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Because Rose Delaney was having his brother’s baby. The Amanti heir. And Christos had spent his life in service to his family. He could and would not conceive of failing them again, not in any shape or form, and certainly not in as something as important as this. He needed to bring Rose—and, far more importantly, the child—back to Italy. Immediately.

He glimpsed her through the front window of the café, sitting down at a table with a huge mug and a plate of cake. He frowned. Was that really the kind of food she should be eating when she was pregnant? When they returned to Italy, he’d hire a nutritionist. Nothing could get in the way of a healthy child. A healthy heir.

“Signor?” Eduardo, his chauffeur, asked quietly, “What do you want me to do?”

“I’ll get out here.” Christos wasn’t eager to have some kind of confrontation in a café, but he was running out of time, and Rose Delaney seemed like the kind of person who might traipse all over Manhattan before she finally headed home. Besides which, confronting her in the privacy of her own home could, he acknowledged, be seen as threatening, and the lawyers he’d consulted had told him he was already on shaky ground. Any sign of coercion could go against him. Until he knew more about this woman, he needed to play his hand very carefully to make sure he got what he wanted—and needed. What his family needed, and in memory of Luca. He wouldn’t fail his brother a second time.

“I’ll text you when I need you back here,” he informed his chauffeur tersely. “Maybe in twenty minutes.”

“Very good, signor.”

Straightening the cuffs of his tailored suit, Christos surveyed the café and the woman in question sitting at the table in the window. She was scrolling on her phone, cup and cake momentarily forgotten, and the look on her face was thoughtful, touched with sorrow but with a tilt to her lips like she was keeping back a smile. She was, Christos was compelled to acknowledge, beautiful in an ethereal, offbeat kind of way. A heart-shaped elfin face, wide hazel eyes luxuriously lashed, and full lips that were now pursed as she stared down at her phone.

And that hair…long, light brown with a dozen different glints of gold, tumbling in riotous waves to her waist. It was the kind of hair that made a man think of a woman wearing nothing else but all those waves. Made him think of wrapping its curly tresses around one wrist and pulling that slender body swaying toward his.

Christos blinked, shocked by the sudden and unexpectedly carnal nature of his thoughts. That was not the kind of man he was. The kind of man he had, through focus and sheer force of will, chosen to be—one who did his duty and never followed his desire, for the sake of his family. No matter what the cost, because he had disappointed them enough in ways he couldn’t bear to think about, and he never wanted to do so again. He never would again, period.

It was time, he decided, to put his plan into action. Setting his shoulders, he strode into the café.

* * *

“Rose Delaney?”

Rose was just lifting a fudgy forkful of Cocoa Coma Cake to her lips when the sound of the man’s voice stilled her hand. It was smooth, assured, with a trace of a European accent—Spanish? Italian? Something Mediterranean and sexy that made her feel like shivering, despite the warmth of the day.

Startled, her gaze flew to the man standing by her table. Or really, looming, like a shadow cast over her. He was tall, dark, broad shoulders blocking out the sunlight streaming from the window. He smelled of pine and citrus, and he reminded her of a hero on the cover of a romance novel, save for the look on his face, which was decidedly cool, maybe even cold. Sharp cheekbones narrowed down to thinned lips. Golden-brown eyes narrowed too, to unfriendly slits, although his lashes were thick and dark. Muscles rippled beneath the expensive silk of his suit as he folded his arms in a gesture that felt aggressive but also made her curious. Who the heck was he?

“You are Rose Delaney?” he asked, a note of impatience sharpening his voice still in that sexy accent. Italian, Rose decided. Definitely.

“Yes…” she remarked, lifting her eyebrows playfully. “But who’s asking?” She popped the big bite of cake into her mouth and then regretted it, because as delicious as it was, it also gooey. She struggled to swallow it while the man looked down at his nose at her, imperious and gorgeous. Who could he possibly be, and how did he know her name?

With a hand that wasn’t quite steady, she lowered her fork to her plate.

“My name is Christos Amanti,” the man stated, almost as if that name should mean something to her, which it definitely didn’t. “I would like to talk to you privately about an important and urgent matter.”

Rose glanced around the café, looking for the camera crew filming this, because it had to be a joke, right? What could this stranger possibly have to talk about that was either urgent or important? Especially a stranger who looked like he did, like he’d just walked off a photo shoot or a high-powered business meeting or both. He looked like the kind of man who made a million dollars an hour and had a standing reservation at a Michelin-starred restaurant in every major city. Not that she knew people like that, of course. But she read about them in the tattered celebrity gossip magazines that were her guilty pleasure while waiting for the dentist.

But there were no cameras in the café that she could see, and she didn’t think this was some weird social media setup. So what was it?

“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to sound as genuinely polite and regretful as she could, “but I don’t know you…do I?” She gave him a teasing smile that seemed only to annoy him, his dark brows snapping together, his mobile mouth thinning all the more. “Because I think I’d remember meeting you,” she added. She swallowed a gurgle of nervous laughter, but a little slipped out, causing Christos Amanti to frown even more deeply. Even his glower was sexy. “I mean…that suit,” she explained, gesturing to his clothes, which seemed to only bemuse him more. And those shoulders, she added silently. Those eyes. Yes, she definitely would have remembered this guy. She shook her head, still smiling. “Sorry, but I really don’t think we know each other.”

“We don’t,” Christos Amanti replied curtly. “And I never said we did. Regardless of our acquaintance or lack thereof, there is still an urgent matter to discuss, preferably in private.”

Regardless of our acquaintance or lack thereof. He sounded like something out of a Jane Austen novel. It was kind of sexy, Rose mused, but as intrigued as she was, she wasn’t about to traipse merrily after this stranger to somewhere private. She might be foolhardy and even a little reckless, but she wasn’t stupid. At least, she hoped she wasn’t.

Pursing her lips, Rose made a show of glancing around the crowded café. “I think this is as private as we’re going to get, Mr. Amanti,” she told him. “So I hope whatever urgent and important thing you have to say to me, you can say it here.”

A spark of irritation flashed in his eyes, and his mouth compressed even further. “This is no laughing matter, Miss Delaney,” he told her, and now he sounded as severe as a schoolteacher.

“How would I know,” she tossed back, still smiling defiantly, “since I have no idea what it is?” Rose had the sudden, unsettling sense that getting on the wrong side of this man would not be a good idea…and maybe she was already there, which just reinforced her suspicion that it was probably not wise to go somewhere alone with him, handsome as he was. He was also intimidating as all get-out, and she didn’t particularly like feeling intimidated, even by sexy strangers. She’d chosen to meet the challenges and setbacks in life with a smile, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t come out swinging when she needed to.

“Whatever you might have to discuss,” she stated more firmly, “and frankly, I have no idea what that could be, it can be done here, in public, or not at all.” She tilted her chin up to meet his hard gaze, although the boldness of her stare was diminished by a strand of hair that fell right in front of her eyes. Instinctively she blew it away, and Christos Amanti’s lips twitched.

“Your hair,” he stated abruptly, “is ridiculous.”

What? For a second, Rose could only stare, and then she burst out laughing, which seemed to irritate Christos Amanti all the more, even as a small, reluctant smile tugged at his mouth. She liked seeing him smile, Rose realized. He seemed far too frowny a guy, someone who could definitely use a little lightening up. “You’re insulting my hair?” she asked with one last gurgle of laughter. “Really? The appropriate length of my hair is your takeaway from this frankly bizarre conversation?”

“There’s simply too much of it.” He gestured to the waves that went down to her waist. “No one has hair that long anymore. Or that…much.”