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“Rose, we both know you have.” Christos leaned back in his chair, crossing one leg elegantly over the other. “What other options do you have? No job, no health insurance? How will you even pay your rent?”

She gaped at him, hurt that he was using her confidences against her, and perhaps she shouldn’t have shared all she did. But somehow, in the dimly lit room, with the good food and the easy conversation and the way he’d asked questions and seemed interested in the answers…

Goodness, but she was stupid. She’d let herself be lured in when Christos Amanti had only one focus. One goal.

Her baby. The Amanti heir.

“That doesn’t mean I have to go to Italy with you,” she protested, and his mouth tightened.

“Why do you keep fighting this?” he asked in a tone that sounded far too reasonable. “It is the obvious solution. You have no other recourse, and I promise you, you will be treated with courtesy and respect, given every possible comfort you could imagine. And,” he added, his golden-brown gaze fixed on her, “at the end of three months, should you choose to, you can walk away.”

He made it seem so simple, Rose thought numbly. So obvious and easy, and maybe it was. Heaven knew she was tired of fighting. Tired of feeling suspicious. And not having to worry about money or health care for a few months…well, that was a wonderful prospect indeed.

And yet…she thought of Christos’s thumb on her palm, how the lightest of touches had made her shudder with yearning, and she was pretty sure he’d known it. Going to Italy might be the stupidest thing she would ever do—and for a reason that had nothing to do with the baby she was carrying. Yet what other choice did she have?

“All right, fine,” she whispered. “I’ll go.”

“Good.” He rose from the table in one fluid movement. “I’ll make the arrangements. Meanwhile, you really should get some sleep.” He smiled down at her, the gesture seeming almost proprietary, and yet at the same time almost tender. “You will have a very big day tomorrow.”

Wordlessly Rose nodded. She didn’t think she could manage much more. Her mind was seething with questions, her heart with a tangle of conflicting emotions—excitement and anxiety, hope and trepidation. And longing. Longing she had no business feeling for a man she wasn’t sure she could trust.

“Good night,” she whispered, and gently Christos reached over and touched her chin.

“Good night, fiore mia,” he murmured. “Mia rosa.”

Rose knew enough Italian to understand what he was saying. My flower. My rose. And yet she wasn’t his at all, not his rose, not his anything. She didn’t reply as she walked out of the room on legs that still felt unsteady, and then, once in the hallway, rushed to her own suite, slamming the door behind her like she’d been chased by a devil. A gasp escaped her, and she leaned her head back against the door as she closed her eyes.

What on earth was she getting into?

Chapter Nine

Christos let out a small sigh of relief as he boarded the private jet with Rose, his hand gently cupping her elbow to help her up the stairs. At last, he had Rose Delaney on his plane, heading to Italy. Safe, and maybe even relaxing a little, which was another relief.

He’d found over the course of the day that he enjoyed Rose’s company, her wry humor and her ready laugh, and he’d far prefer having her relaxed and interested than coming out swinging and suspicious, as she had been earlier. Since then, Christos felt they’d managed to get back on an even keel.

This morning he’d accompanied her to her apartment so she could pick out what clothes she wanted to bring; there had been something unsettlingly intimate about seeing where she lived. Looking around her cozy if modest studio apartment, he’d seen signs of a woman who longed to belong to a family. The photo of her parents, their arms around each other, on her dresser. The stack of baby clothes in a laundry basket by the sofa. The pregnancy books piled on the coffee table, the Moses basket ready to be used.

Would a woman like this really be willing to do what he was planning to ask of her? He thought not, not without some serious incentive or persuasion, anyway, which made him reluctantly feel the need to reconsider his whole plan.

Still, that was a problem for another day. First he needed to get Rose to Italy, and he almost had.

After going to her apartment, he’d accompanied her to shop for toiletries and other small items. When he’d insisted on paying for them, she’d resisted until he’d pointed out, as mildly as ever, that she wouldn’t need to buy such things if she wasn’t coming to Italy. Therefore, it was surely his duty to purchase whatever she required.

Laughing, she’d finally agreed, and they’d had a coffee in a café on Central Park South overlooking the park, chatting amiably about all manner of things in a way that had felt relaxed and amazingly pleasant. She’d asked him about the estate, the kinds of things no one had ever asked or been interested to know before. Instead of its magnificent history or the impressive production of the vineyard, she’d wanted to know if he’d swum as a boy, and what his favorite place on the estate was.

“Did you have a fort or a den?” she’d asked, her chin propped in her hand, her eyes sparkling with curiosity and mischief. “Someplace where you could escape all the responsibility and just be you?”

He’d been startled first by her question and then, unsettlingly, by his own answer. “Actually, I did,” he told her. “There was a little cave on the property, facing the lake. There are quite a few caves around Lake Maggiore, some of them made of white marble and very impressive. But this…” He let out a small chuckle, the sound surprising him. “This was no more than a hiding place, a…a cubbyhole. Luca found it first. He dared me to go in, and I did. He wouldn’t, though, and I… I knew then I could always go there to be by myself. It was barely big enough to lie down in, but if you crawled back, you couldn’t be seen.” He fell silent, shocked by how much he’d admitted. He hadn’t thought of that little cave in years.

“And sometimes,” Rose said quietly, “you didn’t want to be seen? To be found?”

He shrugged, uncomfortable with the sympathy he saw in her eyes, the understanding that felt like it could be his undoing. “I suppose. I imagine any child feels that way sometimes.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” she answered, “but I imagine it must have been particularly hard for you as the heir. Did you have much responsibility when you were young, learning about the estate, knowing you’d have to take it all on?”

“Yes, that was the expectation,” he allowed cautiously. He was reluctant to say anything that would besmirch his family.

“It must have been hard,” Rose said quietly. “Especially if Luca was allowed to be so different. Did you have to take care of him, keep him out of trouble, because you were the big brother?”