Virgin: Undone by the Billionaire: The Innocent's Dark Seduction / Count Maxime's Virgin / Untamed Billionaire, Undressed Virgin

“You seduced me for the sake of skyscrapers that will never, ever love you back. And you call my father a failure? You call him a fool? He loved us. He’s a better man than you will ever be.”

Roark pressed the cool glass against his forehead. He’d made his choice. He wanted no wife. He wanted no children.

He’d had a family once, people who’d loved him. And he hadn’t saved them. Better to have no one to love than to fail them. Easier. Safer for everyone.

Too bad Nathan didn’t realize that.

He loved us. He’s a better man than you will ever be.

“Roark?” he heard Nathan say. “Christ, you look bad.”

Relieved to be interrupted, Roark looked up to see his old friend standing by the bar table. Nathan beamed at him, looking hale and hearty in jeans and a sweater.

“And I’ve never seen you so happy,” Roark admitted. He held out his hand. “You’re even getting fat!”

With a grin, Nathan shook Roark’s hand. Sitting down at the table, he ruefully patted his belly over his sweater. “Emily keeps feeding me. And after today, it’s only going to get worse!”

Roark looked straight at him. “So run.”

“Same old Roark,” his old friend said with a laugh. He shook his head. “I’m just glad you made it. Trust you to fly in from Mongolia with an hour to spare.”

“Last chance to talk you out of it.”

Nathan signaled to the waitress for a drink. “If I’d thought you actually meant to come to the wedding, I would have made you best man.”

“And if I’d been your best man, I’d have convinced you not to get married. Stay free.”

“Believe me, when you find the right woman, freedom is the last thing you want.”

Roark snorted. “Right.”

“I’m serious.”

“You’re crazy. You’ve only known the girl for what, six months?”

“A year and a half, actually. And we’ve just had some news to make this truly the happiest day of our lives.” Nathan leaned over the table with a grin. “Emily’s pregnant.”

Roark stared at him. “Pregnant?”

Nathan laughed at his expression. “Aren’t you going to congratulate me?”

Pregnant. His old friend wasn’t just settling down with a wife, he was going to have a child. And it made Roark feel every one of his thirty-nine years. What the hell was wrong with him, anyway? He had the perfect life as a bachelor, the life he wanted!

“Congratulations,” Roark said dully.

“We’re looking for a place in Connecticut. I’ll commute to the city for work, but still have a nice house with a yard for the kids. Emily wants a garden….”

A garden. Roark had a sudden memory of an Italian garden full of roses. Blooms in red, yellow, pink, hidden from the world by a medieval stone wall seven feet high. The feel of the hot sun, the buzzing of honeybees and the wind rattling the trees. And the taste of her skin. Oh, God, the sweet taste of her …

“And to think I only met Emily because of that West Side land deal,” Nathan continued. “Do you remember it?”

Roark put down the half-empty glass and said evenly, “I remember that we lost it.”

The loss was still sharp for Roark. It was the only time he’d ever lost anything.

No. There’d been another time. When he was seven years old and his mother had dumped him in the snow in the middle of the night. Her face had been black with soot, streaked with terrified tears. She’d run back into the cabin for her husband and older son. Roark had waited, but they’d never come out….

“It was at the Black and White Charity Ball that I first met Emily.” Nathan nodded his thanks at the cocktail waitress who’d brought his drink. “She works for Countess Villani. You remember the countess, don’t you?” He whistled through his teeth. “That’s a woman no man can ever forget.”

“Yes, I remember her,” Roark said in a low voice. No matter how hard he tried to forget Lia, he remembered. He remembered the way she’d felt in his arms when he kissed her at the ball. Remembered the tremble of her virginal body when he took her in the garden. Remembered the explosive way he’d desired her.

The way she’d looked at him with wonder as they made love—then hatred when she learned his name.

All things he didn’t want to remember. Things he’d spent the past year and a half trying to forget.

He’d never seen a woman her equal. And he’d only had her once, taking her with frenetic, desperate passion. He’d wanted more. He’d wanted to take her again and again, to slow down, take his time, to enjoy her.

She was the only woman who’d ever denied him the chance to take his pleasure for as long as he desired.

Forget her? How could he, when Lia was the one woman every man wanted—and he was the only man who’d ever touched her?

At least, he had been the only one. He suddenly wondered how many men had taken Lia to bed in the last year and a half.

Roark’s hands tightened around the glass.

“Although the countess doesn’t hold a candle to my girl,” Nathan said. “Emily is so warm and loving. The countess is beautiful, definitely, but so cold!”

“Cold?” Roark muttered. “I don’t remember her that way.” She’d been nothing but fire and heat and warmth, from the passion of their first shared kiss to the fierce intensity of her hatred.

“She caught you in her web, didn’t she?”

Roark looked up, saw the amusement in Nathan’s eyes.

“Of course not,” he retorted. “She’s just the woman who put a park where my skyscrapers should have been. Other than that, she means nothing to me.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Nathan said gravely. “Because she’s obviously forgotten you. She’s been seeing the same man for months. Her engagement is expected any day.”

A cold shock burned through Roark’s body.

Lia … engaged?

“Who is he?”

“A wealthy lawyer from an established New York family.”

The cold turned to ice. “What’s his name?”

“Andrew Oppenheimer.”