AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘I meant Aurora. I can save Aurora. Iwantto. Please let me help?’
Instead of relief she saw disbelief and it angered her, even though she knew it was deserved.
‘I think I’ll handle it from here on out,’ he replied, his words dripping with disdain.
‘Well, good luck with that,’ she replied, sarcastically.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he demanded, leaning back into his chair, even though instinctively she knew that he wanted to close the distance, to crowd her, dominate, and Amelia bit back a curse. Why did that set her pulse racing? Why did that determined look flare between her legs and make her ache with want?
She blinked and the moment was gone. While her heart rate settled to something as close to normal as possible, she gathered herself to answer his question.
‘You’ve only two options now. You give up the project or find another partner. Chapel Developments won’t touch you—their CEO doesn’t like to be considered second best. And yes, you could have another team at RI look through the project to see if they can find an alternative, but you don’t have time. The quotes, the projections, the contracts are all time sensitive. With the cost of materials changing near daily, you’ve got a month, at most, and that’s being generous. And you have no one that could vet an alternative partner and do the groundwork to build a relationship that could support the partnership in that time.’
‘No one other than you,’ he said, zeroing in on her point.
‘I know this project inside out. I know the players...and I know the substitutes.’
‘You have someone in mind.’
‘I do.’
‘Who?’
She stared at him as he waited for an answer. This was her only bargaining chip. This was her only chance to make a deal that would force him to listen to what she had to say. To what sheneededto say. This was the one and only time she would get to set the tone for her future, for their child’s future, and if she got it wrong, it would be disastrous for them all.
Dio, she was good. Glorious even. She had been made for the cut and thrust of the boardroom, of his world. Her mind was sharp, her intellect quick, and her confidence? He might not be quite sure about who she was half the time but no, that wasn’t fake at all. He was turned on. Not by her body, but byherand he hated it. Hated how dangerous and traitorous this woman truly was.
‘I will tell you, but I want something in exchange.’
He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was still somehow insulted and disappointed at the same time.
‘How much?’ He pushed the words through teeth he’d ground together.
She blinked as if shocked by his words and he begrudgingly had to admit, she was a very good actress. But she was an actress that was also going to be the mother of his child. The reminder cut through him like a knife.
‘How much what?’ she asked through pale lips.
‘Money? How much money do you want?’
The shutters came down and for a moment he thought that he might have it wrong. She turned around and looked out at the meadow her father had sold him all those years ago. She probably didn’t even know that it was that particular plot of land and perversely he wanted to keep that from her.
She looked away, her words spoken to him over her shoulder. ‘I don’t want money. I wanted a...détente.’
‘You want to make peace, while holding back the fix to a problemyoucreated?’ he demanded, wondering at the brass balls on the woman he’d got pregnant.
‘I wanted for us to try to start again without all this,’ she said, weaving a hand back and forth between them before shrugging her slender shoulders. ‘I wanted us to be able to have a conversation about what we’re going to do about our child, without wanting to tear each other raw.’ There was a helplessness in her eyes that he couldn’t deny—fake or not, and he was leaning towards the latter. ‘I wanted us to find a way forward that wasn’t destroyed by the past, but I can see now that’s impossible.’
Her breath caught, the old linen shirt she wore stretched across her chest, and he dragged his eyes away before he could be distracted by her again.
Our child.
Alessandro had done everything he could to honour the promise he’d made his father—he’d been so determined that his direct bloodline would end with him, that he’d never—not even once—allowed for any other possibility. He’d been happy with that. Welcomed it even.
But his child was growing within Amelia Seymore. A real child and deep within him something turned—years and years of determination and belief were twisting and morphing beneath the weight of something else. His child was here and no matter how he’d thought he’d feel in that moment, and he was feeling a lot, itwasn’thorror. Itwasn’tanger, or disappointment. As scary as it was, it felt something like hope. The hope that maybe he could do better, be better, than his own father. That he could provide his child with more than he’d ever had, with a better life than he’d ever imagined for himself. And now that determination to end his bloodline seemed petty in comparison to the feeling of protectiveness pouring through him with the power of a tsunami.
He looked back to where Amelia stood, shoulders slumped in defeat, breath almost painfully slow in comparison to what it had been only moments ago.
‘You want peace? You want to start again?’
