LUCY MONROE: Pregnancy Of Passion

There it was. The truth laid bare between them. He had the power to hurt her and he had exercised it.

His face looked set in stone. “I am not doing this to hurt you. You need my protection.”

“Just being around you hurts!” she cried, not able to hide that from him any longer. Perhaps if she was honest, told him just how hard it was to be with him, he would withdraw from the fray and assign someone else to guard her. His Sicilian guilt should be good for something to her. “I can’t stand the memories, Salvatore. Can’t you see that? Not seeing you is the only way I can even begin to cope.”

Pain shot through his expression, but then it was gone. “Pretending it did not happen is not coping.”

Suddenly she knew. He wanted to force a confrontation. The man who found talking about his feelings right up there with Chinese water torture wanted to talk things out. She could see it in his eyes, in the stubborn set of his jaw.

She couldn’t bear it. Rehashing the past would only hurt more, not heal.

He didn’t realize that, of course. Because he was not hampered by the soul-destroying pain of a betrayed love. He had never felt anything more for her than sexual lust.

Desperate to avoid the confrontation she sensed was coming, she took the lesser of two evils. “You said you’d take me to dinner.”

“We need to talk, Elisa.”

She ignored that. “I’m really tired. I’d prefer not to cook tonight.”

His frown expressed his irritation with her refusal to talk, but in the end, and to her undying shock, he nodded. “All right. If you do not need to change clothes, we can go.”

“Just let me fix my hair and put on some lipstick.”

Again he agreed, giving her a much needed reprieve from his presence as she closed herself into the tiny cubicle that served as her bathroom.

Salvatore swore with frustration. He had believed it would be difficult to overcome her aversion to him, but had not been prepared for it to be almost impossible.

Elisa was not just angry with him. She hated him.

She had lost her baby because of him. She’d never said so, but their final argument, the stress of that confrontation had no doubt precipitated the miscarriage. It was a guilt he’d learned to live with, but he would not live with the knowledge he had done nothing to make it right.

However, it was patently obvious she was not prepared for talk of marriage yet.

He had to woo her. His mouth twisted cynically. He knew how he wanted to woo her. In bed. Seducing her would be far easier than talking the stubborn woman round to his way of seeing things. He would enjoy it more too.

She might not like it, but her body still reacted to him almost helplessly. Her pulse had increased with the barest touch of his hand on her neck. Given enough time and close proximity, it would simply be a matter of when they made it back into each other’s arms.

No matter what had gone before, back in her bed was a place he definitely wanted to be. Even marriage was not too high a price to pay to know that all her passion, all her fire would belong to him.

Elisa came out of the bathroom looking fragile, but lovely. She’d brushed out her hair and pulled it back with a clip. Her face had more color than it had earlier, but that was probably due to makeup rather than an improvement in her feelings. Not that her green eyes revealed anything. Their usually animated depths were blank of any emotion.

“Are you ready?” she asked, her voice as flat as her expression.

He detested that flatness, wanted to experience Elisa as she had been a year ago, not this buttoned-down stranger. But he had won one victory; he would consolidate his position before demanding more.

“I’m ready.”

Just those two words and her eyelids flinched. He wanted to curse. He’d been a stupid bastard a year ago. Even if she was like her mother, as her father had said, she’d been different in one key way. She’d wanted to marry him when she discovered she was pregnant.

He still wasn’t sure the baby was his. They’d only been together a month when she told him she was pregnant…What were the chances? But even so, he had decided to risk them because he had wanted her in his bed and in his life on a permanent basis. He’d made that decision too late and lived to regret his tardiness and stupidity.

“Let’s go.” He took her hand to lead her from the apartment.

She tried to pull away from him, the way she did from every single touch since they’d seen each other that morning in the jeweler’s. And just as before, he didn’t let go. She had to get used to his touch again. The prospect that she wouldn’t was not a circumstance he wanted to contemplate.

“Where are we going?”

“Does it matter?”

“No.”

“I did not think so.”

Two hours later, they were back in the apartment, dinner having been nothing short of a disaster. She’d avoided looking at him, touching him and talking to him if she could.

The strain of it was showing on both of them.

She yawned.

“You need to go to bed.”

She nodded.

He looked around the small apartment. The cozy and inviting undersized sofa didn’t look so cozy as a possible bed. It was several feet too short for his over-six-foot frame. The pull-down bed would have been a slight improvement, but he had no doubt she would refuse to share it with him.

He looked at the floor with even less pleasure. “I suppose you’ll expect me to bed down on the carpet.”

Her eyes grew wide and a flush suffused her face. “I don’t expect you to sleep here at all.”

“I thought we settled this before we left.” It was a blatant untruth. He’d known she would balk at him spending the night.

She stiffened in pure, independent female outrage. “You’re not sleeping in my apartment.”

“I am until the auction is over.” His voice was as grim as his mood after dinner as the undesirable pariah. It was not an experience he was used to. Usually women fawned over him, even ex-girlfriends—but not this woman.

The look of horror that came over her made no improvement on his deteriorating mood.

“I’m not going to attack you,” he ground out. “I’m here to protect you.”

“It’s impossible.”

“Do you have a better solution? I’m not leaving you alone,” he added before she could open her mouth to answer.

She gnawed at her lower lip in a gesture he remembered from before. It indicated she was in serious thought.

The look of horror turned to one of disgust. “If you insist on being my bodyguard, you can spring for a suite with two bedrooms at a hotel or sleep in the hall. You pick.”

He stared at her. It couldn’t be this easy. “A hotel.”

“Fine. Give me a minute to pack.”

Elisa threw clothes into a suitcase with little consideration for what she was packing. He’d looked shocked when she suggested the hotel, but she knew how intractable he could be. He would spend the night with her no matter what she wanted. Her apartment was out of the question. Just the thought of sharing such small living space with him made her cringe. She needed a door to shut between them, a room to call her own, a bed that would hold no memories.

Not that he’d ever shared her bed in this new apartment, but somehow, if he stayed, she knew it would feel tainted by his presence. She would have to move again.

She refused to consider why he had such a strong impact on her emotions still, or why hate sometimes felt like the other side of a bruised and bleeding love.

LYING in bed in the luxurious hotel suite later, memories she was too exhausted to fight washed over her.

Seeing him had brought it all back.

The debilitating pain. The sense of betrayal. The grief of loss, but also the glory of possession.