attention on the limited surface area where they touched. It wasn’t enough, and it was too much.
When he traced his thumb over her knuckles, she thought she would moan. She bit her lip to keep it from happening. It’s just skin, she told herself. But it was his skin, his hand.
“You worry too much, cara mia,” he said, his voice a sensual rumble deep in her core. “We’re tied to each other now. For the foreseeable future.”
He was talking about the contract and the Sky campaign. Though, for a single dangerous moment, she envisioned a different kind of bond. A bond between two people who wanted to be together. Two people who shared a child.
Holly licked her lips nervously. Her chest rose and fell as her breath came in short bursts. She wanted to run. She wanted to shove back from the island and flee before she fell any deeper into the morass. Before the truth came out and everything fell apart again.
Her life had been on the brink of disaster since Gran had died. She was accustomed to it. She was not accustomed to having hope. It terrified her. She tugged her hand away and tucked it into her lap.
Storm clouds fought a battle in Drago’s expression. He looked frustrated and confused, and then he looked angry, his eyes hardening by degrees. Finally he sat back again. Incongruously, she wanted to reach out to him, beg him to touch her again.
“You have no reason to be scared of me,” Drago said, shoving his chair back and standing. “I’m not a monster.”
She tilted her head up to meet his hard gaze. But it stunned her to realize there was something more in his eyes. He looked...lost, alone. Her breath razored into her lungs.
“I don’t think you’re a monster,” she said softly.
“I’m not sure I believe you.”
Impulsively, she put her hand on his arm. His skin was warm beneath his sleeve, the muscle solid. His eyes were hooded as he stared at her, and a wave of fire sizzled through her body, obliterating everything in its path except this feeling between them.
This hot, achy feeling that made her body sing.
She dropped her hand away, suddenly uncertain. Why did she want to tempt fate again? Why did she want to take the risk and immolate herself in his flame?
Drago tilted her chin up when she would have looked away. “I don’t understand you, Holly Craig. You are hot and cold, fierce and frightened. One minute I think you want...” He shook his head. “But then you don’t. And I’ll be damned if I can figure it out.”
She tried to drop her chin, but he wouldn’t let her. He forced her to meet his gaze. It was unflinching, penetrating. She trembled inside, as if he were reaching deep inside her soul and ferreting out all her secrets.
Except, he wasn’t. He couldn’t know what she kept hidden.
“It didn’t end so well the last time,” she told him. “Maybe that’s what scares me.”
He blew out a breath and closed his eyes for a long moment. “I make no apologies for what happened, Holly. You lied to me.”
“I know. And I’m sorry for it. But I already told you why.”
“Yes, you did.” He sank onto the stool beside her and rubbed his palms along his jeans. “I don’t like being lied to. And I don’t like being used.”
She wondered if he could see her pulse throbbing in her throat. Her palms were damp, but she didn’t dare to wipe them dry while he watched her.
“I understand,” she said.
“I don’t think you do,” he replied. He picked up a glass of some kind of liquor that had been sitting beside his paperwork and took a drink. She watched the slide of his throat, wondered how on earth such a thing could make her gut clench with desire.
“I’ve always been a Navarra, but I haven’t always lived as one,” he said quietly, after a long moment of silence.
Holly wrapped her arms around herself, her gut aching with the loneliness of his words.
“My parents were not married. My father was a playboy, a wastrel. My mother was easily corrupted, I think. When he wouldn’t marry her, she might have had a bit of a breakdown.” He shrugged, and she wondered what he did not say. “They were together for a couple of years, at least. I was a baby when he left her. He died in a car accident not too long after that. And that’s when my mother started trying to use me to get things from his family. She spent years trotting me out in front of my uncle, demanding money and then spending it all foolishly.”
“Babies need a lot of things,” she said. “Maybe she didn’t have enough, and...”
The fire in his eyes made her words die. She swallowed, her soul hurting so much for him. And for the woman who’d tried to raise him alone.
“She had enough, Holly. But not enough for her to get what she wanted.”
“What did she want?”
His throat worked. “I wish to hell I knew.” He threaded a hand through his hair, dropped it to his side again. “My uncle offered to take me in, but she refused to give me up.”
Holly’s stomach tightened. “I understand that. I wouldn’t give Nicky up, either.”
Drago leaned toward her. His expression was filled with pain and confusion. “She refused because she knew what she had. I was the golden goose, and periodically I brought her a golden egg. Eventually, my uncle offered her enough to let me go.”
Holly’s heart thudded painfully for him. But she understood why a mother wouldn’t give up her child. Why she tried and tried to make it work before she finally gave in. What must Drago’s mother have felt when she’d realized she couldn’t keep him? That he would be better off with the Di Navarras than with her?
And why wouldn’t Drago’s uncle take them both? Why didn’t he provide them with a home instead of an unthinkable option for a mother?
“I’m so sorry, Drago.” What else could she say?
His features were bleak, ravaged. She wanted to put her arms around him and hold him tight. But she didn’t. She didn’t know if he would welcome it. If she could be strong enough to do it without confessing her own sins.
Oh, God, how could she ever tell him about Nicky now? He would never comprehend why she’d kept it a secret.
“I don’t like to be used, Holly. I don’t like the way it makes me feel.”
“I understand,” she said, her throat aching, her eyes stinging with tears. “And I’m sorry.”
For so many things.
He sighed again. And then he shook his head as if realizing how much he’d said. “You should finish your dinner.”
She looked at the food congealing on the plate. There was no way she could eat another bite. “I’m finished.”
He stood again, shoved his hands into his pockets. He looked more lost than she would
