by Day Leclaire
Years before she’d formulated a plan for her life, one she finally implemented during her stay in San Francisco. She’d been so excited beforehand, seen the possibilities so clearly, without anticipating how her impulsive actions the night she met Draco would ultimately change her life. That had been brought home during those first two months in Europe when her longing for him had been keen and sharp. Months during which pain and loss outweighed the thrill of achieving her ideal job.
Oh, she loved translating for Derek. Adored her employer, one of the kindest, most understanding men she’d ever met. When she’d realized she was pregnant, he’d kept her on as long as he could. But eventually the whispers and suspicion that he’d fathered her baby had interfered with his business negotiations. Plus, the first five months of her pregnancy had been rough, her morning sickness closer to all-day sickness. Finally, she’d decided it simply wasn’t safe or healthy to be globe-trotting around Europe during her pregnancy. So, she’d returned home.
She refused to regret the sharp turn her life had taken thanks to that one night with Draco. Regrets weren’t part of her nature. And now, once again due to the man who held her so securely in his arms, her life was about to take another acute turn, one she didn’t think she could handle.
Draco tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear and she shivered at the touch. “What are you thinking?” he murmured close to her ear.
“About what will happen when we reach San Francisco,” she replied readily enough.
“Nothing very dramatic. I’ll take you home once Dr. Dorling is satisfied you’re stable. And then you’ll rest.”
She made a face. “That’s not what I meant.”
“We can discuss any other concerns tonight. There’s no hurry.”
“Yes, there is and you know it.” She rubbed her belly, felt the tautness. Knew the baby had dropped low in her womb, eager to escape the safety of its nest. “This cake is just about baked.”
She felt his chuckle against her cheek. “Did you just call our baby a cake?”
A reluctant laugh sighed from her. “I guess I did.”
He bent down and kissed her. Maybe if the kiss had been like before, hard and hungry and filled with a desperate edge, she’d have been able to resist. But it wasn’t. He soothed her with his taking, calmed her with gentleness, roused her with tenderness, branded her with a kiss that caused all others to pale in comparison.
“Well, that got her heart rate and blood pressure up,” Dr. Dorling observed. “You might want to save that until after we land.”
Reluctantly, Draco pulled away. His tawny eyes glittered like antique gold, filled with a want that echoed her own. “You think there’s a lot we need to resolve,” he told her in an intimate undertone, low enough that the doctor couldn’t overhear. “But that kiss tells me there isn’t as much to discuss as you might think.”
When she opened her mouth to argue, he shook his head. “Close your eyes, Shayla. Let go and sleep. We’ll worry about the future later.”
“We?” she murmured.
Naturally, he got the last word, something she was beginning to realize he excelled at. “Since it’s our future, it concerns the both of us.”
The quiet beep of the machines joined in tempo with the reassuring beat of Draco’s heart. It proved the perfect sedative, sending her off into an easy sleep filled with the most romantic of dreams about a dragon and a princess and sweet rescue. But it vanished like fairy dust the instant the pitch of the jet engines changed. She opened her eyes, blinking in confusion.
“We’re starting our descent,” Draco informed her. “We should be home in a little over an hour, depending on traffic.”
Home.
She assumed he meant his home and wondered how she’d feel about staying there. Like a guest? Like an intruder? She’d wanted her own place for more years than she could count, a nest she could burrow into and feather with the bits and pieces that would make it distinctly hers. Now that possibility grew less and less likely.
The minute they touched down at a small regional airport outside of the city, Dr. Dorling gave her a final examination. As soon as he cleared her, she thanked him for his time and assistance. He gave her the name of a colleague who agreed to take over her care from this point forward and expected her visit bright and early the next morning.
Draco handed the obstetrician a first-class ticket to Atlanta on a commercial flight and they all exited the plane. While the doctor headed off to San Francisco International Airport in one car, another car complete with driver, awaited to take them home—wherever that was.
“Sausalito,” Draco said, as though reading her mind. “Not far from Primo and Nonna.”
“I thought you lived in the suite where we—”
She broke off abruptly. Where they’d made love. Where she’d conceived their child, though she hadn’t known it at the time. Where she’d created a connection that continued even after all this time, gaining in strength with each passing day. But she couldn’t say any of those things aloud, not when the driver might overhear them.
“I don’t live at the suite,” he explained. “I just stayed at Dantes while my house was under construction. The designer put the last few touches on the place yesterday, so I haven’t seen the final product.” He smiled at her. “We’ll get to do that together.”
“I’ll enjoy that.” She hesitated. “Do they know about me?” she whispered, sparing the driver another uneasy glance.
Draco must have picked up on her concern because he leaned forward to give the driver directions to his house, then engaged the privacy screen. “It’s soundproof,” he reassured before picking up the conversational thread again. “I assume you mean, does my family know about you? No, not yet. I didn’t want to say anything until we’ve had time to discuss our options and make decisions about the future.”
“I guess you won’t be able to keep me hidden for long.” She touched her belly to include the existence of their baby. “Not if your family is as close-knit as you say.”
He appeared remarkably unconcerned. “I’m hoping it won’t take long to decide what’s best for the three of us.”
“You think that’s marriage.” No question there. He’d made that fact abundantly clear.
He lifted a shoulder in a casual shrug. “What can I say? It’s how I was raised.”
She glanced out the tinted window. She couldn’t argue the point. It was how she’d been raised, too. “There’s one serious problem with your plan.”
“Name it and I’ll see if I can’t solve it,” he replied promptly.
“Solve it,” she repeated. She swiveled to face him. “Fixing problems. Finding a way to make sure the roadblocks are removed so you can get from Point A to Point B. That’s a core part of your personality, isn’t it?”
He didn’t deny it. “It’s one aspect, yes. I also protect what’s mine and do whatever is necessary to recover what’s taken from me, whether that takes months.” A darkness flitted through his gaze. “Or years.”
She shivered, his expression shooting a chill of dread down her spine. “Is that what I am to you? A possession to be recovered?”
His voice deepened, roughened. “Recovering you is like recovering a missing piece of myself. Without you, I’m empty. And I suspect you are, as well.”
Her throat closed over and she stared at him mutely.
He cupped her face and feathered a kiss across her mouth. “More important, I’ll do everything within my power to protect you and our baby. To protect you, provide for you, to try to make you happy.”
Shayla snatched a deep breath. “And what about the roadblocks in our way?” To her relief, her voice sounded fairly normal, not revealing a trace of the hunger and longing that shot through her.
“What roadblocks?”
“Marriage, for one.” She steeled herself, then gave it to him straight. “How do you clear the roadblocks so we fall in love with each other? Because that’s the only reason I’ll marry you.”
> He froze, every scrap of emotion wiped from his expression. He didn’t reply. He simply reached for her hand and interlaced it with his, allowing The Inferno to speak for him. And speak it did.
The want roared through her, blistering hot and filled with urgent demand. It didn’t matter that she was heavy with his child or that they’d been parted since last summer. Whatever connected them, whether lust or something more, something she couldn’t bring herself to recognize, it hadn’t dimmed over time. She longed for him on every level, felt the tug at her heart and fought against the emotions threatening to entrap it. Whatever this feeling, it wasn’t love. After so short a time together that would be impossible.
“It’s just physical,” she insisted beneath her breath. “It isn’t real.”
“It’s a start,” Draco replied implacably. “For the sake of our child, we should give it a chance.”
She closed her eyes, exhaustion and worry sapping her energy. “You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me.”
She hated to strip bare the more painful details of her life, to allow someone to poke and prod indiscriminately at what she preferred to keep private. But Draco deserved that much. She focused on him, her emotions seeping free of her self-control.
“You’ve met my grandmother, so you can probably imagine how long and hard I’ve had to fight just to maintain my own identity, to keep from turning into her image of who Shayla Charleston should be.”
“It must have been difficult for you.”
She could see the bitter comments piling up behind that single, curt observation and appreciated his restraint. “Almost impossible,” she confirmed. “I couldn’t give an inch or she’d take the proverbial mile.”
“Sounds like Leticia.”
“Yes, well . . .” She twisted her hands together. “I lived at home while attending college. It wasn’t ideal since my grandmother knew my schedule and expected me to adhere to it.”
To her relief, he read between the lines. It wouldn’t have been difficult considering she’d been a virgin when he took her to his bed. “I imagine that had a serious impact on your social life.”
“I had no social life,” she admitted. “Living at home—or rather, with my grandmother—prevented me from enjoying the full college experience.”
“Then why do it that way?”
Shayla shrugged. “Because it was cheaper,” she said simply. “As a result, I formulated a series of goals for my future to help me get through college. I couldn’t implement them right away, but at least I had them. They were like shiny Christmas presents waiting for the right time and place to be unwrapped.”
He regarded her curiously. “Why couldn’t you unwrap them right away?”
Shayla sighed. “Grandmother spent the last of her money on sending me to college. She had dreams of her own. Dreams for rebuilding Charlestons and our chain of jewelry stores. I don’t know how she planned to finance it, since she hadn’t discovered the fire diamonds at that point. But I was supposed to run the business.”
“I gather that didn’t appeal to you?”
She shook her head. “That wasn’t the real issue. After everything she’d done for me, I’d have stepped up. I took the courses she requested so I’d know enough to tell a good stone from a bad and recognize a fake. Accounting and business courses, as well. But I don’t have the temperament for either, let alone management. And I have zero artistic flare. In other words, I’d be utterly useless helping to rebuild Charlestons. We’d have only ended up bankrupt again. It took a long time before my grandmother came to terms with that fact. To be honest, I’m not fully convinced she has even now.”
“What did you want to do instead?”
“I have a natural facility for languages, along with a desire to see other countries and experience their cultures. So, I made a trade with Grandmother. For every course she wanted me to take, I enrolled in one I wanted. My ultimate dream has always been to get a job overseas as a translator.”
“That would have taken you out from under Leticia’s thumb.” Draco pinpointed the problem with typical perceptiveness. “I assume she didn’t react well to the idea?”
“She exploded when I told her.” Shayla offered a wry smile. “I can understand. After all, there’s only the two of us left. Considering everything she’s been through, it made it all the more imperative I find a way to support us. She just objected to how I chose to go about it.”
His eyes narrowed. “Knowing your grandmother, she must have found a way to bring pressure to bear. Trowel on the guilt, good and thick.” He tilted his head to one side, analyzing, then smiled grimly. “She paid for your education. Used every last dime to her name. She’d lose the mansion if you didn’t succeed as a translator. How am I doing so far? Close?”
“You are really good,” Shayla marveled. “That’s exactly what she said. So I spent the next three years working nonstop in order to pay her back. And I postponed my own plans. When she announced our diamond mines weren’t depleted after all, that a surveyor had not only discovered more, but even better, they contained fire diamonds, I saw my opportunity to pursue the career I always wanted.”
“A serious miscalculation on Leticia’s part. That’s not like her.”
Shayla smiled. “She did raise the idea of reopening Charlestons with me once again until I forced her to accept the futility of her plan. I’m simply not competent to run the business. Approaching Dantes was the compromise. It would provide her with the money to revitalize the mansion and keep her comfortable for her remaining years. And it would allow me to find the job of my dreams, which I promptly did.”
“All of this went down before we met?”
Shayla nodded. “I updated my passport and applied for a number of positions that offered travel abroad. I was thrilled when the one I wanted the most panned out. Derek needed someone who could leave the country almost immediately. I told my grandmother about it right before I boarded the plane for San Francisco.”
“When were you scheduled to leave the country?” he asked in a neutral voice.
She forced herself to meet his gaze, even though she’d have preferred to look anywhere but. “The same evening as our date.”
“Why?” He ground out the question, anger reverberating through that single word.
She didn’t prevaricate, but told him the truth. “Because I didn’t want you to try to stop me.”
“Could I have?”
Lord, give her strength. She closed her eyes against the demand in his. Could he have stopped her? Without question. All it would have taken was a single kiss. Kiss? A single look. A single touch, Inferno to Inferno. When it came to Draco Dante, she had zero self-control.
He was waiting for her response and she gathered herself sufficiently to give it to him. “Suffice to say, I wasn’t willing to risk the possibility,” she replied, neatly sidestepping the issue. “By the time you realized I was gone, I’d be on my way to Barcelona with Derek.” He wouldn’t like this other part, either. “There’s more.”
He grimaced. “Might as well put it all out there.”
She twisted her hands together, aware that when she finished he wouldn’t press for marriage any longer. In fact, she’d be lucky if he didn’t just pitch her out of the car, altogether. “My plan contained three parts, goals I wanted to achieve before I turned twenty-five. The first was to find the job of my dreams.”
“Enter Derek. Check.”
“The second was to provide for my grandmother by offering your family the lease to our mines.”
“Meet with the Dantes. Double check.” His eyes narrowed, amber hard. “And the third?”
“I turned twenty-five the morning after we met,” she began before trailing off. She wanted to just say it, to get it out there and over with, but she found she couldn’t. Her breath escaped in a slow sigh.
It only took Draco a moment to catch on. “That’s why you slept with me?” Outrage underscored the question. “You planned to lose you
r virginity before you turned twenty-five?”
She shook her head. “No!” She flinched. “Well, yes. But not the way you think.”
“And I was just the lucky guy you chose?”
Did he have to make it sound so lurid? “You don’t understand,” she tried again. “It wasn’t about losing my virginity.” How did she explain? “I wanted, just once, to experience a wild, passionate affair. To be swept off my feet and have a single night of pure romance.”
“In other words, it could have been any man at the reception that night, even one of my relatives. I was simply the luck of the draw.” A muscle leaped along his jaw, warning he held on to his temper by a mere thread. “It had nothing to do with The Inferno or who I was as a person. You just wanted to sleep with someone before jetting off with good ol’ Derek.”
A wave of humiliation sent heat streaking across her cheeks while tears pricked her eyes. She fought them back, fought for composure. During the planning stages, having a one-night stand had sounded intrepid, romantic even. Something so out-of-character that she hadn’t dared consider it while living in her grandmother’s home. Unfortunately, she’d become the poster child for the consequences of illicit sex, even with protection. They might as well slap a photo of her, along with her giant belly, on all the high school walls in the country as a warning. This could be you!
“To be fair, I don’t think you were too concerned about who I was as a person, either,” she pointed out. “Not at first.”
“In other words, if you’d known I was a Dante beforehand, you’d have tumbled into some other man’s bed that night.”
The tears she’d been holding back through sheer force of will overflowed. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say. I wanted to be honest with you so you’d understand why marriage is out of the question. You don’t love me anymore than I love you.”
