led her away from the door and then in through another door farther down. It led into a dark bar with tables and chairs and only a few patrons. Zach steered her to a table in the corner, far from anyone, and sat her down.
“Wait here.”
She was too tired to argue so she did as he ordered, propping her head against one palm as she fought her queasy stomach.
He returned with a glass and a bottle of San Pellegrino, opening it and pouring it for her. She took a grateful sip, let the cold bubbly water slide down her throat and extinguish the fire in her belly.
Zach sank into the chair across from her. His arms were folded over what she remembered was an impressive chest when it was bare. His stare was not in the least bit friendly as he watched her. She thought of the military medal she’d tucked into her purse and pictured him in a flight suit, standing tall and proud beside a sleek fighter jet.
“Better?” he asked shortly.
She nodded. “Somewhat, yes.”
“Good.” His eyes narrowed. “Why should I believe this baby is mine, Lia?”
Her heart thudded. There was no reason she could actually give him. Because I was a virgin. Because you are the only man I’ve ever been with. “A paternity test should clear it up,” she said coolly, though inside she was anything but cool. “I will submit the first moment it is safe to do so.”
He turned his head and stared off into space. His profile was sharp, handsome. His hair was still cut in that military style, short and cropped close. On him, it was perfect. Not for the first time, she wondered what he’d seen in her. No doubt he was wondering the same thing.
“You seem to have it all thought out,” he said evenly. Coldly.
Lia clutched the glass in her hands. “Not really. All I know is we created a baby together. And our baby deserves to have both parents in his or her life.”
It was the one thought that had sustained her on the long trip from Sicily. The one thing she’d had to cling to when everything else was falling apart.
Zach would want his child. She’d told herself that over and over.
But she didn’t really know if it was true.
What if he was exactly like her father and just didn’t care about the life he’d helped to create? Despair rose up inside her soul. How could this be the same man she’d lain in bed with? That man had been warm, mysterious, considerate. He wouldn’t abandon a helpless baby.
But this man …
She shivered. This one was cold and hard and mean.
He looked at her evenly. Across the room, a few people sat at tables or lounged at the bar. One woman leaned in toward the man across from her and said something that made him laugh. How Lia envied that woman. She was with a man who wanted her, a man who was happy she was there.
“I don’t know what you expect, Lia, but I’m not the father type. Or the husband type.” His voice was low and icy, his emotions so carefully controlled she had no idea if he felt anything at all.
“You don’t have a choice about being a father,” she said, her throat aching.
His dark eyes glittered. And then he smiled. A cruel smile. “There is always a choice. This is the twenty-first century, not the dark ages. You don’t have to have this child. You don’t have to keep this child.”
His words seared into her. Lia shot to her feet and clutched her tiny purse to her like a shield. Her hands were trembling. Her body was trembling.
“I want this baby, Zach. I intend to give my child the best life possible. With or without you,” she added, her throat tightening over the words. Though she didn’t know how she was going to do that. She had nothing. The money she had from her mother wasn’t in her control. She didn’t even know how much there was; her grandfather had always managed it. Now, she supposed, Alessandro was managing it.
She didn’t really know Alessandro, but he was her grandfather’s handpicked successor. And if he was anything like Salvatore had been, then he was not a man you demanded anything from.
When she walked out of here, she had nothing more than she’d walked in with. The bit of cash she’d saved from her allowance and the credit card on her grandmother’s account. She kept hoping her grandmother wouldn’t notice the charges, though she had no idea how much longer that could last. She’d fled while her grandmother was out of town, but Teresa would return any day and find Lia gone.
Then what? The family would shut down her ability to spend a dime other than her cash. Then someone would come for her. Lia shuddered.
Her heart thundered while Zach stared her down. Please, she silently begged. Please don’t reject us. Please don’t send us back there.
His eyes did not change. There was no warmth, no sympathy. No feeling at all. She’d been too hasty with that ultimatum. Too stupid.
“Without me,” he said, his voice low and measured.
She considered him for a long moment, her eyes pricking with tears, her breath whooshing in and out of her chest as she fought to maintain control. He was a bastard. A horrible, rotten bastard.
What had happened to the man who’d been frightened and alone in that ballroom back in Palermo? The man who’d been vulnerable, and who’d dropped his military medal because he must believe, on some level, that he didn’t deserve it?
She’d come here with such hope for the future. She’d come here expecting to find the man who had charmed her and made her feel special.
But this man was not the same man. She despised him in that moment. Despised herself for being so weak and needy that she’d had sex with a stranger—not once, but many times over two days. It was as if she’d wanted to challenge fate, as if she’d been laughing and daring life to knock her in the teeth one more time.
Well, it certainly had, hadn’t it? She’d let herself feel something for a man she didn’t know, let herself believe there was more to it than simple biology. Not love, certainly not, but … something. Some feeling that was somehow more than she should have felt for a man she’d only just met.
She was so naive.
The pain sliced into her heart. “I spoke with Taylor Carmichael after you left Sicily. She thinks you are a good man,” Lia told him. Something flickered in his gaze, yet he said nothing. “But I think she doesn’t really know you the way she thinks she does.”
She turned and headed for the exit, though the door was a blur through her tears. One of the patrons in the bar looked up as she passed. He grinned at her, an eyebrow lifting, but she kept walking, her entire world crumbling apart. She hoped Zach would stop her. Prayed he would.
Prayed that she was wrong and he was just very surprised and not reacting well.
But she reached the door and tugged it open, and still he wasn’t behind her. Lia stepped into the corridor and hurried down it, her heels sinking into the plush carpet. And then she was outside, nodding to the doorman’s query if she would like a taxi. Here, the world moved as it had before. Nothing had
