Page 29 of The Housekeeper's One-Night Baby
She knew exactly what he meant. He was solicitously enquiring about her welfare—and hadn’t the nurse at the clinic explained that this kind of position worked especially well for pregnant women? How the hell did he knowthat? Had he been reading books on the subject, or was it simply intuition? But it wasn’t what she had been longing for. She wanted him to turn her over so she could look at him. She wanted to watch his face as he entered her, because that seemed like the ultimate intimacy which her foolish heart was craving. She wanted to get close to him, in ways which were more than just physical.
But he didn’t.
It seemed that while she was silently praying for one thing, he seemed intent on doing the exact opposite. And God forgive her, but her body didn’t seem to care. She was in total thrall to him, opening her thighs so that he could make that first thrust, and she shuddered with ecstasy. She could feel him. Hear him. She grabbed hold of his hand and began to suck on his thumb so she could taste him, too. But she couldn’t see him. And because sight was the only one of her senses not engaged, she clamped her eyelids closed. But in a funny sort of way the lack of visual stimulation added an extra layer to her enjoyment, because it made everything seem so intense. And anonymous. Was that what he was aiming for?
Hot and hard, he increased his rhythm and Lizzie was so caught up as she was taken on that delicious ride with him that suddenly nothing else existed. Nothing but intense pleasure and the tumult of sensation. She heard him moan and suddenly she was moaning, too—her body clenching around him as he jerked out his seed.
She lay there, lost in a daze as he absently kissed her bare shoulder. She must have fallen asleep and so did he, because when next she became aware of her surroundings, she was lying tangled in his arms. His breathing was slow and steady—his lashes two black arcs set in golden olive skin and, once she had stopped drinking in his sheer gorgeousness, Lizzie realised this was her opportunity. Because if he couldn’t open up to her at a moment like this, then when could he?
‘So...’ She touched her fingers to the dark curve of his jaw. ‘Are you going to tell me something about yourself now, Niccolò Macario?’
Thick lashes fluttered open to reveal the obsidian gleam of his black eyes, but the expression on his mouth was hard. ‘Is that the price I must pay for what just happened?’
‘Is that how you think the world works?’ She blinked. ‘That everything has a price?’
‘Because it does. We both know that,’ he said silkily. ‘Just like everything happens for a reason. Cause and effect. It’s simple.’
‘Does that mean you’re not going to answer my questions?’
‘I would prefer not to. But if you insist, I won’t evade them. Unless,’ he murmured, running a slow finger from her neck to her cleavage, ‘you can think of something else we could do other than talking.’
It was a deliberate attempt to distract her and hestillhadn’t gone anywhere near her bump. Lizzie wriggled away from him fractionally, even though the drift of his finger felt wonderfully enticing. ‘I’m asking on behalf of our child,’ she said firmly, and then spoke the words she had been rehearsing in her head for so long. ‘You do realise I don’t know anything about you? Not even where you were born.’
Niccolò stared into her flushed features and gave a heavy sigh, recognising that the time for prevarication was over, no matter how much he wished it was otherwise. Because he owed her this. He knew that. But that didn’t make it any easier to say things he’d kept buried for nearly two decades. Secrets he’d never divulged to anyone. Not even the therapist one of his enlightened college tutors had insisted he see, although the association hadn’t lasted beyond a few uncomfortable, silent sessions. Because hadn’t he always guarded his past as if it were a caged and dangerous beast? He’d locked it away in a dark and inaccessible place, which nobody could get at.
‘I was born in Turin.’
‘Rich boy? Poor boy?’ she questioned succinctly, stretching out her legs so that her bare thigh brushed against his. ‘A somewhere in between boy?’
‘My father was one of Italy’s most successful industrialists,’ he clipped back. ‘I grew up in one of the wealthiest suburbs of the city, with a summer home on the Amalfi coast, and was afforded every privilege a young boy could possibly want. Does that answer your question?’
‘Some of them. I’ve got plenty of others. How about brothers and sisters?’
It was a natural question but his instinct was to deflect it. To provide the stock response he’d cultivated years ago, which would terminate the subject and make it clear that pursuing it would be crossing a forbidden line. But her thigh was still touching his and her silken hair was trailing over his arm and she felt little short of...amazing. As she lay there, her expression ridiculously trusting, Niccolò realised he had put himself in a honey trap of his own making. How could he possibly short-change the mother of his child when she was looking at him like that, even though the truth would change the way she looked at him for ever?
‘For a long while it was just me,’ he said slowly. ‘My parents tried very hard to have another child. In fact, it dominated pretty much every facet of their lives—and mine. They’d almost given up hope, and then my...’ How could his voice still falter like this, even after all these years? ‘My sister was born.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Fourteen.’
‘That must have been...difficult.’
It was a perceptive remark but she spoke matter-of-factly, and in a way her lack of emotion was making it easy for him to continue. ‘Yeah. Overnight, my life changed. My parents were completely obsessed with Rosina but how could they not be, when...’ His voice shook as pain ripped through his heart. ‘When she was such a beautiful little girl.’
‘You must have loved her very much,’ she said, into the brittle silence which followed.
‘I killed her.’
Her face blanched but she didn’t leap from the bed and stare at him in horror and disbelief. Hadn’t part of him hoped she might? So that the sweet look of trust would be wiped from her face, leaving him in peace to nurse his enduring guilt and his shame.
‘Tell me,’ she said simply.
That was all. A small, quiet query which somehow managed to pierce his heart, like a blade. Was that why it was so effective? So that suddenly the words were tumbling from his lips in a way which the highly paid therapist had never managed to achieve. The hand which had been resting in her hair clenched into a tight fist. ‘Everything at home was about the baby,’ he said hoarsely. ‘And at school my classmates teased me relentlessly about the fact that my parents were still having sex.’
‘And did you care?’
‘I tried not to let it get to me.’ He had cultivated a policy of not reacting. Of letting things bounce off him and showing the world he didn’t give a toss. Until the day his insouciance had finally cracked. He remembered the temperature gauge creeping upwards. The slow whir of the air-conditioning. The creak of the old-fashioned lift.
