Page 13 of Mafia Doctor's Secret Baby

“And then I was the father of your child,” he murmurs as he takes another step toward me. His gaze is burning into mine, and I can smell the scent of him on the air, the same way I did that night we met. Despite myself, my body lets loose a rush of hormones that draw me in closer to him. As much as I want to keep things calm, a desirous passion pulses through me that I can’t control.

“You didn’t seem to mind when I was just a stranger,” he adds, gazing down at me. His voice has softened slightly. I wonderif, like me, he’s thinking about what we shared that night, the incredible sex we had together at the masked ball. The sex that changed the course of my life for good…

And the sex that, whether I want to admit it or not, I want to have all over again.

I push that thought down. It’s just the hormones, nothing more to it than that. I am not going to let myself get drawn in by some stupid want—this is probably just my body responding to the fact that he’s Polly’s father, not anything real, not anything serious.

“Yeah, well, I would have kept it that way,” I shoot back.

“You still can,” he replies, planting his hand on the door next to me. “You can walk right out of here and we don’t have to talk about this again.”

“How can you be so callous?” I exclaim. I know it’s the mom in me busting out, but I can’t stand how he talks about this. As though she’s nothing. As though he’s not her father.

“Callous?” he snaps back. “You think this is me being callous?”

“You’re speaking about her like she doesn’t matter,” I point out. “She’s your daughter. She’s a person, and she deserves to know who her father is?—”

“Yeah? You weren’t going to bother finding out for her,” he replies.

I stop dead in my tracks—okay, I can’t argue with him on that. I was ready to take care of this little girl all by myself, but that was because I thought I didn’t have a choice, not because I wanted to.

“It’s not like that…”

“Oh, yeah?” he presses, as he moves in closer to me. “What is it like, then? You want to explain that to me?”

His voice is laced with something, something sharp—something that lances deep into my core, even as I want to brush him off. I lift my gaze to his and meet his eyes steadily, staring back at him as though he doesn’t scare me at all.

“I thought I had to look after her alone,” I remind him. “I didn’t know who you were. I still don’t?—”

“Yeah, you still don’t,” he agrees. “And if you did, you’d want nothing to do with me.”

“What does that mean?”

“If you knew who I was,” he repeats himself, slower this time, as though I might be having a hard time making sense of it, “you wouldn’t want me anywhere near your daughter. Trust me. Now, get out of here, before someone sees you?—”

“And who are you, then?” I demand, cutting him off before he can cast me out entirely. “You want to tell me that part?”

He gazes back at me, his face impassive. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it does,” I protest. “You’re my daughter’s father. I need to know what kind of person you are. What is it, are you married? You have a family of your own already…?”

“No,” he replies. “None of that shit. I’m not a cheat.”

“So, what is it…?”

The words hang in the air between us. There’s something he’s holding back, something he doesn’t want me to know. And it’s got nothing to do with him being a doctor. No, it’s more than that. I can’t see why he would lie about having another family—ifI found out that was the case, I would get the fuck out of here and never look back. I don’t want my little girl involved with a cheat. But this…?

This is something else. Something more. Something worse. And despite myself, I can’t find it in me to make a move for the door and get out of here.

“Please, just tell me,” I whisper to him, but the words hitch at the back of my throat as I try to force them out.

“You don’t want to know,” he warns me, but I shake my head.

“I need to. I…”

“If you knew,” he murmurs as he reaches his hand for my face, his voice softening all of a sudden—his touch caresses over the edge of my lip, and I suck in a sharp breath as a shudder of pleasure courses through my system. “You would never have come here.”

“But I’m here,” I point out to him, as my chest rises and falls swiftly. “I…I want to know…”

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