He wanted this baby in his life. He wanted to be a father to them, in all the ways his own father had ceased to function. He wanted to make sure his child knew the kind of stability he andhis brothers had lost, after the death of their mother, and when their father had then gone off the rails.
He wanted the baby in his life enough to fight for it, if necessary. To fight hard, and to fight to win. But the idea of entering into a custody dispute with Elodie, of using what she’d told him against her—of pointing out her inability to support a child, the fact she had no home, of using his powerful name to ensure he was successful—turned his blood to ice.
If he had to, he would do it. For the sake of his child, and the connection he wanted to have. But he desperately hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
“Okay,” he said with a nod, expelling a breath even as his insides were tightening with a strange sense of guilt. He hated knowing the lengths he’d go to, he hated knowing that if necessary he would take this to court. Not when she’d entered into it with the best intentions. It was yet another point that made him feel completely unworthy of her—the contrast between them: her soft kindness and his jaded cynicism—was glaringly apparent.
But she was here, in Italy, with him. She’d come willingly, and for the sake of getting to know each other, to see if they could find a co-parenting compromise. So that was exactly what he intended to do. Return her good faith act with one of his own.
“I have a suggestion.”
She lifted her brows, eyes skimming his face with undisguised curiosity.
“Let’s shelve any baby talk for now and just spend some time together.”
“Time?” she repeated, as though it was a completely foreign concept.
He strode across the room, aware that it was playing with fire to get close to Elodie and not able to bring himself to care. He crouched down in front of her, so their eyes were close to level.“You want us to get to know each other, right? So, let’s do it.” He held out a hand to her, carefully controlling his reaction in advance. It didn’t help. When she put hers in his, he felt a rush of blood to a specific part of his anatomy.
“What are we going to do?” she asked.
He ignored what he wanted them to do. He ignored everything except the one opportunity they had to make this work. “Let’s start with a swim and go from there.”
CHAPTER 8
EVEN NOW, IN EARLY SPRING, it was delightfully warm and sunny in Italy, so the feeling of water lapping around her body as she entered had been beyond perfect. Less perfect was the way Raf had magicked up a pale yellow bikini for her, still with the tags attached. As though he’d furnished this house with the natural expectation that a woman would be with him. He probably did this here all the time.
And so what? She challenged inwardly. What did that matter? They weren’t a couple. They’d spent one night together, and then stupidly made out earlier today, but that didn’t mean he was in any way hers. And it didn’t mean she wanted him to be!
Still, the evidence of his lifestyle, the ease with which he did this sort of thing, was a jarring reminder of what a hill they had to climb.
They were so different, she mused, as she took the final step into the water, glad that she’d beaten him to the pool, because her body was completely submerged by the time he appeared, carrying a glass bottle of mineral water and two glasses. He placed them near the blue and white striped sunbeds, but shebarely noticed. How could she, when he’d stripped down to a pair of navy trunks and nothing else? His body was exquisite.
Exquisite in a way she’d presumably noticed on the night they’d slept together. But that had been at close range and this—seeing him from a distance—was like being slammed right between her eyes with his beauty. His toned, tanned, fabulous wall of abdominals, his leanly muscled legs, everything about him was sheer masculinity and perfection.
Her mouth went dry, and her heart began to race. With her last ounce of strength, she spun away from him, focusing instead on the picture-perfect view that spread out beneath her. It was a patchwork of green grass and cypress trees against a deep azure sky. She paddled to the edge of the pool and braced her palms on the warm coping, forcing herself to take in every detail, to distract herself from the fact she could hear him entering the water, then swimming towards her.
Knowing he was coming did nothing really to prepare her though. A moment later he was at her side, his elbows braced against the tiles, his body tantalizingly close.
“It’s a beautiful view,” she said, voice trembling a little with nervousness.
Yes, the man she’d conceived a baby with made hernervous.Except, it wasn’t really Raf, so much as her body’s response to him, and how hard she had to fight to ignore it.
“I’ve always thought so.”
“How long have you owned this place?”
She steeled herself to look at him, then wished she hadn’t when she found his eyes resting on her face in a way that made his own temptation blatantly obvious. Heat flooded her entire body, and the pool’s water was no match for it.
“It’s been in the family a long time. My grandparents used to spend summers here, so we would visit, as children. At some point, we started going to my aunt and uncle’s instead.”
“Do they live in Italy?”
His lips flickered with something like amusement, and it made her stomach loop and twist as though he’d kissed her.
“What?” she asked a little huskily. “Is that funny?”
“I like that you don’t know anything about my family. About me.”
