A Facade to Shatter(28)

It wasn’t quite true, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. She wasn’t sorry for the two nights they’d spent together. She wasn’t even sorry about her baby. She was sorry for the way it had happened, and for the man it had happened with. Why couldn’t she have chosen a good Sicilian man for her night of rebellion? A single, sexy Sicilian who had no hang-ups about women and their motives.

Even as she thought it, she knew she didn’t really want that, either.

“For your information,” she continued, “I did not set out to ‘trap’ you. That is the most arrogant, conceited, unbelievable thing you have said yet. No one forced you to do what you did in Palermo. No one forced you to take that risk.”

His expression was dark. “No, you’re right about that. No one forced me. It was a mistake, and I was stupid enough to make it.” His eyes slid over her, came to rest on her face again. “Everything about those two days was a mistake.”

Lia tried not to let that hurt her, but she didn’t quite succeed. It stung her in places she’d thought she’d locked away long ago. “Well, now that we have that out of the way, I think it must be time for the dessert course.”

She turned her back on him and started down the hall, back toward the dinner. Tears pricked her eyes. Angry tears, she told herself.

Zach’s hand on her elbow brought her up short. She whirled around and jerked out of his grip.

He was a dark, brooding presence. “Look, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” He shoved a hand through his hair, blew out a breath.

Lia glared at him steadily. “I did not trap you, Zach. I’d like you to admit that.”

His expression remained dark. “Fine. You didn’t trap me.”

“And what about not believing I was telling the truth? Are you going to admit you were wrong about that, too?”

His eyes gleamed. “No.”

She stiffened. “Of all the rude, arrogant—”

“What reason did I have to believe you?” he said heatedly. “We’re strangers, Lia, regardless of what happened in Palermo.”

She swallowed against the knot of anger and pain clogging her throat. But she knew what he said was true. Would she have believed a story like hers if she were Zach? Considering his previous experience of women, perhaps not.

“I will concede that point,” she said coolly, though her heart beat hot at the admission. “But I don’t like it.”

He reached for her hand, slipped it into his. Her entire body went on red alert just from that simple touch. She wanted more of him, more of what they’d had in Palermo. And yet she knew that was the last thing she should want. The very last. They had an arrangement in name only, to protect their families, until such time as they could go their separate ways and not cause a scandal.

She had to remember he didn’t truly want this child. Or her.

She tried to pull her hand away, but he held it tight.

“Darling, we’re returning to the event,” he chided her. “We have to look happy together if they are to believe our whirlwind romance.”

“I’m not very good at pretending,” she said stiffly.

He tugged her closer. “Then I will have to give you a reason to smile,” he said, slipping his hand around to the small of her back and pressing her against him. He pulled the hand he’d trapped up to his chest, pressed her palm against the smooth fabric of his tuxedo.

“There is nothing you can do to make me smile, Zach,” she said, though her heart beat harder and faster as the look in his eyes changed. Heat flared in their dark depths and her body responded by softening, melting. She held herself rigid, unwilling to give in to the feelings swirling inside her. Feelings that wanted her to tilt her head back and offer her lips up for him to claim. “I want you to let me go.”

His eyes were hooded as they dropped to her mouth, and a shot of adrenaline pulsed into her veins.

“I will,” he murmured. “But not quite yet.”





CHAPTER SEVEN



ZACH WAS ON the edge of control. Not in a way that made him sweat as helpless panic rose in his throat and threatened to squeeze the life from him. But he had a need to dominate. A need to take this infuriating woman to his bed and not let her out of it for several hours.

Not until she sighed her pleasure into his ear. Not until she gasped out his name the way she had in Palermo. Sweet, innocent Lia. He wanted to taste her again. Wanted to know if she was as sweet as he remembered. As intoxicating.