Italian Bachelors: Unforgotten Lovers: The Change in Di Navarra's Plan / Bound by the Italian's Contract / Visconti's Forgotten Heir

Her nose was small and straight, her cheekbones were on the plump side these days, and her mouth wasn’t exactly a supermodel mouth. Her lips weren’t luscious. They were average. Two pink lines that formed a pretty pout if she pursed her lips.

Her eyes were blue, but not spectacular. They weren’t cornflowers or sapphires or any of those other things. They were just blue. Maybe sky-blue. Maybe just plain blue.

Holly brushed her hair into a ponytail and went to check on Nicky. He was awake, looking up at the mobile above him and kicking his little legs. Holly took him out of his crib and went into the kitchen to fix his bottle.

Drago looked up as she entered. He was sitting at the tall table facing the view, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. Her heart flipped at the sight of him. She was getting a little tired of reacting so strongly to him, but she knew it wasn’t going away. It had been there from the first moment, and would likely always be there.

“Buongiorno, cara,” he said.

“Good morning,” she replied. Nicky pumped his arms and made a loud noise, and she laughed, unable to help herself. When she looked at Drago, he was smiling, though he looked tired. Perhaps he’d had trouble sleeping, too.

“He is rather, uh, energetic, yes?”

Holly nodded. “Oh, yes. He keeps me on my toes.”

She rummaged in the refrigerator for the formula she’d mixed in the wee hours. Nicky hadn’t drunk it all, so she’d put it away. Now she needed to heat it up. Which was hard to do with a squirming baby in her arms. She tried to shift him around, but he kept wiggling.

“Let me,” Drago said, coming over and holding out his hands.

Holly’s heart skipped several beats as she gazed up at him. Then she handed over his son. It felt as if someone had wrenched her child from her arms, so much did it hurt to give him to Drago at this very moment.

A ridiculous notion, but there it was. And then it was gone as Drago stood there with Nicky in his arms, looking suddenly uncertain. He held the baby out from his body with both hands, and Nicky kicked his legs back and forth.

“You won’t break him,” Holly said. “Cradle him to your chest and be sure to support his head.”

Drago dragged his gaze from the baby to her. “That’s it?”

Holly nodded. “That’s it.”

Drago did as she said, and she turned back to the counter, getting a bowl and filling it with water. She popped it into the microwave to heat and turned back to where Drago stood, looking down at Nicky warily.

She would have laughed if her heart hadn’t been breaking.

“He’s so small,” Drago said.

“But getting bigger every day.”

Nicky started to fuss and Drago shot her a panicked look.

“Bounce up and down a little bit,” she said. Drago looked doubtful, but then he started to do as she said, and Nicky quieted. Holly bit her lip to keep from smiling at the sight of strong, handsome Drago di Navarra—playboy, billionaire cosmetics king—bouncing awkwardly with a baby in his arms.

But then her smile faded when she considered that Nicky was his baby and she still needed to tell him so. After last night, after she’d understood how lonely his life had been, it felt terribly wrong not to tell him he had a son.

But the moment had to be right. And it wasn’t now.

She turned to the microwave and took the water out, setting the bottle inside and then reaching for her baby. Drago seemed relieved as he turned him over. Holly bounced Nicky and said nonsensical things to him while Drago went back to his coffee and paper. But rather than pick up the paper, he watched her. She met his gaze, saw the confusion and heat in his beautiful gray eyes.

“You make me want the strangest things, Holly Craig,” he said softly, and a hot feeling bloomed in her belly, her core.

“It’s probably just indigestion,” she said flippantly, and he laughed. But her heart thrummed and her blood beat and a fine sheen of sweat broke out on her upper lip and between her breasts.

What she really wanted to know was what kind of things. That was the question she wanted to ask, but was too scared to. Coward.

Yes, she was a coward, at least where Drago was concerned. Because there was something about him, something she desperately desired. And if she angered him, if he sent her away, then she wouldn’t get that thing, would she? It wasn’t just sex, though it was that, too.

It was...something.

He folded the paper and sat back to sip his coffee with one arm folded over his body. He wore faded jeans and a dark button-down shirt, and his muscles bulged and flexed as he moved his arm. Her knees felt weak.

“Yes, perhaps you are right,” he said. “Perhaps I just haven’t had enough coffee yet.” He glanced at his watch and frowned. “We need to leave for the airport in an hour. Will you be ready?”

Her stomach spun. “Yes.”

“Good.” He stood then. “I have some paperwork to attend to first. I’ll let you know when it’s time.”

He left her in the kitchen alone, and she fed Nicky while looking out over the early-morning mist wreathing Central Park. She grabbed a cup of coffee and a bagel from the bag of fresh ones sitting on the counter.

Soon, they were in the car and on their way to JFK airport. Traffic was insane in New York and they spent a lot of time sitting still. Drago worked on his laptop, and Holly gazed out the window while Nicky slept.

She must have dozed, because suddenly Drago was shaking her awake and she was clawing back the fog in her brain while trying to process what he was saying.

“Passports,” she finally heard him say. “I need your passports.”

She fished in her bag and dug them out. Drago took them from her and then she leaned back and closed her eyes again. It was several minutes before the uneasy feeling in her belly finally grabbed her brain and shook hard enough to drag her into alertness.

But it was already too late. She sat up ramrod straight to find Drago looking at her, his gaze as hard as diamonds, his face some combination of both disgust and rage.

She’d had every chance in the world, and she’d blown it. Drago wasn’t stupid. He would have realized by now she hadn’t told him the truth. And he would never believe she hadn’t meant to deceive him.

He held a blue passport in his hand, opened to the first page. He turned it toward her. She didn’t need to look at it to know what it said.

“Tell me, Holly, precisely how old your child is again. And then I want you to tell me once more about this married man you had an affair with.”

* * *

Drago felt as if someone had put a vise around his neck and started twisting. He couldn’t breathe properly and he had to concentrate very, very hard on dragging each breath in and then letting it out again. It was the only thing keeping him from raging at her and demanding a definitive answer right this instant.

He held the passport in a cold grip and watched the play of emotions across her face. Her eyes were wide, the whites showing big and bright, and her skin was flushed. Her mouth was open, but there was no sound coming out.

Then she went deadly pale as all that heat drained away. He kept waiting for her to explain. To tell him why her baby was three months old and not two. Not that it meant anything that the child was three months old. It didn’t make the boy his. He kept telling himself that.

Drago hadn’t noticed the baby’s real age at first. Hadn’t realized the implications. She’d been soft and sleepy and he hadn’t wanted to wake her, but he’d needed the passports for when they went through the checkpoint to reach the private jets. She’d handed them to him and gone back to her nap, and he’d flipped them open, studying the details as the car crawled closer to the guard stand. He was a detail-oriented man.

Holly was twenty-four, which he already knew, and she’d been born in Baton Rouge. Nicholas Adrian Craig had been born in New Orleans a little over three months ago.

That detail had meant nothing to him at first. Nothing until he started to think about how long ago it had been that he’d first met Holly when she’d come to New York. It was a year ago, he remembered that, because he remembered quite well when he’d had to scrap all the photos from the false shoot and start over. The numbers were imprinted on his brain.

Even then, he’d had a moment’s pause while he’d pictured pretty, virginal Holly rushing home to Louisiana and falling into bed with another man. He didn’t like the way that thought had made him feel.