She sat on the wide bench seat in the centre of the compartment. He didn’t. He stared down at her from his imposing height.
‘I need you to repeat what you said a couple of minutes ago.’
She’d spoken before thinking. She still wasn’t thinking and she really didn’t want to believe—
‘Do you think or do youknow?’ he gritted impatiently.
She gripped her hands together. ‘I don’t know. I just…’
‘Know?’he said softly. Sceptically.
She pressed her fists to her stomach. Her breasts were more tender, which could be premenstrual, but she counted back and she was more than alittlelate. She suddenly stood. She needed to get out of here. She needed to process this alone. But the world’s fanciest Ferris wheel was taking forever to spin all the way around. She glanced at the stunning skyline before looking to the brightly lit track below. Five kilometres of high-speed circuit. She would give anything to be in a car right now, racing at such high speed there’d be no room to think about anything else.
‘And you think it’s mine?’ Massimo asked even more sceptically.
She turned and stared at him vacantly. Of course it was his. Why was he asking that…?
Oh. She suddenly felt winded.Wounded. All these weeks she’d been pining—thinking, hoping,dreamingthat he felt a little bit the same every time he saw her at work. That he watched her, wanted her, thought of her the way she did him. But no. He’d been entertainingprincessesand who knew who else.
Right. But it felt sowrong.
She supposed she couldn’t blame him for thinking there might be alternatives given she’d slept with him after a five-minute conversation. For all he knew, she’d slept with a different stranger every other night since that flight. He probably had. He liked to move fast. She was shockingly miserable at the thought.
‘There are no other possibilities?’ he added, twisting the knife.
‘Not that I can think of right now.’ Her words were strangled.
He was the only man she’d had sex with in the past five years.
He didn’t seem pleased about it. His eyes narrowed. ‘If you’ve had symptoms for a while, why haven’t you done a test? It’s weeks since that flight from Canada. Surely, you’ve checked?’
‘I’ve been busy. I thought…’ She’d been hiding fromherself—burying in long workdays and late study, then sleeping like the dead. She’d been trying everything not to think of him and those few hours they’d shared, trying to ignore the achy yearnings of her treacherous body. And she’d been such afool—because he’d clearly not been thinking of her at all.
Like her family didn’t think of her. Or her ex. Or anyone.
‘So we’re having a baby.’
She closed her eyes to buy herself some emotional distance and hurriedly reconstruct her spine. Shedesperatelyneeded more defence.
‘Lily?’ He sounded so much closer.
She blinked and stepped back to the window. Turned to look out it to hide her distress. The lights were dazzling. Everything outside was slowly spinning, but inside her panic was increasing. Her heart hammered off beat and too fast. She was unable to focus properly, because now he was near and her weak body just wanted. Horrified by his apparent irresistibility,flippancywas her only self-protection.
‘I guess we burned through the rubber,’ she murmured. ‘Got a puncture. Lost control and spun out on turn one.’
She turned to read his expression and found him right in front of her. Icily serious. Right. It was hardly the time to be making weak P1 puns.
‘What’s your strategy here?’ he asked, not just cool, frigid.
She shivered, unwilling and unable to face the full implications of this mess. She didn’t want to deal with it. She just wanted to forget everything, bury her head in bliss. And here he was—hersourceof bliss. She tried to brake but her body was feeling everything too fast—melting in that inexorable slippery slide towards him. Sexual magnetism at its most extreme. Hormones? Not only those. She’d wanted nothing but him for weeks and now he was close enough to kiss her and she desperately, dreadfully wished he would.
‘Lily?’
They were toe to toe but she yearned for him to step closer still. She had to hold herself utterly still as inside, shooting sparks of attraction spiralled through to her core—to where she was hottest. Hungriest.
His impatience grew more visible the longer she remained silent. ‘What is it you think you’re going towin?’
In a vague corner of his stunned brain, Massimo knew he shouldn’t use his size to dominate her petite stature. Nor should he feel this roaring satisfaction at having some small semblance of power over her, but he was too furious to give a damn. He needed the advantage in this one wild second as proprietary—predatory—instinct flared. Was she pregnant? Because if she was…Ifshe was…
