Scandals Of The Rich: A Façade to Shatter

“A small part, but yes, I know what you mean.”

She could have breathed a sigh of relief—except she didn’t think he’d changed his mind about anything. “Then you will not want your child raised by another man. A man who will not love him or her, and who will resent the baby’s presence in his household.”

Zach was still. “You should have chosen better,” he said.

She blinked. It was not at all the response she’d anticipated. “I beg your pardon?”

“That night. You should have chosen to leave instead of stay.”

She’d bared her fears to him and this was what he had to say. Anger spiked in her belly. “It takes two, Zach. You were there, too.”

He took a step toward her, stopped. His hands flexed at his sides. “Yes, and I tried to send you away, if you will recall. Considering how we first met, you should have run far and fast.”

Her skin was hot—with shame, with anger, with self-recrimination. “It’s not all my fault. Perhaps you should have tried harder.”

As if anything would have induced her to leave after the way he’d looked at her: as if he wanted to devour her. It had been such a novel experience that she’d only wanted more.

“I should have,” he said. “But I was weak.”

“This baby is yours,” she said, a thread of desperation weaving through her. If he walked out now, if he sent her back to Sicily, what would become of her and the baby? She couldn’t face her cousin’s wrath. Her grandmother would do what she could, but even Teresa Corretti would do what the head of the family dictated in the end. And he would dictate that she not have a child out of wedlock. Or he would throw her out and cut her off without a cent.

For a moment, she contemplated that option. It would be … heavenly, in a way. She would be free of the Correttis, free of the pain and anger that went along with being the outsider in her family.

Except she knew it wouldn’t happen that way. Salvatore Corretti had ruled his family with an iron fist. And no wayward granddaughter would have ever brought shame on the family name in such a way. A Corretti grandson could father illegitimate children all day long, and he would not have cared. Let one of his granddaughters get pregnant, with no man in sight, and he most certainly would have come unglued.

Alessandro was a Corretti male and would be no different. He’d learned at their grandfather’s knee how to run this family and she could not take the risk he was somehow more enlightened. He’d never been enlightened enough to pay attention to her in all these years, which told her a lot about how he already felt about her. Add in the humiliation of his aborted wedding, and she was certain he was in no mood to be sympathetic.

“How can you be sure, Lia?”

She had to give herself a mental shake to retrieve the thread of the conversation. He wanted to know how she could be sure the baby was his, as if she was the kind of woman who had a different sexual partner every night.

“Because I am. Because I’ve been with no one else.”

He swore softly.

Her cheeks heated. Hot emotion whipped through her. She was tired of feeling guilty, tired of feeling as if she was the one who’d done something wrong. She felt snappish.

“This isn’t ideal for me, either, you know. I didn’t ask to get pregnant, especially not my first time ever having sex—”

She broke off as she realized what she’d said. His face grew thunderous. He closed the distance between them, stopped just short of grabbing her. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides. “What did you say?”

Lia’s heart pounded. Adrenaline roared through her veins. She felt light-headed. “Nothing,” she whispered as his eyes darkened. “It was nothing.”

“You told me that night it had been a long time… .” His voice was diamond-edged.

“I thought if I told you the truth, you’d send me away.”

He swallowed, hard. “I would have. I should have anyway.” His gaze dropped, his dark lashes dipping to cover his beautiful eyes. “I thought something was … different with you. But it had been so long since I’d been with anyone that I dismissed my intuition. You didn’t act like a virgin, but you felt like one when I …”

He swore again, his eyes meeting hers once more. “I’d have done things differently if I’d known. Been more gentle. You should have told me.”

Lia couldn’t stop herself from lifting a hand and sliding it along the bare skin of his arm. It was the first time she’d touched him, really touched him, in a month. And the electric sizzle ricocheting through her body told her just how little had changed for her.

“I should have. I know it. But everything was so surreal, and I was afraid it would end. You were the first person to make me feel wanted in a very long time. I liked that feeling.”

He moved away from her, went over and sank down on a chair. Then he sat forward and put his head in his hands. Lia didn’t say anything. She didn’t move, though her heart throbbed at the sight of him looking so overwhelmed.

“This is not what I expected to happen at this point in my life,” he said to the floor.

“I don’t think either of us did,” she replied, swallowing. “And though I could make it all go away with a visit to a doctor, as you intimated earlier, I can’t do that. It’s not who I am or what I want.”

He lifted his head. “No, I know that.” He blew out a breath, swore. And then he stood again, his presence nearly overwhelming her as his eyes flashed fire. “The press will have a field day with this.”

Lia bit the inside of her lip. In all the drama, she’d never considered the press. It was true the paparazzi flocked around her family like piranha. But she’d never been their target, probably because she was so humdrum and uninteresting in her family of brilliant swans.

But this baby was a game changer, especially considering who Zach was. His family was even more famous than hers. American royalty, if there was such a thing. A family with incredible wealth and power. She’d read all about the Scotts on her way across the Atlantic.

And she’d read about their heroic son, a man who’d returned from the war after a dramatic plane crash behind enemy lines. Her gaze drifted to where she’d set her purse. Inside, in a little zippered pocket, she still had Zach’s medal. A medal he hadn’t cared about.

She thought of him flat against the ballroom wall in the Corretti Hotel, his eyes tightly closed as he fought against something, and knew there was more to the story than had been reported.

“We’re the only ones who know,” she said. “And I have no plans to inform them. I think the secret is safe for now.”

His gaze was steady, cool, and she realized he didn’t entirely trust her. It stung.

“There are always leaks.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “There’s only one way to deal with this. One way to keep everything from exploding into an even bigger problem than it already is.”

Her heart thundered in her chest. And it hurt, too. Hurt because he’d called her—and their baby—a problem.

“Congratulations, Lia,” he said, his voice chilling her. “You’ve won the jackpot, after all. You’re about to become a Scott.”

“This is not how I wanted this to happen,” she said on a throat-aching whisper. Tears pressed the backs of her eyes. She couldn’t let them fall.

“You came here,” he said, his voice hard. “What did you expect? Did you think I would be happy?”

She dropped her gaze. A single tear spilled free and she dashed it away, determined not to cry in front of him. Not to be weak.

“I had hoped you might be, yes.” She lifted her chin and sucked back her tears. “Clearly, I was mistaken.”

“We’ll marry,” he said. “Because we must. But it’s an arrangement, do you understand? We’ll do it for as long as necessary to protect our families, and then we’ll end it when the time comes.”

Anger started to burn in her, scouring her insides. He was no better than her father had been. He didn’t care about his child any more than Benito Corretti had cared about her. He was making a deal, nothing more. It made her sick. And furious.

“Fine,” she said tightly. “I accept. But if we are having an arrangement, as you so nicely put it, then I want it understood that this arrangement is in name only.”

She didn’t know what made her say that, but once she said it she knew it was right. Because this situation was so out of her power that she needed something she could control. Something she could have a say about.

He stared at her for a long moment. And then his sexy lips curled up in a smile, surprising her after he’d been so hard and cold. “I can’t guarantee that, sugar. But we’ll try it your way to start. Just know that when you do surrender to me, I won’t be saying no.”