One Passionate Night: Her Brooding Italian Boss / The Heiress's Secret Baby / Best Friend to Wife and Mother?

She playfully punched his arm.

“Okay, I get it.” He shoved open his car door. “Let’s see what you can do.”

It took a minute for them to switch seats. When she got settled, she caressed the soft leather steering wheel before she turned the key in the ignition, depressed the clutch and punched the gas.

They jolted forward and he grabbed the dash for support. “Careful, now.”

She laughed, hit the clutch and shifted to a better gear. “This car is like heaven.” When the engine growled for release, she hit the clutch, shifting again. “Holy bananas. It’s like driving the wind.”

He laughed, but he still clung to the dash. “You’re going to kill someone!”

She depressed the clutch and shifted a final time, reaching the speed she wanted, barreling through yellow lights, weaving in and out of traffic.

“I never knew you were a daredevil.”

His eyes weren’t exactly wide with fear. But they were close. Still, she was good. She knew she was good. Driving was in her blood. “I’m not. I just like a good car.”

“Really? I’d have never guessed.”

“What? You think women can’t appreciate a powerful engine?”

“No, you just seem a little more tame than this.”

She shook her head. Yet another person who thought she was dull Laura Beth. “Right. I guess we all have our secrets.” She spared him a glance. “Our passions.”

He tilted his head.

She shrugged. “You like to express yourself through art. I want to be free.” She took her eyes off the road to catch his gaze. “And maybe a little wild.”

He laughed. “You? Wild?”

“Thank you for underestimating me.”

“I don’t underestimate you.”

“Right. That’s why you refuse to paint me. You all but said you don’t think I can handle it.”

“I said I can’t handle it.”

“Oh, sure you could. I can see in your eyes that you could. You just don’t want it to happen.”

“Sitting for a portrait can be long and boring.”

She shrugged. “So?”

Antonio shook his head, but didn’t reply. Laura Beth suddenly didn’t care. With the wind in her hair, the sun pouring down on her and the engine in her control, for once in her life she experienced the joy of total power. She soaked it up. Swam in it. She was so sick of everybody underestimating her, thinking they knew her, when all they knew was the shadow of the person she could be with no money, no opportunities.

She suddenly wondered if that’s what Antonio saw when he thought of painting her. The longing to be something more. The hidden passion.

Hope spiked through her, then quickly disappeared. He might see it, but he didn’t want it.

Saddened, she slowed the car. Palm trees and four-lane streets nestled into Old World architecture gave the city a timeless air but she barely noticed it. Something inside her ached for release. She didn’t want people to pity her or dismiss her. She wanted to be herself. She wanted to be the woman Antonio saw when he looked at her.

And she honest to God didn’t know how to make that happen.

* * *

The more she slowed down, the more Antonio relaxed in the passenger’s seat. He forgot all about her little tantrum about him underestimating her when he realized how much she truly loved driving. A passenger on Laura Beth’s journey of joy, he saw everything in squares and ovals of light that highlighted aspects of her face or body. The desire to paint her didn’t swell inside him. Longing didn’t torment him. Instead, his painter’s mind clicked in, judging light and measuring shapes, as he watched the pure, unadulterated happiness that glowed from her eyes as she drove.

But something had happened as she slowed the car. Her expression had changed. Not softened, but shifted as if she were thinking. Pondering something she couldn’t quite figure out.

He tapped her arm. “Maybe it’s time to head back?”

She quietly said, “Yeah.”

Curiosity rose in him. She was the second person that day to do a total one-hundred-eighty-degree turn on him. Happy one minute, unhappy the next. Still, he’d made a vow to himself not to get involved with her, and he intended to keep it.

He pointed at his watch. “We have a gallery opening tonight.”

She nodded, and at the first chance, she turned the car around. He thought she’d stop and they’d switch places, but she kept driving, and he leaned back. Surreptitiously watching her, he let the images of light and lines swirl around in his brain. Normal images. Calculations of dimension and perspective. They might be pointless, but at least this afternoon they weren’t painful. She was a passionate, innocent woman who wanted to love life but who really hadn’t had a chance. And that’s what he longed to capture. The myriad emotions that always showed on her face, in her eyes.

Eventually, she pulled into a side street and turned to him. “I’m a little bit lost.”

He laughed. “I think you are.”

“So you don’t mind taking over?”

“No.”

She fondled the steering wheel, then peeked at him. “Thanks.”

The sudden urge to gift her the car almost overwhelmed him. Watching her drive might have been the first time he’d seen the real Laura Beth. And he knew that was the person she wanted to be all the time. The woman who wasn’t afraid. The woman who grabbed life and ran with it.

“You looked like you enjoyed it.”

Her gaze darted to his. “Maybe too much.”

The desire to lean forward and kiss her crept up on him so swiftly it could have surprised him, but it didn’t. The woman who’d pushed that gas pedal to the floor piqued his curiosity. Not just sexually, but personally. She was as complicated as his desire to paint her.

He moved closer, watching her eyes darken as she realized he was about to kiss her. His eyelids drifted shut as his lips met hers and everything inside him froze, then sprang to glorious life. She was soft, sweet and just innocent enough to fuel the fire of his need to learn more. His hands slid up her arms to her shoulders, pulling her closer as his mouth opened over hers and she answered. His lips parted. Her tongue darted out enough for him to recognize the invitation.

Raw male need flooded him. The powerful yearning to taste and touch every inch of her rose up. But when his hormones would have pushed him, his common sense slowed him down. It was as if kissing her made him believe they could have a real relationship. No painting seduction of an innocent, but a real relationship.

The thought rocked him to his core. Dear God, this woman was pregnant. A relationship meant watching her grow with another man’s child, sadly realizing he’d lost his own.

Worse, the last woman he’d been in a relationship with had made a mockery of their marriage. She’d broken his heart. Stolen his ability to paint. He’d never, ever go there again. He’d never trust. He’d certainly never give his heart. And whether she knew it or not, that was what Laura Beth needed.

Someone to trust her. Someone to love her.