Elizabeth Power - Italian Bachelors - Unforgotten Lovers - The Change in Di Navarra's Plan / Bound by the Italian's Contract / Visconti's Forgotten Heir

Holly was twenty-four, which he already knew, and she’d been born in Baton Rouge. Nicholas Adrian Craig had been born in New Orleans a little over three months ago.

That detail had meant nothing to him at first. Nothing until he started to think about how long ago it had been that he’d first met Holly when she’d come to New York. It was a year ago, he remembered that, because he remembered quite well when he’d had to scrap all the photos from the false shoot and start over. The numbers were imprinted on his brain.

Even then, he’d had a moment’s pause while he’d pictured pretty, virginal Holly rushing home to Louisiana and falling into bed with another man. He didn’t like the way that thought had made him feel.

But then, as he’d pondered it, as he’d watched her sleep and let his gaze slide over to the sleeping baby in his car seat—the baby with a head of black hair and impossibly long eyelashes—another thought had taken hold.

And when it did, Drago felt as if someone had punched him in the gut. He’d struggled to breathe for the longest moment.

There was no way. No way this child could be his. Black hair and long lashes meant nothing. He’d used protection. He always used protection.

But there’d been that one time when the condom had torn as he was removing it, and he started to wonder if it had perhaps torn earlier.

And as that thought spiraled and twisted in his brain, doubt ignited in his soul. If it were true, how could she do such a thing? How could anyone do such a thing?

But he did not know that she had, he reminded himself. He did not know.

“Whose child is he, Holly?” Drago demanded, his voice as icy cold and detached as he could make it. Because, if he did not, it would boil over with rage and hurt.

She’d lied to him. And she’d used him, used the opportunity to get what she wanted from him. He thought of the contract she’d insisted on, the money he’d agreed to pay her, and his blood ran cold.

Her gaze dropped and a sob broke from her. She crammed her fist against her mouth and breathed deeply, quickly. And then, far quicker than he’d have thought possible, she faced him. Her cheeks and nose were red, and her eyes were rimmed with moisture.

“I tried to tell you,” she said, and his world cracked open as she admitted the truth. Pain rushed in, filling all the dark and lonely corners of his soul. The walls he’d put up, the giant barriers to hurt and feeling—they tumbled down like bricks made of glass. They shattered at his feet, sliced deep into his soul.

“What does that mean?” he snapped, still hoping she would tell him it was a mistake, that this child was not his and she hadn’t kept that fact hidden from him for the past three months. For nine long months before that.

But he already knew she wouldn’t. He knew the answer as certainly as he knew his own name. This child was a Di Navarra, and Drago had done exactly as his father had done—he’d fathered a child and abandoned it to a mother who thought nothing of living in squalor and leaving her baby with strangers.

He wanted to reach out and shake her, but he forced himself to remain still.

“It means,” she said, her voice soft and thready, “that I wrote you a letter. That I called. That you turned me away and refused all contact.”

He was still reeling from her admission.

“And I will wager you didn’t try hard enough,” he growled. “I never got a letter.”

It staggered him to think she’d spent all those months carrying his child, and he hadn’t even known it. He hadn’t specifically refused contact with her, but he had a long-standing policy of not accepting phone calls from people—especially women—not on his approved list of business associates. As for the letter, who knew if she’d even sent one?

“Well, I sent it. It’s not my fault if you didn’t get it.”

His vision was black with rage. “How convenient for you,” he ground out. “You say you sent a letter, but what proof do I have? You could be lying. And you could have done more, if you’d really wanted to.”

“Why would I lie about this? I was alone! I needed help! And not only that, but what else would you have had me do?” she snapped tearfully. “Fly to New York with my nonexistent credit cards and prostrate myself across the floor in front of your office? I tried to get in touch with you, but it was like trying to call the president of the United States. They don’t just let anyone in—and no one was letting me in to you!”

The moment she finished, her voice rising until it crackled with anger, the baby started to cry. Drago looked at the child—Nicky, Nicholas Adrian—and felt a rush of confusion like he hadn’t known since he was a boy, when his mother would come into his bedroom and tell him they were leaving whatever place he’d finally gotten settled into.

He didn’t like that feeling. If they were still in the apartment, he would have stalked out and gone for a run in the park. Anything to put some distance between him and this lying, treacherous woman. But he was stuck in this car and his head was beginning to pound.

Holly bent over and started trying to soothe the baby, ignoring him as she did so. She talked in a high voice, offered the child a pacifier and made shushing noises. A tear slipped down her cheek, and then another, and her voice grew more frantic.

“Holly.”

She looked up at him, her eyes so full of misery. He felt a rush of something akin to sympathy, but he shoved it down deep. Locked it in chains. How could he feel sympathy for her when she’d lied to him? When she’d used him?

He hated her. And he would not let her get away with keeping his child from him. Not any longer.

“Calm down,” he ordered tightly. “He senses your distress.”

“I know that,” she snapped. She turned back to the baby—his son—and began to unbuckle the straps holding him in the seat. Then she pulled him out and cradled him against her, rocking and shushing until his tears lessened. Finally, he took a pacifier and Holly seemed to wilt in relief.

“You’ve been in my house for nearly a week now,” Drago said, his voice so icy it made him cold. “And you’ve kept the truth from me. You had every chance to tell me, Holly. Every chance. Just like before.”

She didn’t look at him, and he wanted to shake her until she did. The violence whipping through his body frightened him, though he knew he would never give in to it.

But he’d never been this shocked, this betrayed, before. His mother had sold him in the end, sold him for money and freedom to do as she liked, and even the pain of that didn’t quite compare to this.

He had a child, a baby, and the only reason he knew it was because he could do math. If he hadn’t figured it out, would she have ever told him? Or would she have done the job, taken the money and disappeared with his child?

Until she’d spent it all and needed more....

Drago shook himself. “You have nothing to say to me?” he demanded. “You would sit there after what you’ve done and refuse to explain yourself?”

Her head came up then. Her eyes were red-rimmed. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I thought you might throw me out again.”

He reeled. She was unbelievable. A user. A schemer. First it was perfume; now it was a child.

He despised her.

“I might still,” he growled. He wouldn’t be as tender as his uncle had been. He knew what could happen when you let a woman keep a child she couldn’t take care of properly, and he would never allow that to happen to his own son. He would use the might and money at his disposal to make sure she never saw this boy again.

Her eyes widened with fear. God help him, he relished it. He wanted her to wonder, wanted her to suffer as he was suffering.