The Surprise Conti Child (8 page)

And she'd faced the hard truth—that he had trusted her without proof. Even before he'd seen Izzie's pictures.

That he was honorable made it so much harder for her to hate him.

“I assure you I will protect you, Alexis.”

“Thanks but no thanks. I saw how you sprang to my defense when Antonio was—”

“I was in shock and you shut him up promptly. Like no one has ever done. No one will say a word to you, I promise you that.”

“How can you guarantee that? There'll probably be a million guests at your wedding and they'll surely wonder who I am and I can't stand to be the object of such gossip. Not to mention being a fourth wheel between your new bride and you and your family and her family and—”

One tapered finger landed on her mouth, burning the soft flesh of her lower lip. “Will you send Izzie by herself with me then?”

She swatted his hand away. “No! I...she's a baby, Leandro and a week doesn't make you anything less than a stranger.”

Her answer seemed to please him. “Then what I suggest is the only solution we have. I would like to spend time with Isabella.”

“But I—”

“
Dio
, Alexis!” Impatience made his tone staccato, harsh. “No one will say anything because there will not be a wedding.”

CHAPTER SIX

T
HERE
WASN
'
T
GOING
to be a wedding.

Alex couldn't understand how the small, brusquely delivered fact could have such hold over her, even after four days.

Four days in which, somehow, she had let Leandro and her family persuade her that spending the summer with the Contis at their Lake Como villa was a good idea all around.

No sooner than she, only in possession of half her faculties, had admitted that Izzie would love to see more of him than Leandro had seen to and settled a hundred things that needed to be done.

A new manager had been hired for as long as was needed for the store. Her parents had been dispatched on a holiday to Australia as they had initially planned before Alex's accident, with no necessity overlooked. The traitors they were, they'd been more than happy to be on their way and more importantly, out of Leandro's way.

All of her insurance matters had been assigned to a lawyer hired by Leandro for the express purpose of seeing to them. Even the mortgage on her parents' house had been refinanced and the monthly payments taken care of, aided in no small financial way by him. And her and Isabella's visas to Italy taken care of with an expediency that reeked not only of the Contis' wealth but the sheer reach of their power.

It had left Alex gasping for breath one afternoon, wondering what she had invited into her life.

Tucked away in Izzie's bedroom under the guise of packing, she had buried her head between her knees. Sought escape from the feeling of her life being taken over.

Leandro had gone far and beyond anything she'd expected of him when she'd gone to him for reassurance that Izzie would be taken care of. And yet, a small thread of anxiety persisted at the speed with which he'd had their trip arranged.

Apparently, when Leandro had decided that he was very much interested in spending the summer with his daughter, he had meant it quite seriously.

If only she could get a firm grasp on herself and her reaction to his broken engagement... But he had told her nothing about his reason.

That marriage will not suit me anymore
, he'd told her with a chillingly heartless calculation. Engulfed by a barrage of unwanted emotions that had hit her, she hadn't asked him any of the questions that pestered her.

For all that her worries about Izzie and her future were calmed, at least temporarily, she still wasn't sleeping well. Much as she had fought it for four days, the crux of it haunted her thoughts.

That Leandro was unattached was what made her anxious, and restless and a thousand other things she was ashamed to admit, even to herself.

It was as if a dam that held all her less than right thoughts at bay was suddenly broken and every insidiously hungry thought and desire was free to roam now.

He was everything that had attracted her back then, a thousand times more now.

Now she knew he was also honorable, that a warmth filled his gaze when he spoke of his wife, that even as he had discarded her the next morning, it had been driven by that sense of betrayal, that family and responsibility and duty were important to him.

Even as it grated, the ease and efficiency with which he'd taken over everything, it was hard not to bask in that. Hard not to feel pleasure at being looked after like that.

Hard not to take it personally.

S
he didn't want to want him like this.

She didn't want to fall into this trap of imagining things between them, of falling this low as to feel some kind of relief at knowing that he was unattached now. She deserved better than to want a man who thought of her as a betrayal, who tolerated her presence for the sake of his daughter.

Fortunately for her fragmenting peace of mind, she hadn't been alone with Leandro the past few days at their home. Izzie and her parents had seen to that. And on the flight, when Izzie had fallen asleep, Alex had claimed to be tired, not falsely, and retired to the rear cabin and the inviting bed.

A couple of hours later, when he sat down on the narrow bed next to her, Alex jerked into such stringent awareness that her heart ratcheted in her chest.

The solid length of his legs next to her was alien yet alluringly comforting. Musk and something so intensely Leandro coated her every breath. Slowly, he pulled her hand into his and traced the scars.

There was nothing sexual in the touch, still, it burned through her, shaking loose some strange knot of yearning.

He wasn't a tactile person, she'd noticed. Especially when it came to her, there was something very measured, very contained about his movements.

Unable to bear the tension any longer, she turned and opened her eyes.

The softly fading light in the cabin caressed the aquiline nose, the sweepingly sharp cheekbones. Softened the austere set of his mouth. Heat from his body enveloped her, churning her senses into a frenzy.

“You shouldn't be here,” she whispered with not the least bit of anger she'd wanted in her tone. Instead, she sounded husky, weak. “It's not necessary for you to touch me when Izzie's not around.”

Did she imagine the soft glint to his gaze? The reverence in his touch as he traced the veins on her wrist? “I didn't realize I was taking a liberty.”

“You expect me to believe you walk around touching women you barely know?” she muttered, her nose tickling against his thigh.

“You don't agree that sharing a daughter affords us a kind of intimacy,
cara
? That it binds us as much as we fight it?”

To be bound to him in any way...just the thought set her shivering.

Warm fingers moved from her hand up her arm, kneaded one shoulder and then rested on her jaw. Moved into her hair and combed through the strands. Alex fisted her hands by her side, every inch of her vibrating.

“No,” she managed. “Intimacy and friendship and all such rights have to be earned. You and I...strangers who share a daughter. That you slept with me seven years ago doesn't entitle you to anything with me now.”

Suddenly, his grip tightened in her hair. Not hurting but just enough to make her scalp tingle with awareness. The rough movement forced her chin up to face him. Something feral bared in his gaze, tearing at the mask of polite civility that embodied Leandro. “Such foul language from such a beautiful mouth,
cara
?”

But it was gone as fast as it came, just as his grip gentled immediately. She didn't know what to make of that momentary fracture in his facade. “It's exactly what you said.”

“As far as rights are concerned,” the honeyed warmth of his tone didn't hide the steel beneath, “your well-being directly affects my daughter. That means I can interfere if I think you need help.

“You lied to me. You said you were sleeping better but I heard you. I do not like that fear, that anxiety in your tone.”

Her cheek tingled where his knuckles rested. Hadn't she just told him off?

“Pity then, isn't it?” She scooted on the soft cotton to get away from him and ended up even closer to the solid muscle of his thigh. “That you can't order the panic gone, that you can't order out that stress for me in that imperious way of yours.”

Now, he traced the bridge of her nose, hovered over her mouth. Her pulse raced. Lungs burned.

“You sound angry, Alexis. I have never met a woman who didn't appreciate the benefits that come with my name and wealth. Will you resent me just for solving your problems? Will you resent me because I'm more interested in Isabella than you wanted?

“Or is it that you're still attracted to me?”

“Don't...presume things about me.”

“I'm not presuming your racing pulse.” His thumb landed at the incriminating spot on her neck. “Or hitching breath or the fact that you're tense like a bow.” Long fingers stroked over the nooks and crevices of her shoulders, back and forth until she felt as though there was steel infused in her very veins. “Or that you jump like a cat every time I come near you.”

“Being attracted to you doesn't mean I'm willing. I won't be a convenient itch for you to scratch while you play at being daddy for the summer. Like I was some compensation prize after your broken engagement.”

“Playing at daddy?” A thread of anger spewed in his question.

“Isn't that what you're doing?”

“I assure you no, Alexis. I intend to take care of Isabella. I intend to be a proper father. If not for me, Luca and Tina would have suffered neglect. I don't know if I made a difference even. And I will not let that be Izzie's fate.”

“She's not neglected.”

“But a father is important,
si
?

“Not just for the summer either. The sooner you accept that the better. I'm not grief-stricken over my broken engagement,
cara
.

“Marriage to Sophia was a business alliance. Breaking it had consequences that I'm now prepared to handle. Family comes before business, before anything else for me.”

The steely resolve in his tone sent her heart thudding against her rib cage.

He wanted to be a proper father to Izzie?

Had seeing Izzie, who was truly a mirror image of him, triggered some dormant fatherly instinct and decided the matter for him?

Hadn't she read somewhere that nature made children in the image of their fathers so that they bonded with them?

Would he feel differently once he realized how hard being a parent was? How life changed because of a little girl?

“And when you marry eventually? Can you give me the reassurance that your new wife will not resent Izzie? Can you reassure me that you won't resent her for all the changes she'll bring to your life?

“I didn't give up my social life because I like being a martyr.

“I gave it up because none of the men I met would have loved Izzie like a father should. Only Justin—”

“Look at me, Alexis.” His grip turned steely against her jaw, forcing her to look at him. The muscle in his jaw jumped. Gray eyes held a stormy anger. Banked, yes, but the fire showed a Leandro she didn't recognize. “My daughter already has a father.
Me.
I will not let any man take that away from me. No other man can take that place in your life.”

“You've no right to tell me that I can't have another man in my life, Leandro.”

“You just told me you've never met a man who would love Izzie like his own.” Frustration made his tone rise, but he wrested himself under control immediately. “We both want the same thing for Isabella. And for what we want, there are not many options left to us.”

Shock coursing through every vein, Alex stared at him numbly.

What the hell did he mean by that? Did he want her to move to Italy? Was he suggesting that they live together just for Izzie's sake? Or was he—

God, no!
The other alternative was outrageous to even think about.

Suddenly, all Alexis wanted was to be back in her parents' tiny house with her never-ending financial problems and the store and even her fault-finding mother.

Anywhere but here, on this luxurious flight, with this man who'd taken over her life.

That same sensation of careening out of control came at her with a vicious force. “Either you're crazy or I am, because I don't think you suggested what I think you did.”

He shrugged. “With Isabella's future in mind, we will come to an agreement that suits us both.”

An agreement that suited them both...

“After we land, I will be gone for a week. Will you be all right at the villa? Antonio will be around.”

The thought of a reprieve from Leandro and his outrageous ideas made her shudder in relief. She could deal with a hundred Antonios better than her own weakness for this man. “Yes. Of course. I understand that you have your life and commitments.”

“Being here has caused too many bottlenecks in the company, made me realize I need to delegate more. After Rosa's death, I threw myself into work. But I don't want Izzie to feel like I'm neglecting her any longer.”

“Leandro?”

“Yes, Alexis?”

“You said Rosa always wanted children and couldn't conceive.”

His entire, polite demeanor faded at the mere mention of his wife's name. “Yes?”

“What about you? Did you want to be a father?”

Silence had never been so fraught or so distorted for it felt like an age to Alexis before he answered.

Her stomach twisted into a knot as if her very fate depended on his answer.

“
Si.
I was ready to be a father.”

Before she could absorb that, he reached for her.

Cradled her jaw with one hand and pressed his mouth to the corner of hers. Insidious heat unfurled through every nerve. Her fingers dug into his arms, toes curled as she fought the hardest battle of her life.

To not shift and cover his mouth completely. To not throw herself headlong into the need vying for life.

Lips soft and hard at once moved against her tingling skin, sending arrows of pleasure directly to the center of her sex. “You, Alexis,
are
no consolation prize or a cheap summer fling.”

This time, when his hands moved over her shoulders and down her trembling body, over her waist, and hips and back up again, long fingers grazing the sides of her breasts, there was no gentleness. No comforting or soothing.

No gentling or caring.

But bold and roving and hungrily masculine and demandingly insistent. Those large hands of his touched desperately but not enough, luring her with a promise of more with his rough strokes. An exploration of the fire that burned between them the moment they touched each other.

That sinuous mouth moved an inch and an inch over, until he covered her own completely.

Such pleasure filled her that Alex groaned loudly. The sound vibrated through her bringing a threadbare rope of caution back.