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

‘I don’t want to have this conversation. I don’t want you. You’re not the person I thought you were! Why would I still want you?’

‘Because you’re attracted to me and it cuts through all the reasons you keep finding for denying it. Let’s face it—if I wanted, I could have you right here, right now, surrounded by clothes, on the rug, damn the consequences…’

Holly tottered a few steps back. He was right and she hated herself for being so weak and pathetic. How could she still be so consumed by a man who had used her? Who had never seen her as a long-term partner? Who was only with her now because of her situation? Was she so lacking in self-respect?

‘Okay,’ she admitted tersely. ‘So you still turn me on.’

‘And at last you’re admitting it. Honesty is always the best policy.’

‘It’s just a physical thing,’ she muttered fiercely. ‘It’s just a left-over reaction from what we had. It doesn’t mean anything!’ She turned away abruptly. Her eyes stung with angry unshed tears. She thought she could detect smug satisfaction in his voice. So she had refused to marry him. Did he imagine that she was still so besotted with him that she would continue having sex with him?

Another, darker thought infiltrated her brain. He had meant it when he had said that he wouldn’t tolerate another man bringing up his child. Knowing him as well as she did, she didn’t doubt that for a second. Did he think that he could use her continuing attraction to him as a way of keeping her tethered to him? With no marriage, he would be free to cast his net somewhere else, yet he would continue to command her loyalty because she couldn’t fight the dictates of her own weak, cowardly body.

Was Luiz Casella a man who seriously thought that he could have his cake and eat it, and was she so stupid that she would allow him to get away with it? She would just have to try harder to steel herself against the physical impact he still had on her. Deprived of essential nutrients, lust was something fragile that would wither away in no time at all.

‘You still haven’t given me any details about this trip.’ She kept her face a perfect blank as she looked up at him, arms folded.

‘Sit. Good. Okay, I have an ongoing project—one of the Bermudian islands—an eco-hotel catering for the discerning client. It’s to be the first of several across the world.’

‘You’re into hotels?’ Holly was distracted enough to ask. ‘But I thought you were into computers.’

‘In business, it makes sense not to put all your eggs in one basket.’

‘So we’re going to… to the Caribbean?’

‘I wouldn’t let any of the locals hear you say that,’ Luiz told her with a wry smile. ‘The climate may be great, but technically it’s closer to New York as the crow flies. My family has had a house there for many years so I know the islands quite well. They’ve got their downsides; possibly a little too wet for some tourists, and a little too cool at certain times of the year for the dedicated sunbather, but they’re paradise for anyone with a love of nature.’

Holly was thinking how, in a few words, he had encapsulated all the differences between them.

‘I’ve been abroad twice in my entire life,’ she told him flatly. ‘Once with my dad to Marbella and once on a school trip to Normandy.’

‘So this should make a pleasant change of scenery,’ Luiz inserted smoothly. ‘I had a planned trip out there to check up on a few details, make sure things are running smoothly. Made sense to bring it forward in light of recent events.’

‘So it would be something of a working holiday for you…’ Holly said slowly, liking the sound of that. ‘How long would we be over there for?’

‘A couple of weeks.’

‘And your empire could do without you for such a long time?’

‘My empire will be fine without me.’

‘Well, I’ve made two separate piles of clothes. I don’t like accepting anything from you…’

‘That’s a given. But…?’

‘But I’ve chosen some stuff. Not much.’

Luiz looked at her heightened colour. He believed her when she said that she hadn’t chosen much. Any other woman would have greedily taken everything on offer.

‘Look, Luiz…’ Holly cleared her throat awkwardly. ‘What happened just then… we have a certain amount of history. Of course, I’m still, well, let’s just say that when a person breaks up it takes a while to recover. When my ex and I…’

‘Not interested.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We don’t need to put on old records and replay the past. I don’t want to hear about the lingering effects of your break-up with your ex.’ Nor did he want to get into a self-delusional conversation in which she would subtly try to imply that she wasn’t attracted to him.

‘You really don’t have a sentimental bone in your body, do you?’

‘None that I have ever noticed,’ Luiz said coolly. And yet, there had been times after he had left her when the emptiness of his bed had struck something at the very core of him, when the snatch of some silly pop song on the radio had made him switch channels. Had those unconscious signals prompted him to consider Cecelia as marriage material in an attempt to shut the door on Holly whom he had privately seen as unfinished business? Did the mind operate in ways like that? Luiz had always prided himself on a straightforward approach to all issues emotional. Emotions existed, reasons for behaviour existed, but analysing any of that stuff just wasn’t for him. He left that to people with time on their hands and nothing much productive to do with it. So to find himself going down an introspective path was frustrating and he stamped down any inclination to pursue it.

‘Do we leave tomorrow?’

‘First thing.’ He told her about the flight, the times, the connections. For Holly, she could see why he had chosen to bring his trip forward. The island would be impossible to access for any curious reporter. It was as good as it got in terms of privacy.

From her point of view, the thought of him working was good. It helped to remove the nagging sense of guilt that he was prepared to rise to the occasion and alter his tailor-made life in whatever way was necessary, while she stood on the sidelines quibbling and finding reasons to knock him back so that she could tenaciously cling to what she knew. Also, a hotel was good. A hotel implied a certain amount of detachment. She would be able to lose herself amongst other people.

He had told her that he needed to see how things were progressing and she assumed he meant having a look at the books, making sure that a healthy profit was being made. She was under no illusion that whatever he chose to do would be successful. It dawned on her that she had had that opinion of him even when they had been involved with one another. True, then her ideas had been woolly assumptions, but they had still been here. Reality had only confirmed her own impressions.

So, while he checked the profit and loss columns and closeted himself away in meetings with the finance department, she would be able to lose herself in the crowds. All said and done, her experience of foreign destinations was lamentably non-existent. She felt a stirring of excitement.

She switched off as he told her about the technicalities of the trip, reassuring her that his people could sort out all the necessary details. She was vaguely aware of him filling in a few blanks about the various islands, the population, the scenery. Her mind was miles away. She wished she had had some warning of their destination. She would have liked to buy a guide book. Then she guiltily thought that she could hardly be sniffy about accepting some clothes from him whilst bristling with excitement at the prospect of enjoying an all-expenses-paid holiday in the sun. She surfaced to find him looking at her with raised eyebrows.