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The spacious lobby was all wood, dark fabric and glass, giving the impression of old-world money and cool elegance. Naturally this was the kind of place Gio would stay. Looking around, she spotted the bar and headed for it. She was right on time for this meeting, and she didn’t want to be here any longer than she absolutely had to.
The elegant bar held a luxurious hush. A long mahogany bar stretched along one side of the room, and a dozen or more small round tables dotted the gleaming wood-plank floor. Her gaze swept the room, and since there were only a handful of people in the room, she spotted Gio instantly. He had a table in the back, in a shadowed corner, and Naomi sighed. If he thought this was some kind of assignation, he was in for a disappointment. The only reason she’d agreed to meet him was that she wanted to look him in the eye and tell him to get lost.
Gio had been a blip in her life. A moment out of time in her past. He had no part in her future, and that was what she’d come to tell him. As she approached, her heels tapping on the floorboards, he noticed her, and Naomi stiffened in response. She still couldn’t believe she’d been foolish enough to spend the night with the man, but in her defense, just look at him.
Not as tall as Toby, Gio had long jet-black hair, blue-green eyes and always just the right amount of beard scruff on his cheeks. He wore black slacks, a cream-colored silk shirt and looked, as always, very self-satisfied. The man was gorgeous, but he was as deep as a puddle.
“Bella,” he crooned as he stood to meet her, “you are so beautiful.”
“Thanks, Gio.” She avoided the kiss he aimed at her cheek and pretended not to notice his clearly false look of hurt and disappointment.
“Can I get you something to drink?” he asked, already signaling to the waitress.
“No, thanks.”
He waved the waitress away again as Naomi took the seat opposite him at the small round table. She glanced around the room, making sure she didn’t know anyone there, then focused on Gio again. Waiting.
“I’m so happy you came to meet me,” he said and managed to look both pleased and disappointed.
“Gio,” she said, “I don’t know what this is about, but I’m only here to tell you I don’t want anything from you—except,” she added as she had a brain flash, “to have you sign away your parental rights to the baby.”
“Sì, sì,” he said, waving his hand as if erasing the very thing she’d just asked for. “We will speak of all this. After we speak of something else...”
Okay, so it wasn’t the baby he was interested in. No big surprise there, after the way he’d reacted when told he was going to be a father. So what had brought him all the way from Italy?
The room was quiet, and so was Gio’s voice. He leaned toward her across the table, and Naomi had a moment to really look at him and wonder how she could ever have been attracted to the man in the first place. He was handsome, but in a stylized way that told her he spent a lot of time perfecting his look. The just long enough hair, the right amount of scruff on his face, the elegant, yet seductive pose he assumed, half lounging in the chair. He couldn’t have been more different from Toby.
Toby was a man comfortable enough with himself that he didn’t need to set a scene so that a woman would admire him. All he had to do was walk into a room and his confidence, his easy strength, would draw every woman’s eye.
No, there was no comparison between Gio and Toby. And now all she wanted to do was wrap this up and get back to the man she loved.
“The baby is growing, yes?”
Hard to miss that, she thought, since her top clung to the rounded curve of her belly. And as if the baby was listening, it gave her a solid kick, as if to say Let’s get out of here, Mom. Go home to Dad. She smiled at the notion, and Gio smiled back, assuming her expression was meant for him.
Shaking her head a little, she said, “Yes. Everything’s fine. And no, I don’t need anything from you, Gio. I’m getting married, and he will be my baby’s father.”
Gio tapped one manicured finger against his bottom lip, then gave her a reluctant smile. “Yes, I have heard of your marriage plans.” When she looked surprised at that, he shrugged. “Gossip
flies across oceans, too, bella. You have the marriage with a very rich man. I wish you well.”
Frowning now as a ribbon of suspicion twisted through her, Naomi said, “What are you getting at, Gio?”
“Ah, so you are in a hurry. Che peccato—what a shame,” he translated for her. “All right, then. I will sign your paper for you—”
“Good. Thanks.”
“—if,” he said, “you are willing to do something for me.”
A cold chill swept along her spine, twining itself with the suspicion and quickly tangling into greasy knots that made Naomi shiver in response. Gio’s eyes were fixed on hers, and she saw the speculative gleam shining in their depths.
“What do you want, Gio?”
“Ah. We will be businesslike, yes?” He smiled, and she saw briefly the man she’d slept with before he disappeared into a sly stranger. “Bene. We will be frank with each other. Is best.”
“Then say it.” She folded her hands together on the table in front of her and kept her gaze fixed on him.
“I will be quiet, bella, about being your bambino’s daddy,” he said with a wink, “if you agree to finance my next film.”
