Page 133

Christos turned away from the door, determined to banish the image of Rose Delaney dressed in nothing more than a bathrobe. She’d clutched at the opening of the robe, clearly not realizing that holding it so tightly had created a gap beneath her fingers that had showed a tantalizing glimpse of her golden cleavage.

Her hair had been in damp tendrils curling about her flushed face, her eyes sparkling like emerald and topaz together. For a second, simply staring at her, he’d wanted nothing more than to walk her back into her suite, into her bedroom and onto her bed. He’d pictured himself tugging on the sash of her robe and watching it fall away from her damp and flushed golden skin. He’d imagined her eyes widening with desire, her soft pink lips parting in anticipation.

Fortunately he’d put a stop to that vivid fantasy before it went any farther. He could not possibly complicate this delicate situation with something as stupid as desire. Even if he felt it far more strongly than he wanted or expected to. And he felt more than just desire, he acknowledged reluctantly. He felt something almost like affection for Rose Delaney, which seemed even more dangerous than desire. For the sake of his family, he refused to feel either.

Back in his suite, he reached for his phone and swiped to call his mother. She’d been texting him all day for updates, desperate for news, and Christos knew he couldn’t avoid talking to her any longer.

“Madre,” he said briefly when she answered.

“Do you have the girl?” his mother demanded, her voice a thread of desperate urgency.

“Yes.” An image of long golden-brown hair and dancing eyes flashed across his vision, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes, I’m with Rose Delaney.”

“And she is…amenable?” His mother sounded so hopeful, but also so broken. Since Luca’s death, she’d become as good as a ghost, drifting through her days. Her only hope was the baby in Rose Delaney’s womb, and it had become all she cared about, all that could ever matter. Christos had to make that happen.

“She seems amenable to coming to Italy,” he replied. As for what happened after that…he did not want to think too far ahead. Not yet.

“And do you think she will be willing…” His mother trailed off as if she couldn’t quite put what they both knew she wanted into stark words.

“I don’t know.” His knuckles ached from holding his phone so tightly. “Let’s take this one step at a time, Madre, and see how it goes.” It was advice Christos didn’t usually take, never mind give; he was a planner, wanting to anticipate the next ten or twenty or one hundred steps. But when it came to Rose Delaney…he could not picture those steps at all.

“You need to make her see sense,” his mother told him. “You know how important this baby is to us.”

And important to Rose, too. He swallowed down the words, the thought. “You know we cannot have so much as a whiff of scandal or corruption about this,” he reminded his mother. He could already picture the headlines that would plaster the front pages if anyone in the media learned of what was going on. “It is bad enough that I paid for the information in the first place,” he told her, not for the first time. It had been the only way to find out who Luca’s child was, and he refused to regret it, but it still sat uneasily with him. “Please trust me on this,” he told his mother. “We need to take this one step at a time, and that is what we will do. I am the head of this family, Madre,” he reminded her with an edge of iron in his voice. “And I will make this decision.”

Again he pictured Rose’s ready smile, the way her eyes glinted when she laughed. How she seemed so vulnerable and yet so brave.

Enough. He could not think of her like this. It was a distraction from his purpose, and it made him weak. There could be only one way to think of Rose Delaney—the means to the end. The girl…and nothing more.

“You must trust me,” he told his mother again, and she sighed.

“I know, Christos. It is just that I am so worried.” Her voice wavered, and he felt himself relent. His mother had been through so much. He did not want to add to her burdens.

“I know,” he told her gently. “But it will be all right. I shall make sure of it.”

“You will fly back with her tomorrow?”

Rose hadn’t agreed yet, but Christos knew she was close to doing so. “Yes,” he stated firmly. “Tomorrow. Don’t worry.”

He ended the call, a long, low sigh escaping him as he lowered his phone and stared out at the twinkling lights of the city. He felt a heaviness inside him that was separate from his grief for his brother, and he didn’t like feeling it. He wanted to be single-minded in his purpose, without a flicker of doubt or uncertainty. If Rose Delaney had to be a casualty in the securing of an Amanti heir, then so be it.

And yet…despite every intention to do the opposite, Christos found himself thinking how Rose had spoken so wistfully about family. How her slender hand had rested possessively over her bump as she’d said she wouldn’t be alone. How fragile she seemed, and yet at the same time so strong. And how very lovely…

A groan of impatient frustration escaped him, and he tossed his phone aside. He could not afford to think like this. Feel like this. Not for any woman, and certainly not for Rose Delaney. He’d lent his heart to a woman once before, and she’d crushed it beneath her heel. The humiliation had been as bad as the hurt, the disappointment from his family as well as hers, a marriage that had seemed like everyone’s hopes were being realized crumbling to dust. All because of him.

He had no intention of letting that happen again—not, of course, that his heart was any way involved with Rose.

No, it was merely his libido that was being stirred, and that was a problem that could be easily remedied. A willing woman was fortunately not hard to find. As for now, he needed to focus on getting Rose to agree to come to Italy.

Expelling a quick breath, Christos turned from the view of dusk descending on the city and reached for his phone. All it took was a single, swift text to arrange a meal to be brought to his room within the hour. Then he determined to dismiss Rose Delaney from his mind for the next twenty minutes while he caught up on work emails. He’d been thinking about her far too much. Worrying and wondering about her as a person, a woman, when she was meant to be nothing more than a vessel and a means to an end, as ruthless as that might seem. It was necessary. It had to be.

Chapter Seven

Rose expelled a shaky breath as she smoothed down the crumpled cotton of her sundress and then raised her hand to knock on the door of Christos’s suite, which was opposite hers on the top floor. It still felt surreal to be here at all, waiting to have a meal on the penthouse terrace of a luxurious hotel with a billionaire nobleman—something else she’d discovered during her internet deep dive. Christos Amanti was Count Christos Amanti, and Amanti Investments, the company he’d started ten years ago that was separate from the estate, was valued at over a billion euros. It was crazy, crazy stuff, enough to make her head spin as well as wonder—again—what on earth she was getting into, as exciting and exhilarating as it all felt. It was also scary.

“Good evening.”

Rose blinked as Christos opened the door, looming on the threshold with his darkly magnetic presence. Goodness, but she’d never stood so close to someone, or even seen someone in the flesh, who affected her the way he did. He practically put her into a trance. The sight and smell and heat of him… Pine and citrus, pulsing warmth, rippling muscles underneath dark silk. It was enough to make her sway where she stood, and she quickly straightened. How she was going to manage the next three months—if she chose to go to Italy, which she told herself she was still deliberating—was an unsettling conundrum indeed.