A Reputation to Uphold (17 page)

Cristo
, one touch of that sinful body and he’d lost his mind.
Never
had he come so hard. Explosives being dangerous had been an ironic distortion. Detonation had obliterated every brain cell, and he doubted he would’ve sensed a tsunami thundering through the house, never mind the blatant lack of latex.

Weak. She made him weak. A condition he loathed. A condition that had just landed him in the dishonourable ranks of his father.

‘Is it a safe time or...?’ he asked, keeping his voice easy, modulated, despite the seething chasm opening in the pit of his stomach waiting to consume her answer.

Brow pinching with pain, she shook her head in tiny little jerks. ‘It’s probably the worst time.’

Horrified. She was horrified. Of course she was. The only thing she’d ever wanted from him was one night. Of sex.

Had his mother looked horrified when she’d suspected she was pregnant with him? So utterly mortified?

A look. A torture he could not physically bear.

Turning, he paced back and forth before bracing his hands, his entire weight, on the rounded lip of the dresser and bowed his head. Closed his eyes, trying to rid his mind of that look.

‘Let’s not jump the gun, okay? What are the chances?’

His famed forethought abandoned him. ‘Of history repeating itself?’ With their chemistry? ‘Fairly damn high in my book.’ It would be just his luck.

Then his conscience was a bloodying assault, one deft punch and kick after another. Cracking ribs, colouring his insides black and blue.

Not only had he stripped her of her innocence, he’d failed to protect her.

Maledizione
! A possible child. One she didn’t even want.

‘History repeating itself?’ she said faintly. ‘What are you talking about?’

His insides writhed like a venomous snake pit.

Trudging in the mire of his parents’ affair had never appealed to him—hell, he’d never given it a second thought—but there he stood, reliving his mother’s drunken tales of woe and, before he knew it, the words were hissing from his mouth.

‘My father took my mother’s innocence,’ he bit out. ‘Slaked his lust. Used her up and tossed her out. Ruined her reputation by walking away when she was pregnant with me.’ A heinous dishonour Dante had no intention of repeating.

‘Oh, Dante, your mum must’ve been so scared, left alone like that.’

Head jerking upright, he watched his brow crease in the dresser mirror.

Not once had he thought about how it had affected his mother. Had she been scared? Knowing she’d had no choice but to bring him up alone? Had the wait been terrifying, just to find out? Alone.

He doubted it. But what was more telling was that Eva immediately empathised.

Dante spun on his heel to search her beautiful face.

Pale. So pale. A stark contrast to her lips, bruised crimson from the crush of his mouth. Was she scared? Was
that
the look on her face?

Cristo
, of course she was. What was wrong with him? He needed a bloody instruction manual to read her.

‘But that doesn’t mean history will repeat itself,’ she said softly. Was she was trying to make
him
feel better? ‘I’m not your mum and you’re not your dad.’

Too right he wasn’t. And no, Eva wasn’t like his mother. Old Eva had wanted children, hadn’t she? Problem was, he wasn’t sure which Eva he was looking at from one moment to the next.

Regardless, he had no intention of allowing her to worry alone. This was his fault and he was fixing it.

‘You will stay here until we know,
capisci
?’ he said fiercely. Maybe a little too harshly if the stunned arch of her blonde brows was anything to go by. ‘If you are...’

Dante waited for the barbed wire to wrap around his guts at the thought of another marriage. So why the hell relief was a warm river rushing through his system he’d never know.
Because she will belong to you. No one else can touch her.

Then, before he could even attempt to stem the flood, the fathomless depths of Natalia’s betrayal sucked him down into the dregs. Where, instead of Natalia lying on the sheepskin rug in front of his hearth, entwined with another, it was Eva. Eva telling him he was cold, frozen to the core. Eva finding comfort in the arms of another while he was continually away on Vitale business. And where he’d felt naught but fury at Natalia’s deceit, the mere thought of finding Eva with another...

A monstrous hand gripped his stomach and twisted tight. Black poison oozed through his veins, flooding his mind with corrupted toxic visions and he scrambled for the antidote.

Rules. His rules. He’d tie her up in a marriage contract so tight she wouldn’t dare wriggle free by deceit or adultery. One false move and he’d take his child to the far side of the earth.

This time he’d have total control.

The black mist cleared from his vision and he focused back on Eva. Mouth working around a retort at his indelicate demand that she stay, her beautiful dainty hand fluttering around the dip of her waist and circling the linen shrouding her stomach.

Right then, the most spectacular sensation inflated his chest.

Hope. Strong. Unwavering.

Eva would carry the Vitale heir. Finally he’d have a son to pass on the legacy he’d fought so long and hard for.

‘Dante, you can’t be serious. I can’t stay here. I have to work.’

Commanding every emotion in his body to shut down with ruthless efficiency, Dante rolled his shoulders and flexed his neck.

Knowing. His powers of persuasion were unequalled.

So he would tempt. Lure. And she
would
surrender.

‘I am deadly serious, Eva. Because if you are, we will marry right here on the island and no one will ever suspect.’

So, until they knew for sure, he wasn’t letting Eva out of his sight.

CHAPTER TEN

B
RAIN IN LOCK-FUNCTION,
it took Eva a good few seconds for the cogs to turn. ‘
What
?’

Marry
?
Her and
Dante
?

‘Forget jumping the gun, you’ve pulled the trigger.’ Of course he had. He was being Dante. Powering forward, two steps ahead of time. As if he could see into the future and wanted to control it
now
. ‘Let’s just wait and see. If I am p...pregnant we’ll discuss the future then. Okay?’

Standing at the opposite side of the bed, washed in the silvery light of the moon, he looked like some Prince of Darkness. Staring at her. With a sinful smile that was a dangerous mix of cold-blooded ruthlessness and annihilating charm, eliciting an ominous sense of déjà vu.

Her spine smacked against the panoramic window with no idea how she’d retreated ten feet and still her eyes devoured him.

‘And will you please put some clothes on.’ Already the hot splash of desire was swirling in her midriff. Hungry. She craved him. Didn’t her body realise they were in enough trouble as it was?

A ghost of a killer
knowing
smile hovered around his lips and she spun on her bare feet, gripped the door lever, wrenched the glass panel wide and burst into the midnight air—thick with tropical heat and just as cloying.

Marry Dante?
Oh, boy.

Heavens above, her mind was still trying to wrap itself around the possibility of a baby.

So Eva was
not
envisioning a picturesque little church, crawling with ivy and pink roses washed in morning sunlight. And she most certainly was
not
designing an A-line gown with elbow-length sleeves layered with floating lace appliqué. She was not!

Pins stabbed the backs of her eyes and Eva scrunched them shut. ‘I promise you, Dante. Whatever happens, you don’t want to marry me. I’m a living nightmare.’

‘I know this,
cara
,’ he said dryly. ‘But do not feel too badly. It makes life...interesting.’

A reluctant smile played about her lips. One that she crushed a wrenching heartbeat later. ‘Interesting isn’t always good.’

The soothing sound of cool waves lapping at the shore was like music to her ears and she veered towards the spiral staircase at the far end of her veranda like some kind of frantic Cinderella. Running before the clock struck twelve and Dante discovered the reality of her life.

‘Eva!’

‘Not now, Dante.’

Down and around she went, the cold metal balustrade biting into her palm, her bare soles pad-pad-padding down the smooth, blissfully chilled tiles.

‘Eva, what the hell are you running from?’

My life. The truth.
Because any minute now he would catch up with her and if she ran he would never know. Finn would never know. No more pain for her family. Not as long as she drew breath.

At the sound of his heavy footfall she jumped off the bottom rung and sank into the white icing-sugar sand, tinted pale silver from the stark glare of moonlight.

‘I just want to be by myself. Okay?’

‘No. It is not okay,’ he ground out.

Catching up with her halfway to the water’s edge, he curled his warm fingers around the soft flesh of her upper arm and tugged her to face him.

‘I want your vow you will stay and if you’re pregnant we will marry.’

‘I can’t stay. I have two weddings on Christmas Eve. Which leads me on to my second point.
I
don’t want to get married. To anyone.
Ever
.’

Darkness descended as if the moon had been usurped by the blackest of clouds and she shivered wildly. There was something almost terrifying in his splintering gaze.

‘Why?’ he ground out with sarcastic bite. ‘Because, let me tell you, you make no sense, Eva. Why does an innocent, who lives and breathes romance, not
do
devotion?’

The cynicism contorting his face was like pouring fuel on the petrol of her ire and sparked a retaliation that, quite frankly, had been a long time coming. The words exploded from her mouth without a single thought. ‘Because I’ve seen enough heartbreak and pain to last me ten lifetimes. So I’m not willing to devote my life to a man who believes the word monogamous equates to one woman in every city. When I grew up with one who thought nothing of scratching his itch while his wife suffered and his children rotted!’

Heart threatening to burst from her heaving chest, Eva watched understanding relax his tight features. Unfurl his fists.

‘
Cristo
, why didn’t I see this?’ Tipping his head back, he glared at the starlit sky and blew out a ragged breath. ‘Eva,
cara
, not all men are weak.’ Chin lowering, he locked on to her eyes and jammed his thumb in his chest. ‘I am
not
your father.’

‘Weak?’ she said, wincing at the crack in her voice. ‘That’s what people call adultery and desertion now? A weakness?’

‘
Sì
. It is a weak man who leaves his wife and children when times are hard.’

Eva slammed her hands on her hips. ‘Or maybe it’s a man who believes one woman equates to eternal boredom. Let’s face it, you have just as much staying power. Finn too.’

Nostrils flaring, she watched his wide chest swell. ‘You know nothing of my staying power, Eva. Do not judge me without a fair hearing. I have never lied about my intentions or cheated on another. If you knew—’

Blinking, she pondered the pain marring his staggeringly beautiful face. ‘Knew what?’

‘I would
never
do such a thing to you.’

No one could dismiss the sincerity blazing in his fierce gaze and she wanted to believe him. Desperately. But the doubts lingered on. Maybe it was because she was
nothing
like his other women. Or maybe she realised he would soon tire of a wife who couldn’t even make love with her bra off. How long would his patience last then? What if she lost her breasts altogether? Would he want her then? Of course he wouldn’t. Not when he could have any woman in the world.

‘We would always have truth, you and I. Always honesty. Without messy emotions overruling common sense.’

Messy emotions? Wasn’t that just a typical Dante remark?

‘I appreciate what you’re saying, I do. But marriage is not the answer.’ She refused to ensnare him in her life.

‘Let me make one thing very clear, Eva.’ Darkness, like demon shadows creeping over a soul, clouded his eyes with...
pain
? ‘No son of mine will question his existence, no son of mine will be without his father’s name.’

Eva blinked, his seething dominance shuttering in and out of view. Such normal words, yet the agony, the violence behind them.

Suddenly, the penny dropped. His father had never acknowledged him. Or at least until he’d had no choice. When his mother had died? Oh, God, what must that have been like for him? No wonder he was jumping ahead of time. Picturing the worst.
History repeating itself.

Eva reached up. ‘I promise you,
if
I am pregnant, he or
she
can still have your name. I swear—’

He jerked from her touch and her hand plummeted to her side. ‘Forgive me if I do not trust your promises,
cara
. There is more to consider here than your obstinacy. We have business reputations to protect. Finn to consider. The happiness and well-being of a child. We
will
marry.’

Eva closed her eyes. He was right. She knew it. If they didn’t marry, Dante would look all kinds of a louse and, as for her...
Ohh,
boy. She could see the headlines now: Diva Up The Duff! Who’s The Father? Finn would murder Dante with his bare hands. In truth their child would need him. He was right.
If
she was pregnant, they would have to marry.

‘Yes. Okay. If. If. Don’t forget the
if.
Oh, God, this is awful.’ Dante would be stuck with her for life. Or at least until she fell sick. How was she supposed to tell him? That one of his one-night-wonders might turn out to be his worst nightmare.

Stomach churning violently, she pushed the flat of her palm against her belly-button and breathed deep. How could the most amazing night of her life go so horribly wrong?