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“So you don’t back out,” Lola said.
“So you don’t feel alone,” Tess said.
With a deep breath, Hallie squared her shoulders and went through the enormous revolving door into the lobby.
The Campania’s lobby was thirty feet high, gleaming with white marble floors and midcentury-modern furniture scattered around multiple fireplaces. One side held the long oak check-in desk, and at the very center of the lobby there was an elegant bar.
After going inside, Hallie stopped as well-dressed, wealthy guests passed them by on the busy summer evening.
“What’s the problem?” Lola said.
“Can’t you just go to his room?” Tess said.
“No,” Hallie said. “There’s security. You need a fingerprint on the elevator.”
“Call him, then.”
“I don’t have his direct number. We never really talked before...” She hesitated.
Lola scowled. “You were just the hired help, huh?”
Hallie looked down, her cheeks hot. Even when she’d worked for him, there were about fifty levels of supervisors between a maid and the billionaire owner of an international hotel conglomerate. She said weakly, “I can try to leave a message with his secretary, or—”
Her voice cut off with a gasp.
Cristiano had just come out of the elevator on the second floor, open above the lobby.
The reaction was immediate, as if he were a movie star on the red carpet. Heads turned, people whispered and gasped. His entourage followed in his wake as he made his way down the stairs to the ground floor—a gorgeous, pouting model at his side, with two assistants and a bodyguard trailing behind.
But, for Hallie, everything else became a blur. Even her friends were forgotten.
All she could see was...him.
Cristiano Moretti was broad shouldered, dark and powerful, outwardly civilized in a perfectly cut tuxedo, but with a five-o’clock shadow on his hard jaw and glittering black eyes that hinted at a ruthless, brutal soul. Looking at him, Hallie shivered, caught between longing and fear, overwhelmed by memory of the night he’d seduced her. The night her whole world had changed.
As a trusted maid at the Campania Hotel New York, she’d occasionally been assigned the enviable task of cleaning and tidying the Italian tycoon’s exclusive penthouse, used only when he was in town. Dusting pictures of Cristiano’s gorgeous face as he stood beside famous politicians and celebrities, Hallie had developed a serious crush. She’d actually imagined that Cristiano wasn’t just insanely handsome, he was also honorable and good.
Wrong.
She blinked now, looking at him. The way he smiled. So casual. As if he had not a care in the world. He was so arrogantly handsome, king of the world in his tuxedo, apparently off for a night on the town with a beautiful model. While she’d spent the last year struggling, looking for a new job when she was pregnant and trying to find a cheap place to stay in New York City.
For the last year, he’d been enjoying himself—swilling champagne, as Lola had said. He really had forgotten Hallie even existed.
As Cristiano turned to speak to the woman pouting beside him in a gold lamé minidress, Hallie breathlessly handed the stroller’s handle to Lola.
“Keep an eye on Jack.”
The blonde frowned. “The man will want to meet his own son.”
Hallie set her jaw. “I will tell Cristiano in my own way.”
“You’re being irrational,” Lola began, but Tess put her hand gently on Lola’s arm.
“Let Hallie do it.”
Hallie flashed the redhead a grateful look.
“Fine,” Lola said, drawing back stiffly.
