AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘So there is to be no more riding.’
‘You can’t stop me, Dante.’
‘Actually...’ he smiled that black smile ‘...I can and I will have the horses moved this afternoon unless you give me your word that you won’t ride again.’
‘Very well,’ Mia said. ‘While I’m staying here, I shan’t ride. However,’ she added, ‘if you question this pregnancy again, I’ll walk. It took enough guts to tell you without you accusing me of making it up.’
‘I did not accuse you. In fact, I can see now that there are changes.’
He could see the swell of her bust in her T-shirt, and now he held her in his hands he could feel a fleshiness to her hips. It was turning him the hell on.
She was flushed in the face and he wanted to claim that pouting mouth, to slide down the zipper of her jodhpurs and feel her heat, but there was just one thing stopping him: now, when he had her, right in his arms, with her face staring up at his, he would test her reaction and hewouldget to the truth.
Andthenhe would explore those changes.
‘I just came from Roberto,’ Dante said.
‘Did he tell you to arrange a DNA test?’ She gave a mirthless laugh, whilestillwanting his kiss. ‘You’re all so predictable.’
‘No, no,’ Dante said. ‘Roberto said there was no way you could be pregnant. In fact, he was most insistent.’
‘Dante...’ She was getting annoyed, and was about to brush off his hands but stilled when he spoke next.
‘You see, he did not know then that I was telling him the baby was mine. He did not know you were just three months pregnant; he did not know anything, in fact, except he stated that the baby could not be my father’s.’
‘I don’t see where you’re going with this...’ Mia swallowed, and he watched her carefully; he saw too the wary dart in those gorgeous blue eyes as she tried to come up with a response. ‘Clearly Roberto knew that the marriage was...’ her voice trailed off.
‘Was what?’ he persisted.
‘For money.’
‘Why, though?’ Dante pushed. ‘I don’t doubt you were in it to make a quick buck, and I accept that my father was ill, and might have been unable...’ He still could not go there either in conversation or in his head. ‘But what Idon’tget is why his lawyer would know that.’
She was struggling to breathe and again she thought of that childhood game as Dante veered closer to the truth.
How hot you are, how hot you are...
He loomed over her with the sun behind him, the devil in black, but even as he neared the truth she did her best to divert him ‘Perhaps Roberto had to know what might happen if I were to get pregnant. It would have been a messy estate indeed, as we both know.’
‘Mia, you’re lying to me,’ Dante said. ‘Over and over you lie to me, and you’re doing it again.’
‘Dante...’ She loathed that she had no choice but to lie. ‘I’m not.’
‘Then why is your pulse racing beneath my fingers?’ he said. ‘Why are you trembling, Mia? And not in the way you were a few moments ago?’
‘I’m not,’ she said again, not knowing what to say to him.
‘Will you tell me what you know?’
Mia wanted to.
Oh, how she wanted to, but promises had been made and paid for, and what she knew might well blow this family apart.
‘Mia,’ Dante said again, his voice low with threat, ‘will you please tell me what the hell went on between you and my father?’
‘No!’ she said, her voice choked with the threat of sudden tears, for she did not know how she could carry this secret and forge any chance of a future with Dante at the same time.
And it was there, at that very moment, that Mia knew a future with Dante was what she wanted.
