Special Deliveries: Her Nine-Month Secret: The Secret Casella Baby / The Secret Heir of Sunset Ranch / Proof of Their Sin

She was hardly aware of his hands still steadying her. The deep, dark depths of his eyes held her captive and she knew that she was breathing quickly, practically hyperventilating. Like a moth helplessly drawn to a destructive flame, her mouth parted. She was aware of his touch altering, become more caressing. Of their own accord, her legs seemed to propel her inch by inch closer to him until they were separated by a hair’s breadth.

‘I don’t just feel a sense of duty towards you,’ Luiz murmured unsteadily.

Holly moaned. The soft sound shocked her, for it seemed to come from someone else, someone incapable of seeing reason.

Luiz’s dormant libido was raging and all-consuming. That first feel of her lips against his was like manna from heaven and he lost himself in the kiss. At the same time he shakily pushed his hands underneath the dress. It was like touching her for the first time even though her body, satin-smooth beneath his exploring hands, was gloriously familiar.

Her breasts were heavy, spilling out of the bra which he deftly unclasped. He stifled a groan of pure pleasure as the abrasive pads of his thumbs found her nipples, and he began rubbing them ceaselessly, wanting nothing more than to get his mouth on them so that he could taste them.

‘I want to see you.’ His voice was rough and uneven.

‘We shouldn’t…’ Holly could no longer think straight. The thought of seeing that flare of desire in his eyes as he looked at her threatened to turn her legs to jelly, but she wanted him so badly. She knew she shouldn’t, but how could she begin to fight the waves of pleasure radiating through her body? She allowed herself to be gently propelled back towards the huge, deep-red velvet sofa and her knees buckled as she hit the edge of it. In a trance, she sank back and her breath caught in her throat as he unbuttoned the top half of her dress. With a whimper of reluctant, inevitable submission, her eyelids fluttered shut on the sight of him staring down at her exposed breasts, taking in the ripe curves of her newly pregnant body.

She had never been able to resist him and she still couldn’t, Luiz thought with a savage surge of satisfaction. Despite all her protests, one touch and she melted. His arousal was pushing hard against the zip of his trousers but he took time to appreciate the stunning, glorious beauty of her incredible curves.

He didn’t stop to question the mystery of his erratic libido. He just knew that he wanted her. She was carrying his baby! Suddenly, there was an eroticism to that notion that left him reeling. He had never thought about having children before and yet, with the evidence of his virility in front of him, he was unashamedly proud of his achievement.

He felt her wriggle and writhe under him as he ran his hand over her stomach and marvelled at the sensuous feel of its roundness. He was strangely blown away to think that the miracle of life was happening under his hand. He was utterly lost in the anticipation of taking her, having inhabited a sex-free zone ever since he had walked out of her house, when he heard the sound of his doorbell.

Holly had sank so fast and so deep into the whirlpool of exquisite sensation that it took her sluggish brain a few seconds to realise that someone was at the door. Reality pushed through and she struggled onto her elbows. She was horrified at how easily she had succumbed to Luiz’s advances. What had she been thinking?

This was a man whose only concern lay with money; who had lied to her and then compounded his lack of faith in her by proposing marriage preceded by a pre-nup, which was the ultimate declaration that he still felt his wealth had to be protected! This was someone who would never have sought her out, would have been happy never to lay eyes on her again had she not turned up on his doorstep. A man who had grudgingly seen no other option for dealing with a situation he didn’t want but to marry her out of a misplaced sense of responsibility. On all fronts, a man from whom she should be keeping a healthy distance unless strictly necessary. And, yet, she had flung herself in his arms at the slightest of provocations!

As far as Holly was concerned, Luiz thought that he could always get exactly what he wanted and he wanted to marry her because, really and truly, he wanted the child she was carrying. She had turned down his marriage proposal. Had he then decided that there was more than one way of getting what he wanted, and having her back in his bed might succeed where words had failed? Once she had been his for the asking. Did he think that nothing had changed?

How genuine could his so-called sudden attraction be when he hadn’t made the slightest effort to get in touch for all those weeks, when in fact he had already found himself…

Shame and dismay left her speechless as she suddenly remembered that he had a girlfriend, the beautiful, glamorous Cecelia. So swept away had she been, that only now as the doorbell rang once more with renewed insistence, did she recall the leggy brunette with the impeccable connections.

Watching her, Luiz could easily see what was going through Holly’s head and he cursed fluidly under his breath.

‘Ignore that,’ he commanded, running with the theory that if he gave her no chance to withdraw completely from him then he could woo her back to the place which he was now desperate for her to occupy.

‘I can’t believe you. You…’ She wriggled, yanking up her dress and manoeuvring herself out from underneath him.

‘Let’s not play the blame game here, Holly. You haven’t ended up naked and under me because there was a gun to your head.’

‘And do you think I respect myself for… for…?’

‘Just come right out and say it—for wanting to make love to me. Where’s the shame in that?’ The doorbell rang again and Luiz furiously levered himself up while Holly frantically tried to get herself in order.

She was running her fingers through her hair when she heard the clicking of heels on the wooden floor, and when she looked to the doorway it was to see the most beautiful woman she had ever seen in her life. A living, breathing fashion doll was staring down at her.

Cecelia Follone. In real life, she was a million times more drop-dead gorgeous than the grainy pictures on the Internet had suggested. Long, dark hair flowed in artful disarray down her slender back. Olive-skinned and green-eyed, she had a body that was made for very, very small items of clothing, and she clearly knew that, for the vibrant red jersey-dress barely skimmed the top of her thighs. She carried her expensive coat over one shoulder.

For a few seconds, both were speechless for different reasons, but Cecelia was the first to break the silence with a barrage of high-pitched, accusatory Portuguese. Holly didn’t have to be a mind-reader to understand exactly what was being said. Mortified, she hurried up to the doorway, her face burning and her eyes very pointedly not resting on Luiz who seemed remarkably unfazed by the arrival of his girlfriend. He held up one imperious hand which brought the torrent of rapid Portuguese to an abrupt halt.

‘It seems I have forgotten that I had a date… understandable, given the circumstances.’

Holly took a deep breath and held out her hand to Cecelia who looked at it disparagingly. ‘I… I’m very pleased to meet you.’ She dropped her hand to her side and cleared her throat. ‘I’m… eh… Holly.’

This elicited another round of hysterical Portuguese which Luiz listened to before saying coldly, ‘Please speak English, Cecelia.’

‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’

‘Actually, I was just on my way out.’

‘I don’t think so…’ Luiz’s voice was calm and final but Holly ignored him.

‘I came here to… to…’

‘Circumstances have changed, Cecelia.’ Luiz turned to the brunette who in heels was easily six feet, which made Holly feel like a pygmy in comparison. ‘I will call you tomorrow to explain but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave now.’

‘I am not going anywhere until I know what is going on!’ Cecelia’s high-pitched, accented English was laced with venom.

‘Nothing’s going on!’ Holly defended quickly. ‘I just came to have a quick chat with, er, Luiz, and I was just about to leave.’

‘Chat about what?’

Luiz had been lounging against the doorway, and with a laborious sigh he swivelled Cecelia to face him and spoke to her in Portuguese. He kept his voice low and flat which made much more of an impact than if he had shown any sign of emotion.

From the sidelines, Holly watched as Cecelia’s eyes widened and her mouth compressed. She wanted to be anywhere but here, in this house, and she was sickeningly ashamed of herself and of her lack of self-control. Trying to make herself as invisible as she could, staring down at the floor, she kept perfectly still for the next ten minutes as Luiz and Cecelia conducted a conversation she couldn’t understand but was astute enough to surmise.

She breathed a sigh of relief when Cecelia was finally escorted out of the house and she took advantage of that brief window of time alone to gather all her possessions so that she was ready and waiting to leave when Luiz re-entered the room.

‘What did you say to her?’ Holly asked bluntly.

‘Where are you going? Our conversation isn’t finished by a long way. I told Cecelia that our relationship was over.’

‘Because of me?’

‘I didn’t go into details but, considering you were standing in a state of dishevelment right in front of her, then I’m guessing she might have deduced the reasons for herself.’

‘How could you? How could you seduce me when you’re involved with someone else? It makes me feel ill to think about it.’ She felt even more ill as she wondered when he had last made love to Cecelia. Yesterday? The day before? Every day for the last few weeks they had been dating? He was a very virile man with a powerful libido. She couldn’t bear the thought of him touching the other woman and then touching her, and she was shocked at the force of her own jealousy which had no part to play in the sort of relationship they now had.

Luiz hesitated. Getting rid of Cecelia, callous though he knew he must appear, had not been any great hardship. She had occupied the strange void left in Holly’s absence and he was disturbed at himself for allowing that to happen. He wondered how he couldn’t have seen that, however great her credentials, she still didn’t quite fit the bill. He pulled back from the question he knew Holly was asking him—had Cecelia been his lover?—as his sex life wasn’t under discussion here. It was an irrelevance. The fact that he hadn’t had one with Cecelia was an even greater irrelevance as far as he was concerned.

‘My relationship with Cecelia is no longer an issue. Reaching a conclusion on how to deal with what has happened is. So…’ He nodded in the direction of the lounge. Holly hesitated, adamant that she had put her cards on the table and was not going to reshuffle the deck and start again. More than anything, she needed to make him understand that that little blip when she had fallen straight back into his arms was not going to happen again. She reluctantly removed the coat and followed him into the sitting room.

‘You didn’t have to break up with your girlfriend,’ were her opening words as she sat down, facing him. ‘I told you I didn’t want to ruin anything you had with her and I meant it.’

‘In that case, you are clearly a lot more liberated than I am.’ He folded his arms behind his head. ‘Somehow going out with one woman whilst another is having my baby doesn’t work for me.’ He dropped his arms to his knees and leaned forward. ‘Don’t try and fight me on this, Holly. Marriage is the only solution. I will not be a part-time father and it would be immoral to deprive any child of the benefit of having two parents.’

‘And it wouldn’t be right for us to get married just for the sake of a child. Luiz, you never, ever wanted any sort of commitment with me. You never trusted me. How on earth can you expect me to ignore all of that and to get married just because of an accident?’

‘Tripping over a loose paving stone is an accident; the ramifications disappear quickly. Having a child is in a completely different league and the ramifications never disappear. Whatever the circumstances of this pregnancy, we both have to take ownership of the situation and bury our differences.’

Talking to him, Holly thought helplessly, was like talking to a brick wall. Yet there was no way that she was going to cave in. As far as she was concerned, they could both be loving parents without having to pay the ultimate price. She wanted to tell him that, had it not been for the life growing inside her, he would have already been making plans to marry Cecelia. He would have had his perfect partner. Now, he would be stuck with her, and how long before the poisonous thread of resentment began seeping into him?