A thread of panic winds through me and I have to grip my hands together hard, fighting it. ‘There is no chance of the baby being yours.’ I keep my voice calm and absolutely certain. ‘Antonio is the father.’
Santiago’s inky gaze bores a hole through me and I try not to flinch away. One little slip and he’ll know I’m lying through my teeth.
‘Liar,’ he says, and instantly my brain returns to the church again, his finger stroking me, finding me wet as he knew I would be.Liar, he’d said then, too.
His eyes glitter. He’s remembering that same moment, the moment I betrayed myself, and now the air between us is getting hot, taut, electric. Closing around me, stealing my breath, and making my skin tighten.
‘Why do you keep lying?’ he murmurs in that dark, caressing tone he used yesterday on the phone when he accused me of the same thing. ‘When you know I can tell?’
I take a breath, hoping it isn’t as audible as I’m afraid it is, then say, icily, ‘I’m not lying. Why do you care if the baby is yours anyway?’
Something I can’t read flickers across his handsome face, then it’s gone. ‘Because I, unlike some people, take responsibility for my mistakes.’
A hot burst of anger floods through me all of a sudden, and before I know what I’m doing I shove myself up off the couch so I’m standing in front of him. ‘My baby isnota mistake,’ I say fiercely. ‘And I won’t have you saying it is.’
The flames in his eyes leap higher and I realise all at once that I’m standing too close to him. That we’re bare inches apart and I can smell the delicious scent of his aftershave, feel the warmth of his body, and the desperate, needy thing inside me, the part of me that’s never sated, quivers with anticipation.
I’m not giving in to it, not again, so I try to go past him, to put some distance between us, but he puts out a hand, stopping me in my tracks. ‘Don’t you dare walk away,’ he says in a low, hard voice. ‘This is a conversation we are going to have whether you want to have it or not.’
I can’t look him in the eye—I’m too afraid of what he’ll see and I’ve already betrayed myself enough as it is—so I stare at the hand blocking my path instead. ‘There’s nothing to talk about. You want a paternity test and I have refused. End of conversation.’
His hand moves and somehow I know what he’s going to do, and that I could move if I wanted to avoid it. But I don’t move. The needy part of me makes me stand still as he takes my jaw in that big hand of his, forcing me to look up at him. His fingers are warm on my skin and I can feel his strength. He could snap my neck with a simple twist of his hand, yet his hold is surprisingly gentle.
His gaze roves over my face, but what he’s trying to find I don’t know. Perhaps evidence of my lies, which, of course, he’ll discover, because, as it turns out, I’m a terrible liar, especially when it comes to him.
‘What are you so afraid of?’ he asks, the hard note in his voice softening slightly. ‘Finding out that the childisactually mine?’
I hate that I’ve given myself away yet again, that he’s seen the panic I’ve been trying to hide. I’m desperate to tell him that I’m afraid of nothing and that he needs to stop putting his hands on me, but my voice won’t work. The needy part of me wants more of that note of softness, as if it matters to him that I’m afraid, and it wants more of his touch, craves the heat of it, the feeling of being desired.
But I can’t surrender to that part of myself. It’s too desperate, and because it has no defences it’s far too vulnerable. What it wants it can never have and never will. I won’t allow it. I gave in to it once before, when I was thirteen and I was placed with a truly wonderful foster family. I wanted to stay with them so badly, and I really believed they were going to end up adopting me, but they didn’t. They adopted another girl instead, and I never knew why they wanted her instead of me. It took me years to recover from the hurt, and I’ll never let it happen again. I’ll never let myself want anything too much, and I’ll never let anyone in only for them to turn around and devastate me.
So I harden my heart and force my cravings away. ‘Why would I be afraid?’ I arch a brow. ‘The childisn’tyours.’
But his sharp gaze is relentless. ‘We could argue about this all day, I’m sure, but I haven’t got the time. I’m due in Paris for a meeting first thing in the morning, and, since I’m not leaving without an answer, if you don’t give me one you’ll be coming with me.’
Shock echoes through me. ‘But you can’t—’
‘Oh, I assure you that I can, Miss Morgan. And I will.’ His hand on me tightens minutely and my breath catches hard. I want to pull away from him, jerk myself out of his grip, slap his face for his audacity, but my body simply won’t obey. Instead I stand there, staring up at him, captured by the darkness of his eyes and the bright, hot electricity that fills the air around us.
‘That will involve kidnapping,’ I say, my voice gone husky. ‘And I’m sure the police will have something to say about that.’
‘I don’t need to kidnap you.’ A soft roughness has entered the words, as if he’s as affected by our chemistry as I am. ‘You’ll come willingly enough.’
‘Oh, will I?’ I swallow against his palm, my mouth dry. ‘Give me one good reason.’
‘You’re a passionate woman, Miss Morgan.’ His black gaze stares into mine, hypnotic as a snake charmer’s. ‘I know exactly how passionate. And four months is a long time to go without a man. In which case, I’m prepared to offer you my services in bed, in return for agreeing to the paternity test.’
Chapter Six
Santiago
Her blue eyeshave gone wide, the frantic beat of her pulse racing beneath my thumb. It was a mistake to touch Beatrix and I know it. I was getting frustrated with her lies, and I wanted to see the expression on her face, see what she was trying to hide, because she was avoiding my gaze for a reason.
Yet now her warm skin is beneath my fingertips and her delicate scent is wrapping itself around me, and I can see how her gaze darkens.
Fuck, I should be learning from all these mistakes I keep making with her, yet I’m not.
After she hung up on me yesterday, I debated what to do for some time. I could have called her back, but I knew she’d only ignore me, so I dismissed that idea. A visit seemed in order, and a personal one at that, since I had to impress upon her the importance of the test, and if necessary drag her all the way back to Paris to get it done.
