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“Want me to come up with you, Mr. Moretti?” his bodyguard asked.
Cristiano shook his head. “Tell Natalia I won’t be able to attend the gala after all. Give her my apologies.”
“Sure, boss.”
Cristiano continued into the elevator, with Hallie’s stroller dogging his heels. Once inside, he pressed his fingerprint against the hidden button for the penthouse.
As they rode the elevator to the top floor, she watched him anxiously. He tried to act casual, as if he’d held a baby before, but he felt awkward. Even three-month-old Jack seemed to be looking up at him in disbelief, as if trying to decide whether to cry or not.
“You’re doing it wrong. Hold his head like this,” Hallie blurted out, positioning the baby differently in his arms. She shook her head impatiently. “Just give him to me.”
“Forget it,” he said crisply. Jack was his son and, in some respects, until he secured her loyalty as his wife, Hallie was his enemy. There was no way he’d admit he didn’t know what he was doing or give the baby back to her care in a sign of weakness and surrender.
The elevator door slid open onto a small hallway with a grand door and a smaller, inconspicuous one farther down. The top floor of the Campania Hotel was devoted exclusively to Cristiano’s penthouse and terraces, with a small separate apartment for his bodyguard. He had a similar penthouse in his flagship hotel in Rome and smaller private suites in his hotels in Tokyo, Sydney, Rio, London and Berlin. He could have rented out the space to paying guests when he was away for an exorbitant amount, but he kept them to himself. Life was about little indulgences, or what was the point of being rich? A man, particularly a wealthy playboy, needed privacy.
Hallie followed him anxiously into the penthouse, as if she feared he might drop the baby. It was insulting. Especially as Jack gave a soft whimper in Cristiano’s arms.
“Give him to me—now!” Hallie said.
Keeping his expression inscrutable and moving with deliberate slowness to show her that he was doing it as his own decision, not hers, he carefully handed her their son. Leaving the stroller in the foyer, she clung to the newborn as if they’d been separated for days.
“You bastard,” she choked out. “Dragging us up here. It’s practically kidnapping.”
“Kidnapping?” He looked down at her coldly. “How about trying to steal my son from me for the rest of my life?”
Some of the anger in her gaze faded. “If you cared so much, you should have taken my calls when I was pregnant!”
He hated that she was right. With a low, bitter laugh, he turned away. “You remember your way around, I presume?”
She followed him into the enormous room with its starkly modern furniture and floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a magnificent view of the city’s sparkling lights. To the left, an open-concept kitchen had all the latest appliances, none of which he’d ever used. There was a reason he chose to live in his own hotels.
He looked back at her. Hallie’s cheeks were pink. He wondered if she was remembering when she’d cleaned here, as the maid. Or if she was remembering, instead, the night she’d helped him mess everything up again, tangling the bedsheets in a night of passion so hot it had burned past all barriers to create a child. A night he could never forget.
“Have a seat,” he said coolly even as he fought the flash of heat at the memory. He indicated the white sofa that overlooked the spectacular view.
She tossed her head. “No, thanks. I don’t intend to be here long enough to—”
“Sit down,” he said more forcefully, and glaring at him, she obeyed, cradling the fussing baby in her arms.
Cristiano sat down in the white chair beside the sofa. He didn’t need to see the city view; he knew it so well by now it bored him. He looked only at her.
“If Jack is truly my son, he belongs with me.”
She set her jaw. “You’re only saying that because I insulted your pride. You don’t really care about him.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Oh, you know that, do you? Because I’m an indecent excuse for a man? Because I couldn’t love someone if I tried?”
She had the decency to blush. “I’m sorry if that was rude. But it’s true.”
He restrained himself from tossing a few insults back in her face, insults she richly deserved. “You don’t trust me? Fine. I don’t trust you, either.” He looked down at the baby in her arms. “So from now on, my son is staying here.”
“No.”
“I will not allow him to disappear from my life just on your word that you’ll take good care of him.”
“And I won’t let you turn our lives upside down, just because I injured your masculine pride!”
That was all she thought it was? Controlling his temper, he took a deep breath.
