Don’t act like your heart’s broken,” he said sharply. “How long did it take you to get over me? A few days?”
“How can you say that?” she whispered.
He looked pointedly at the baby in the stroller. “She’s yours, isn’t she?”
Yes. And yours. The words rose inside her, but got caught in her throat.
“And what about her father?” he demanded. “How would he feel if he knew you were here now, talking to me?”
“You tell me.”
“How would I know?” Reaching out, he cupped her cheek. For a moment, in spite of everything, she closed her eyes, shivering at his touch as a flash of heat pulsed through her.
Stefano dropped his hand. “Let’s not try to make more of our night than it was.” He glanced at the baby. “Obviously, you quickly moved on. So did I. Our night was enjoyable enough. But it was meaningless.”
Enjoyable enough?
Meaningless?
It was the final straw. She felt a flash of despair, the destructive kind that froze to the bone.
“Our night didn’t mean anything to you?” Heart in her throat, she whispered, “You changed my life.”
“Sorry,” he said coldly.
She felt the word like a bullet.
“Fine.” She closed her eyes briefly, shuddering. “We’ll survive alone.”
Knees shaking, she turned and walked away from him as fast as she could, away from her broken heart, from her shame that she’d so foolishly believed in the fairy tale. She fled the glittering lights of the Campania toward a shadowy side street, desperate to reach the far-off subway entrance, where she could sob in peace.
* * *
Prince Stefano Zacco di Gioreale stared after Tess, shocked by the jolt of her words, by the raw emotion he’d seen on her face and, most of all, by his body’s reaction to seeing her again.
Tess Foster was even more beautiful than he remembered. He’d lied when he’d said he’d quickly moved on. The truth was that he’d spent the last year trying not to recall her hauntingly lovely heart-shaped face, her red hair, her bright emerald eyes, her sweet pink lips. He’d tried to forget her lush body and the way she’d felt naked in his arms.
Most of all, he’d tried to erase the memory of her intense, heartfelt whisper the next morning. I’m already falling in love with you.
For the last year, he’d done his best to forget. He’d told himself he had. Still, when he’d returned to New York in July to preside over the launch of Mercurio’s flagship store, there was a reason he’d chosen to stay at the Campania Hotel rather than return to the Leighton, which had all those sweet, savage memories of their night together.
From the moment he’d first seen her carrying a tray of champagne at Rodrigo Cabrera’s cocktail party, he’d known he wanted her. He’d felt drawn to Tess in a way he’d never experienced before. Or since.
He’d made it his mission to seduce he
r. As beautiful and vivacious as Tess was, it had never occurred to him she might be a virgin. Not until it was too late, not until he’d already pushed himself into her, both of them gasping with ecstasy. His body shivered at the memory.
He’d felt guilty afterward, though. There was a reason he didn’t seduce virgins. They fell in love too easily and cloyingly imagined a future that bored Stefano to tears. He avoided them at all costs. Virgins didn’t know how to play the game. Play it? They often didn’t even know there was a game.
His worst fears had been proven true when, after the most spectacular sexual experience of his life, Tess had ruined everything with her outrageous declaration of love.
So he’d left. He took no pleasure in it. He would have preferred to see her again for many more sensual nights.
But she’d given him no choice. If she was already imagining herself in love with him after twelve hours, what would she do when he eventually ended their affair? Throw herself off the Empire State Building?
So Stefano had left. For her own good. He had nothing to offer a dreamy-eyed idealist with a heart full of love. Better to set her free immediately, before anyone got hurt.
The existence of the baby proved he’d made the right choice. Judging by the infant’s size, Tess couldn’t have waited long before she took another lover.
An image came to Stefano of another man taking Tess in his arms, doing exactly what he’d done, possessing her in furious, desperate need, in a hot tangle of limbs and sweat and pleasure. Scowling, he pushed the thought away.
At least Stefano had used protection. Obviously, the other man hadn’t been so careful. The unknown man had gotten her pregnant with his dark-eyed baby.
He was surprised Tess wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. He would have thought a romantic girl like her wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than happily-ever-after.
Stefano, a billionaire prince who’d been raised in a Sicilian castle, didn’t believe in such fairy tales.
But he couldn’t stop his eyes from watching Tess hungrily as her small figure disappeared down the dark street, her shoulders drooping and red hair flying as she pushed the stroller ahead of her.
Stefano’s hand tingled. Raising his hand, he looked at his fingertips beneath the hotel’s bright lights.
All he’d done was touch her cheek. That brief, simple touch had scorched his hand. All the emotion and desire he’d repressed for a year had suddenly roared into greedy life, burning him like a fire. Shocked, he’d dropped his hand.
As he watched Tess disappear down the block, he felt a new sense of loss. Why? Why did he still feel so drawn to her? He’d had beautiful women in his bed before. Why couldn’t he forget this particular one?
Stefano forced himself to turn away. It was better this way, he repeated to himself. He started to walk toward the hotel’s entrance. He stopped.
Something didn’t make sense. He frowned.
If Tess was so happy in her new relationship, raising another man’s child, why had she been so overjoyed to see Stefano? She’d looked at him like unicorns were dancing on rainbows. Like all her dreams had suddenly come true.
Our night didn’t mean anything to you?
He could still hear the tremble of her voice, still see the shadows cross her lovely, troubled face.
You changed my life.
And as she’d spoken she’d looked away.
Toward the stroller.
Toward her baby.
Her dark-haired, plump-cheeked baby.
“We’ll survive alone,” she’d said.
We. Not I.
A low growl came from the back of Stefano’s throat. Turning, he pursued her grimly down the street.
Even with his longer stride, it took him time to catch up with her. He reached her at the end of the dark street, almost at the edge of Times Square. Grabbing Tess by the shoulder, he forced her to face him as the colorful lights of the electronic billboards lit up the sky brilliantly behind her.
“Wait,” he ground out.
Tess had been crying, he saw. Her green eyes glittered like emeralds in her pale face. She lifted her chin fiercely. “Wait for what? For you?” She wiped her eyes. “What do you think I’ve been doing for the last year?”
Her voice was quietly accusing. Against his will, Stefano’s gaze fell to her full, pink lips, and lower still.
Tess’s hourglass figure should have been illegal in the modern world. Her flowy long-sleeved blouse was tucked into a midi pencil skirt, like a sexpot librarian. It showed her curves to perfection—her full breasts, tiny waist, and big hips a man could wrap his hands around. Her red hair tumbled over her shoulders, the color of roses, the color of fire.
She was different from any other woman he’d ever seen. He wanted her. Even more than before. More than he’d ever wanted any woman.
With all his relationships over the years, his mistresses always knew love wasn’t part of the equation. He only dated experienced, beautiful women he enjoyed having in his bed and on his arm. In return, they enjoyed his body, his prestige and the lifestyle he could provide.
If he was honest with himself, it had all grown rather tedious. Mechanical. He’d started to wonder which of them was using the other one more. Which was why he’d stopped having love affairs, even one-night stands, after his night with Tess. He hadn’t wanted any other woman.
Why? Why did he want only her? Was it simply because he knew she was forbidden? Surely he couldn’t be selfish enough to desire something only because he knew he couldn’t have it?
Even now, he found his gaze lingering on her full hips, her plump, generous breasts. Her colorful outfit, with its ridiculously whimsical fabric, set off her amazing figure. His eyes lifted from her breasts to her bare collarbone, up her swanlike throat to her lovely heart-shaped face.
Her pink tongue nervously licked the corners of her mouth. His whole body felt electrified. All he wanted to do was kiss her.
Clenching his hands at his sides, he forced himself to turn toward the dark-haired baby in the stroller. She was still sleeping peacefully, her old-fashioned, collared dress half-covered with a blanket, clutching a stuffed giraffe toy in her plump arms.
No. She couldn’t be. But even as Stefano told himself there was no resemblance, suspicion pulsed through his body, tightening his chest from his shoulders to his taut belly.
“Tell me about the baby,” he said.
“What do you want to know?”
“Her name.”
“Esme.”
“Her surname?”
“Foster, like mine.”
His jaw tightened. “And her father?”
Tess stared at him, then looked away, her lips pressed in a thin line. Groups of tourists walked by them on the sidewalk, laughing and chatting in bursts of different languages. She stubbornly refused to look at him, or answer.
“Tess,” he demanded, coming close enough to touch her, his tall, broad-shouldered form casting a shadow over her smaller one.
Colorful lights swept over her red hair like a halo, as Tess finally looked at him. Her green eyes were half filled with hope, half with anger, as she said in a low whisper, “You, Stefano.”
Copyright © 2018 by Jennie Lucas
ISBN-13: 9781488083648
The Greek’s Blackmailed Mistress
First North American publication 2018
Copyright © 2018 by Lynne Graham
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