was certainly convinced she had what it took to succeed in his business. He glanced at the shabby furnishings and wasn’t persuaded. If she had talent, why was she here? Why hadn’t she kept trying even after he’d turned her down? There were other companies, other opportunities. They weren’t the best, but they were a leg up.
Which she desperately seemed to need, he admitted. He refused to feel any remorse for that. She might have spent all her money coming to New York, but he was not responsible for her choices.
And yet, this place depressed him. Made him feel jumpy and angry and insignificant in ways he’d thought he’d forgotten long ago. He hadn’t always lived the way he did now—with everything money could buy at his fingertips—and this dingy apartment was far too familiar. He thought of his mother and her insane quest for something he’d never understood—something she’d never understood, either, he’d finally come to realize years after the fact.
Donatella Benedetti had been looking for enlightenment, the best he could figure. And she’d been willing to drag her only son from foreign location to foreign location, some of them without electricity or running water or any means of communicating with the world at large. He’d held a hat while she’d busked on the streets, playing a violin with adequate-enough skill to gain a few coins for a meal. He’d curled up in a canoe while they’d floated down an Asian river, moving toward a village of mud huts and deprivation. He’d learned to beg for money by looking pitiful and small and hungry. He’d known how to count coins before he’d ever learned to read.
Holly took a deep breath and opened the door to greet an older woman standing on the other side. The woman held a baby carrier, presumably containing a baby, if the way Holly bent down and looked at it was any indication.
The beginnings of a headache started to throb in Drago’s temple. Babies were definitely not his thing. They were tiny and mysterious and needy, and he hadn’t a clue what to do with them.
“I thought I heard you come up,” the woman was saying. “He was a good baby tonight. Such a sweetie.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Turner. I really appreciate you helping out like this.”
The other woman waved a hand. “Pish. You know I’m a night owl. It’s no problem to keep him while you work.” She looked up then, her gaze landing on him. Drago inclined his head while her eyes drifted over him. “Oh, my, I didn’t know you had company,” she said.
Holly turned briefly and then waved a hand as if to dismiss him. “Just an old acquaintance I ran into tonight. He’s leaving now.”
He was not leaving, but he didn’t bother to tell her that. Or, he was leaving, but not just yet. Not until he figured out what was happening here.
There was a baby, in a carrier, and Holly was taking it from the woman. Was it her baby? Or her roommate’s? And did it matter? So long as she modeled for Sky, did he care?
“Go ahead and take care of the baby,” he said evenly. “I can go in a moment, once everything is settled.”
The woman she’d called Mrs. Turner nodded approvingly. “Excellent idea. Get the little pumpkin settled first.”
Mrs. Turner handed over a diaper bag, as well as the carrier, and Drago stepped forward to take the bag from Holly. She didn’t protest, but she didn’t look at him, either. A few more seconds passed as Holly and Mrs. Turner said their goodbyes, and then the door closed and they were alone.
Or, strike that, there were three of them where there’d been four. Drago gazed at the baby carrier as the child inside cooed and stretched.
“He’s hungry,” Holly said. “I have to feed him.”
“Don’t let me stop you.”
She gazed at him with barely disguised hatred. “I’d prefer you go,” she said tightly. “It’s late, and we need to get to bed.”
“Whose baby is this?” he asked curiously. He thought of her in New York, sweet and innocent and so responsive to his caresses, and hated the idea she could have been with another man. He’d been her first. Yet another thing about her that had fooled him into thinking she hadn’t had ulterior motives.
Drago tried very hard not to remember her expression of wonder when he’d entered her fully for the first time. She’d clung to him so sweetly, her body opening to him like a flower, and he’d felt an overwhelming sense of honor and protectiveness toward her. Something she’d been counting on, no doubt.
Dio, she had fooled him but good. She’d gotten past all his defenses and made him care, however briefly. Anger spun up inside him. But there were other feelings, too, desire being chief among them. It rather surprised him how sharp that feeling was, as if he’d not had sex in months rather than hours. Quite simply, he wanted to spear his hands into her hair and tilt her mouth up for his pleasure.
And then he wanted to strip her naked and explore every inch of her skin the way he once had, and let the consequences be damned.
Her expression was hard as she looked at him, and he wondered if she knew what he was thinking. Then she walked over to the couch—a distance of about four steps—and set the baby carrier on the floor. She grabbed the diaper bag from him and began to rummage in it. Soon, she had a bottle in her hands and she took the baby out of the carrier and began to feed it.
Drago watched the entire episode, a skein of discomfort uncoiling inside him as she deliberately did not answer his question.
It wasn’t a hard question, but she looked down at the baby and made faces, talking in a high voice and ignoring him completely. Her long reddish-blond hair draped over one shoulder, but she didn’t push it back. He let his gaze wander her features, so pretty in a simple way, and yet earthy somehow, too.
She had not been earthy before. Now she bent over the child, holding the bottle, her full breasts threatening to burst from the white shirt, her legs long and lean beneath the tight skirt of the casino uniform. The only incongruous items of clothing were the tennis shoes she’d changed into.
Drago suddenly felt out of his element. Holly Craig nursed a child and turned every bit of love and affection she had on it, when all she could spare for him was contempt. Watching her with the baby, he had a visceral reaction that left a hole in the center of his chest. Had his mother ever focused every ounce of attention she had on him? Had she ever looked at him with such love? Or had she only ever looked at him as a burden and a means to an end?
“Holly,” he said, his voice tight, and she looked up at him, her gaze defiant and hard. If he’d been a lesser man, he would have stumbled backward under that knife-edged gaze of hers. He was not a lesser man. “Whose child is that?”
He asked the question, but he was pretty certain he knew the answer by now.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” she told him airily, “but Nicky is mine. If this changes your plan to have me model for Sky, then I’d appreciate it if you’d get out and leave us alone.”
* * *
Holly’s heart hammered double-time in her chest. She hadn’t wanted him to know about Nicky at all, not yet, not until the contract he’d agreed to provide was signed and she knew she’d get her money for doing the Sky campaign at the very least.
But of course her luck had run out months ago. First, she’d gone to New York, spent every
