Pregnant By The Ceo: Sensible Housekeeper, Scandalously Pregnant / She's Having the Boss's Baby / The Baby Who Saved Dr Cynical

“Yes,” she whispered.

His face hardened. “For so long, you’ve been such a mystery. An intriguing problem to solve.” He brushed back tendrils of her dark hair the wind had blown across her face. “But now I understand you. At last.”

She shivered beneath his touch, closing her eyes.

Was it possible that everything she’d dreamed of for so long was about to happen? Was it possible he was about to tell her he loved her as well, and in a moment, when she told him shyly about their coming baby, he would take her into his arms and kiss her?

She could barely breathe…

“You’ve been setting me up,” he said harshly. “Just like you and your sister did with your last employer.”

Her eyes flew open.

“My…my sister?”

She felt Rafael’s fingers clench into her shoulders, and she gasped. He looked down at her with something close to hatred in his eyes.

“I thought I could trust you,” he said in a low voice. “But it was all just a trick, wasn’t it?”

“No,” she whispered. She shook her head. “You’re wrong.”

He gave a harsh, cruel laugh.

“I trusted you. Trusted you as I trusted no other woman alive. But have you spent the last five years of your life setting me up for a con?”

“What?” she gasped. Unshed tears stung her eyes as she shook her head fiercely. “I don’t—”

“Tell me the truth!” he said coldly. “Was I a fool to trust you? Did you lie when you said you were on the Pill?”

Horrified, Louisa sucked in her breath.

For a moment, silence fell. The cool breezes from the sea caused the colorful paper lanterns to sway amid the darkness of the garden.

Rafael’s jaw was set in a grim line as his hands tightened on her.

“I thought I’d done due diligence by calling your last employer personally. I spoke to his wife, not realizing she was your sister. Of course she gave you a glowing recommendation—she wanted to help you get your wealthy man, as you helped her!”

Louisa drew back, tears suddenly in her eyes as she thought of all the pain. “That’s not how it was!”

“No?” His lip curled. “Then how was it?”

Louisa took a deep breath. She didn’t want to speak of the past, but she had no choice. For their child’s sake, she had to make him understand that her pregnancy was an accident—not a trap!

“Five years ago, I fell in love with my boss,” she whispered, then stopped.

Rafael gripped her shoulders. “Go on.”

“I’d only been working as his housekeeper for a few months when Matthias asked me to marry him.” Every low, hoarse word felt painfully ripped from her. “But I wouldn’t go to bed with him. I told him I wanted to wait for our wedding night. I was so young, so young and idealistic. Then my little sister came to visit from college.” She looked up at him, blinking back tears. “The night of our engagement party, Katie told me Matthias was going to marry her instead. Because…she was pregnant with his baby.”

Staring down at her, he took a deep, shuddering breath. For a moment, she thought he meant to comfort her. Then his dark eyes looked at her with the fire of betrayal.

“Just as the two of you planned all along. You left him sex-starved, your sister lured him into her bed and he fell into her trap. Just as I fell into yours,” he said in a low, cold voice. “I trusted you, Louisa. Although I should have suspected something when I first took you to bed. There would be no reason for a virgin with no boyfriend to be on the Pill—”

“I told you, it was for cramps, to regulate my cycle—”

“I thought it was just an unfortunate coincidence,” he spoke over her ruthlessly, “that when I came home that night and found you crying in Paris, the apartment was out of condoms. You set me up so methodically, and I wanted you so badly, I was blind.”

Louisa stared at him in shock and grief.

She’d shared something of her past she’d never spoken about with anyone—but he didn’t give a damn. He was just determined to use her own words against her!

A slow burn of anger built inside her.

“I forgot to restock the condoms, but that wasn’t on purpose! Perhaps I had trouble—” she lifted her chin defiantly “—because you were going through boxes so rapidly.”

His jaw twitched. Abruptly releasing her, he folded his arms. “You lured me by acting distant, knowing that would intrigue me. Then you made sure I found you weeping, needing comfort, knowing there was only one kind of comfort I would offer.”

“I never thought you would come home early from your date and seduce me!”

“So you’re not pregnant?”

She sucked in her breath.

This was worse, so much worse than she’d thought. Why hadn’t she realized that her two-day stomach flu had totally ruined the effectiveness of the birth control? She’d never thought he might look at her past and imagine that she could be so devilishly clever.

If she were, she thought bitterly, she wouldn’t have slept with a heartless, suspicious playboy like Rafael Cruz!

Dark shadows and swinging red lights moved over his hard expression, making him look devilish. She sucked in her breath, trembling at the dark promise she saw in his eyes. It made her take an involuntary step backward.

She had to lie. There was no way she could tell him the truth now.

But the thought of denying the existence of her unborn child, the weight of telling such an awful lie, beat down upon her like golf-ball-size chunks of ice.

She felt incredibly hormonal and exhausted from being pregnant and traveling back from Greece. She felt tearful and emotionally drained from the roller-coaster ride of the last few days. Just yesterday, she’d been his adored mistress; today, she’d been ripped apart by the discovery of her pregnancy, and yet she’d been forced to hide her emotion, to serve him and his fancy guests while watching him flirt with another woman.

And suddenly, she’d had it.

Louisa took a deep breath. Slowly she looked up at him. She could live without his love. She could ball up her heart into a block of ice. She could ignore her feelings. She’d done it before.

But he had to love their baby.

If Rafael was cold to their innocent child and treated him badly through his whole life, letting their son or daughter know they were never wanted…No, she couldn’t let that happen. She would deny their child’s existence before she would risk causing her baby such endless grief!

He gently stroked her cheek. But his gaze was anything but gentle as he raked her soul with his fury and rage. She had the sudden feeling of being trapped. His body, his darkness, towered over her.

The heat between them felt like a cold burn. Like ice. Like a threat.

“There’s only one thing I need to know,” Rafael said in a low voice. “One thing that will determine if I was a fool to believe you were the last honest woman on earth. So tell me.” His dark eyes glittered in the swaying light of the red paper lanterns. “Are you pregnant, Louisa?”