His Royal Love-Child (10 page)

His big hands clenched into fists. “I do not want to lose you.”

She shook her head, the pain of the truth crushing in its intensity. “You already have.”

“I will not beg.”

“I would never expect you to. What I do expect is for you to respect me enough to leave my home when I ask you to.”

He drew himself up, stiff and erect. “So be it. We can talk after you have had a chance to calm down.”

“There isn’t anything left to say between us.”

He pulled her to him and kissed her with a tenderness that she could not combat. When he was done, she was clinging to him. “I think you are wrong. I think we still have a great deal between us.”

“Sex?
It isn’t enough, Marcello. It never could be.”

But
he didn’t answer. He merely put her from him gently and left.

She crumbled to the floor and sobbed her heart out as the enormity of her loss washed over her. She cried so long and so hard that she lost her voice, and the next morning she called in sick to work. He called her mid-morning and once she recognized his voice, she hung up the phone and then unplugged it. Her cell phone chirped and she turned it off, too.

She plugged the phone back in later that afternoon and called Tara. She told her everything and her friend was threatening bodily harm to Marcello ten minutes into the phone call.

“I just wish it didn’t hurt so much.”

“I understand, believe me, but Marcello was right about one thing…it hurts less when you don’t have to share the pain and humiliation of a breakup in the public eye.”

“It’s a good thing we kept everything secret, then, because if it hurt any more, I think I’d die from it.”

“Oh, honey.” Tara sighed. “It will get better, but not right away. You just have to live one day at a time. I’m here for you if you need me. Remember that.”

“I’ll remember.”

Marcello called again and this time she stayed on the line long enough to tell him not to call back. Amazingly he listened, and she got no more phone calls for the rest of the night. She spent those hours trying to decide if she would quit her job, or stick it out.

She couldn’t imagine what running into Marcello in the office would do to her. However, in reality, except for when he contrived to see her, there was no reason for her path to cross with that of the president of the company. She’d tried running from heartache once and look where it had landed her—in far worse pain than what she’d tried to leave behind.

She went to work the next morning, still unsure what she was going to do with her future and so upset that she was nauseous with it despite the calm front she put on for her co-workers’ benefit.

She was making copies of her presentation on the Cordoba project in the copy room when she felt a presence behind her.

“Good morning,
cara
.
”

She spun around to find Marcello standing less than a foot away. She backed up but bumped into the big machine making swishing noises as her copies spit efficiently out of its mechanism. “Marcello. What are you doing here?”

“Have we not had this conversation before?” he asked with one side of his mouth tilted in a small smile.

She sidled sideways, needing to get some distance between them. “It’s highly unusual for the president of the company to find himself in the copy room.”

“Not so unlikely if that is where his lover is to be found.” The body she craved more than sustenance or life stood between her and freedom through the tantalizingly open doorway.

“Ex-lover,” she snapped.

He stepped backward and pushed the door shut. “I am not ready for you to be my ex.”

Memories of another shut door sent her heart rate into an erratic dance in her chest. She eyed the closed portal with nothing short of deep suspicion.

He smiled at her. “Do not worry. I am not planning to repeat the scene in your office…unless it becomes absolutely necessary. I simply want privacy for our discussion.”

“Here is not the place.”

“You threw me out of your home, hung up on me or ignored my calls altogether and have spent the morning avoiding your office. In essence, you chose this venue.”

“So don’t complain about it?”

“Right.”

“Look, I’m sorry you aren’t ready to break up, but I have no intention of waiting around for you to dump me.”

He sighed with exasperation. “I do not want to dump you. Surely I have made that obvious?”

“You will, though…someday.”

He shrugged, but the casual movement did not mask the ferocious tension she sensed in him. “Perhaps one day we will both decide we are better off apart, but why
hasten
that day if we do not have to?”

“Because I’ve already decided that I’m better off without you.”
Though
her heart screamed at her that she was a liar.

“I want you to give me a chance to change your mind—”

“No,” she slotted in before the seductive offer had a chance to take hold of her heart.

“This weekend at my brother’s wedding celebration on Diamante,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken.

“You want me to attend your brother’s wedding with you?” He had to be joking. He couldn’t mean it the way it sounded…like he was ready to go public with their relationship.
“As what?”

“As my date.”

“No way.”
But
she said it more out of reflex than intent and her voice was weak from shock.

“You said you wanted to go public with our relationship. I am prepared to do so rather than lose you.” He was rigid with tension and she knew this was hard for him.

“I didn’t break it off with you in an attempt to twist your arm.” She hated emotional blackmail.

“Whatever your intention, I have thought about it and realized I would rather deal with the unwanted media attention than to end our affair.”

If only he had said that yesterday…before he told her he did not and would not ever love her. She would have jumped at the chance to meet his family before he made it clear how little he wanted a family with her.

“No.” It was the hardest word she’d ever had to say and her wounded heart bled some more because of it.

He looked shocked, his dark complexion going pale. “What do you mean
no
?”

“Y-you were right…the p-pain of breaking up would only be increased if it…” She paused, taking a deep breath and trying to get the emotions making her stutter under control. She tried again.
“If it happened in the public eye.
And since there is no chance we
wouldn’t
break up, you’ve made that clear, I don’t want to set myself up for more pain and humiliation on top of it down the road.”

“I do not want you humiliated. I do not want you hurt and I do not wish to break up.”

“You should have thought of that before throwing my love back in my face,” she said helplessly. “I don’t mean to sound bitter. You told me from the beginning that you didn’t love me, but I convinced myself that you cared. I deceived myself and hurt myself as much as you did.”

“It was not a deception. I do care.”

“Not enough.”

“How can you say that? I have refused to have a liaison in the public eye since Bianca’s death, but I’m willing to do so for the sake of keeping you.”

“Because all it is
is
a liaison. I love you. I’m sorry it happened. I know it’s inconvenient for you, but I can’t handle being in the kind of uncommitted relationship you established anymore. It was killing me by inches and the last couple of days have hurt more than I ever want to hurt again.”

“And I am doing all that I can to rectify that hurt.”

“It isn’t enough.”

“I loved Bianca.”

“I know,” she said painfully, thinking she did not need the reminder.

He stalked her until she was flat against the wall and his body was less than an inch from hers. “I know what it is to hurt.
And
I can tell you this. If I had a chance to spend more time with Bianca, I would have taken it…no matter what the cost down the road. You say you love me. If your words were true, then you would crave the same thing.”

With that, he backed up and spun on his heel and left.

She stared after him long minutes after he was gone…her mind and heart in a turmoil. How had he made her feel guilty? He was the one who spurned her love and yet he’d managed to make her feel like she didn’t love him enough.
And
darned if his reasoning wasn’t playing an insidious refrain inside of her head.

She
did
love him. Okay, so chances were that if she got back together with him, they would end up breaking up somewhere down the road. It was inevitable really because he didn’t want marriage and he didn’t want to love her.

But
as he’d pointed out, life was uncertain. Bianca had died so young, but she wasn’t unique in this world. No one knew what tomorrow might bring…no one could guarantee how many tomorrows
they
might have. Not her and not Marcello.

The question that preyed on her mind for the rest of that day and the next morning as she once again battled nausea was whether or not it would hurt more to continue her relationship with Marcello and risk a breakup down the road, or to force herself to go on living without him, knowing in her heart of hearts that she could have him?

He was offering her far more than a place in his bed…he was offering her a place in his life.
A public place.

D
ANETTE
battled her pain-filled thoughts and the continued on again, off again nausea as she presented her report on the Cordoba project to a room full of top sales and marketing staff.

She was halfway through the presentation and going over the PowerPoint presentation that accompanied the reports she’d handed out when someone opened the coffee carafe near her and she got a strong whiff of the aromatic beverage.

Her stomach roiled, and she slapped her hand over her mouth and sprinted for the washroom.

When her stomach finally settled, she rinsed her mouth and walked out to the lounge area of the ladies’ room. The director of marketing, a chic woman in her fifties with kind brown eyes, was waiting for her.

“You should sit down for a while before trying to go back to your desk.”

“The presentation…”

“I instructed Ramon to finish it for you. Your notes were clear and he’d worked on the project with you enough that he should have no trouble.”

“But you’re missing it.”

“I’ll skim through the PowerPoint slides when I go back to my desk, but I wanted to make sure you were all right. I remember feeling the same way, and you looked like it had taken you by surprise.”

“You’ve had the flu recently, too?”

The woman laughed. “Not this kind of flu…not for more than twenty-five years.”

“This kind of flu?”

“You don’t know?” the director asked with a gentle smile.

But
suddenly,
Danette
did. She hadn’t had her period in six weeks, but she’d never been terribly regular, so that fact had not impinged on her consciousness.
Especially not for the last few days.
First she’d been missing Marcello and then she’d been fighting with him…the condition hadn’t been one that left her thinking too clearly.

“It’s not possible,” she said, but knew it was.

“Are you sure about that?”

“He didn’t think he could get me pregnant,” she said, dazed and then realized what she’d said and slapped her hand over her mouth for the second time in fifteen minutes.

“And you took the risk anyway?” The director shook her head. “Young women these days…you can be so naïve.”

“I wasn’t being naïve.” Well, maybe she had been. “Not about that. I didn’t
mind
the risk.”

“Here’s hoping your young man feels the same way.”

She doubted it. Marcello didn’t want children with her. He would put a brave front on it, of that she had no doubt. No matter how angry he made her, he was still a really responsible guy, but he couldn’t have made it more obvious that he didn’t want a family with her if he had put it in skywriting.

She smiled weakly for the other woman’s benefit. “Thank you for checking on me.”

“Think nothing of it, but if I were you, I would stay away from open coffeepots.”

Danette
shuddered feelingly. “I intend to.”

Marcello stopped in the doorway between his office and that of his assistant when he heard
Danette’s
name.

“She ran out of the room so fast, I thought she was going to rush right into the door instead of going through it,” one of the marketing people was saying.

“And the director followed her?”

“After telling Ramon
di
Esperanza to finish the presentation.
Yes.”

“I hope she’s okay.
Danette
is a sweetheart and she’s good at her job.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’s all right, but I don’t think it’s an illness that will end quickly for her, if you take my drift.”

“What do you mean?” his assistant asked.

“Well, I remember being very sensitive to the scent of coffee when I was pregnant with my first child. She acted just that way. She had been fine before that.”

“You think
Danette
is pregnant? But she’s not dating anyone.”

“It only takes one night.”

“I don’t think she is the type for a one-night stand.”

The woman from marketing shrugged. “Perhaps you’re right, but she is back in her office right as rain now. If that’s not the pattern of morning sickness, then I don’t know what is.”

Marcello stumbled back into his office, his head spinning with the ramifications of
Danette
being pregnant. Was the baby his?

It had to be.

But
how could it be possible?

Danette’s
words from the night before last ran through his mind—
Low sperm count is not a no sperm count
and
Playing Russian roulette with my body.