going to phone for an ambulance. Then it will be my pleasure to walk out that door and not look back.”
“No!” Aimee sat up quickly. Too quickly; the room seemed to give a sickening lurch and the all-too-familiar nausea sent a rush of bile up her throat. “I don’t—I don’t need an—”
“Dio, look at you! You’re white as a ghost.”
“I am fine,” she said carefully, as she rose to her feet. The room tilted again. She took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. “Thank you for your help, Prince Barbieri. Now, get the hell out of my apartment.”
“Not until I know you’re all right.”
“Why would you give a damn?”
“Why? Well, let’s see. I rang the bell. You opened the door, saw me and did an excellent imitation of a Victorian swoon.” His smile was lupine and all teeth. “I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I tell you I can envision a scenario in which you end up accusing me of somehow causing that swoon.”
He meant it as an insult, she knew, but Aimee could only think how close to the truth he’d come.
“I just thanked you for your help, didn’t I?”
“You’re a superb liar,” Nicolo said coldly. “Or did you think I’d forget that?”
“We’ve been all through this.”
“Yes. We have. And you lied.” His eyes narrowed as they met hers. “You told your grandfather I seduced you when we both know that what happened in that club, and in my hotel room, was by mutual consent.”
Aimee stared up at him. His face might have been the stone face of a Roman emperor, his eyes unseeing and unfeeling. It was impossible to imagine she’d slept with this man.
He was, indeed, a stranger.
“Is that why you came here? To hear me admit that I—that I let you seduce me?”
“That you let me seduce you?” Nicolo folded his arms and gave a hollow laugh. “Such clever phrasing.”
Aimee’s legs were like rubber. She’d never fainted before but she thought she might damned well do it again if she had to keep up a conversation with this arrogant ass who was in a snit because he believed she’d come on to him deliberately.
She could only imagine how he’d react if he knew she carried a baby.
His baby.
A choked laugh caught in her throat. Prince Nicolo Barbieri’s child. He wouldn’t believe it. Well, who could blame him? She could hardly believe it, either.
She couldn’t be pregnant. She took the pill. She’d been taking it for a couple of years now, not to prevent getting pregnant. Why would she, considering that the last time she’d been intimate with a man before she’d slept with Nicolo Barbieri was her senior year at college?
She took it to regulate her period, but what had happened to its primary function as a contraceptive?
Accidents happen. She could almost hear the tut-tutting voice of her boarding school’s sex-ed teacher. Remember, ladies, accidents happen.
Her legs buckled.
“Dio!” Nicolo grabbed her shoulders as she collapsed on the sofa. “That’s it. You need a doctor.”
“I need you to go away.” Aimee struggled up against the pillows as he took his cell phone from his pocket. “What are you doing?”
“Calling for an ambulance.”
“No! I don’t want an ambulance. Damn you, will you just—”
“Then tell me your physician’s number.”
Her physician’s number. The man who’d made her pregnant wanted to call the doctor who’d just told her about that pregnancy. Wild laughter rose in her throat.
“You find this amusing?”
“No. Not amusing. Just—just…”
Aimee shook her head. The only thing she wanted was to bury her face in her hands and weep. That meant getting Nicolo Barbieri out of her apartment and out of her life.
Time to ditch her stupid pride.
“You came here to hear me admit that—that what happened between us was as much my idea as yours.” She paused, touched the tip of her tongue to her dry lips. “All right. I admit it. I’m equally responsible for what happened.” She shuddered and drew the lapels of her robe together. “I behaved irresponsibly. But not like—like what you called me. There was no plan. No orchestration. There was just—there was just you, and me, and some kind of insanity…”
Her voice faded away but she had said enough. Nicolo had what he’d come for: her admission that she’d wanted him as much as he’d wanted her.
The rest didn’t matter. He knew that now.
He no longer gave a damn whose idea the meeting had been, hers or the old man. What mattered was that once he’d kissed her, once he’d touched her, she had belonged to him.
“Please. Go away now. I—I’m tired. I want to lie down.”
His brow furrowed. She was more than tired. She looked…What? Ill? Frightened?
Terrified.
Of him? That was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? That she be afraid of him? And yet—and yet, suddenly, he wanted something more. Something just out of reach…
“Aimee.” Nicolo squatted beside her and took her hands in his. Her fingers were ice-cold. “Cara. You need a doctor.”
“No.” She shook her head; the lustrous honey curls shifted like strands of heavy silk around her pale face. “I don’t. Really. I’m fine.”
Plainly, something was wrong. She needed help. He wanted to grab her and shake some sense into her.
Or take her in his arms and kiss her. Tell her she had nothing to fear, not from him. Not from anything, as long as he was here to protect her…
Dio, was he losing his mind?
Nicolo shot to his feet. “Tea,” he said briskly.
She looked up at him as if he’d lost his sanity. Perhaps he had but she wouldn’t let him call a doctor and he’d be damned if he’d leave her when she looked like a ghost.
“Tea cures everything, or so my great-grandmother used to say.”
Aimee didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He was human after all. He had to be, if he’d had a great-grandmother.
She stood up. He reached out a steadying hand but she ignored it.
“Thank you for the suggestion,” she said politely.
