Page 143

He muttered something in Italian under his breath and then swung hard away from her, almost as if he were disgusted by her inexperience. Rose felt herself shrink inside, but she did her best to stand straight. Rejection, whenever it came, in whatever form, always hurt, and always more than she expected it to, considering how often she braced herself for it.

“I just thought you might want to know,” she said to his back, although she was wondering why she had. It was her body, her choice, wasn’t it? And yet right now it felt as if that choice had been taken away from her. “Christos…?” she prompted uncertainly when he still stood with his back to her. “Why…” She forced herself to ask the question, as vulnerable as it made her feel. “Why does it feel like this somehow changes things?”

“Because it does,” he replied shortly. He turned around to face her, his features now set in obdurate lines. Their moment of mind-blurring passion was clearly over, even if Rose’s body was still tingling. “I knew we were making a mistake, but not that big of a mistake.” He shook his head slowly. “Are you really saying you’ve never been with a man?”

“Been in the biblical sense?” she quipped, and then sighed, an impatient huff of breath, trying to hide that the painful rejection was making everything inside her cringe and wilt. “Christos, why does this have to be a big deal?”

“Surely you know the answer to that, since you saw fit to inform me of your innocence,” he replied crisply, before he sighed, seeming to deflate a little as he shook his head. “Rose…you are a lovely woman, and as you said, we share an attraction. An intense attraction that I…find difficult to resist.” He gave her a crooked smile that went a small way toward appeasing her, although she still felt the painful sting of his obvious and imminent rejection. “I cannot take your innocence,” he stated, “in what we both know would have to be, by the very nature of our situation, a purely physical and short-lived transaction.”

She raised her eyebrows as she folded her arms across her breasts in a defensive gesture. “Even if it’s my decision?” She cocked her head, wanting to seem merely wry. “You’re sounding kind of sexist right now,” she remarked.

“I might be,” he acknowledged evenly, “but it’s also sensible. We both knew this was a mistake, but I thought it was one whose consequences you understood—”

“What consequences?” Rose flung at him as she gestured to her small bump. “Unintended pregnancy is obviously not a possibility.” She couldn’t keep the hurt from her voice now, along with the humiliation, because no matter how he tried to frame it, he was still the one who was walking away. And she, meanwhile, was the one basically trying to argue him into sleeping with her. How completely mortifying. She needed to stop right now.

Christos’s face darkened as his gaze fell to her bump, barely visible beneath her loose sundress. “Which is another reason this would have been a mistake,” he told her. “You are carrying my brother’s child, my family’s heir. We do not need to complicate the situation any further than it already is.” He hesitated as if he wanted to say something else, but then he just shook his head. “You should get some sleep,” he told her with a meaningful nod toward the wide double bed that just a few moments ago had been intended for an entirely different purpose. Then he turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him with a decisive click.

Rose looked around the elegantly appointed bedroom, all of it done in shades of cream, feeling like an unruly child who had been sent to her room. She knew, if she forced herself to be logical, that what Christos had said made sense. Some small part of her was even relieved, suspecting that she could not handle the emotional fallout of a no-strings affair, even if her body was still buzzing from his touch.

Even if she wished he had held her tenderly, and kissed her again, and told her she was rocking his world? This might have felt like a fairy tale, being swept away by the handsome prince, but that didn’t mean it had a happy ending.

Fighting back sudden tears, Rose lay down on the bed, curling up into a ball, her knees tucked to her chest, or as close as they could be, considering her bump. She felt a wave of homesickness sweep through her, although she didn’t even know what she was missing, only that she felt its lack in every fiber of her being.

For a few intoxicating minutes, she’d felt alive and desirable, wanted in a way she never had been before, and walking away from that—far worse, having Christos walk away from her—was a cold and lonely feeling, reminding her of just how alone she was in this world, and how much she wanted not to be.

A shuddery sound escaped her, and she closed her eyes against the hot press of sudden tears. She cradled her bump with her hand, drawing comfort from the life nestled within. She wasn’t alone, she told herself, even if right now she felt more so than she ever had before.

Chapter Twelve

Christos expelled a shaky breath as he walked away from the closed bedroom door—and Rose. He went right to the decanter of whiskey left out in the main cabin and poured himself a double shot that he tossed down with gritted teeth.

He could not believe how close he’d come to making a phenomenally huge mistake. If Rose hadn’t confessed her innocence…they’d be tangled up together on that bed right now, wrapped in her golden-brown tresses…

For a second, he let himself imagine it—Rose’s soft and pliant body, all that lovely hair, the little gasps she’d made when he’d touched her…

Then he poured himself another whiskey.

It was better this way. He knew that, of course, even if right now, with his body still blazing with unsatiated desire, he didn’t feel it. If he and Rose had slept together, the custody of her child would have become far too complicated. What if, when things had invariably ended, she’d become hurt, even heartbroken, and decided to leave, along with her baby? It was, he knew, an all too likely outcome, and one he could not believe he had risked, all for a few moments of stolen pleasure.

And yet what a few moments they would have been…

It hadn’t just been the physical pleasure that had blurred his brain and made him take temporary leave of his senses. It had been the connection he’d felt to her, one that kissing her had only made stronger.

Swearing under his breath, Christos tossed back his second whiskey and then spun away from the table to stare blindly out the cabin windows at the starless night sky. He felt a tumult of emotions, from self-recrimination at his own recklessness to an uneasy sympathy and even affection for Rose, something he knew he could not let himself feel, considering the circumstances.

And yet he felt it and knew it was already coloring his perception not only of her, but her future in his life, as well as his family’s. Before he’d met Rose, it had seemed so simple. Find the woman, make a deal. “Everyone has a price,” he’d told his mother. “You just have to know what it is…and be willing to pay it.”

But now not only did he think Rose didn’t have a price, but he didn’t want her to know that he’d once thought, or at least hoped, she did. The fact that he cared what she thought of him felt like a weakness; family first had always been his motto, his creed…and yet, in a strange way, Rose felt like family. He felt as protective of her as if she truly was.

Which made everything a lot more complicated, even when they’d hadn’t made that big and so very tempting mistake. He’d been warning Rose about not letting her emotions become engaged, Christos reflected uncomfortably, and his already were. Humiliatingly so.

This situation was threatening to become very messy indeed, not just for Rose’s emotions but his own, a realization that made him even more determined to claw back his usual cool-headed control…and distance himself from feeling this kind of attraction and affection for the mother of the Amanti heir.

The next few hours passed in a blur of catching up on work, as he knew sleep would elude him. An hour before they were scheduled to land in Milan, Christos tapped once on the bedroom door and then opened it to find Rose curled up one side of the double bed, her hand tucked under her cheek like a child’s.

For a second, a wave of tenderness threatened to engulf him. Then he resolutely pushed it back. He’d had enough of feeling things for Rose Delaney today…or any day.

“Rose.” He spoke gently, and she didn’t stir. “Rose.” Louder this time, and he took a few steps toward her. Her eyelids fluttered, and she blinked at him sleepily.