Page 11 of The Italian's Pregnant Enemy (A Diamond in the Rough)

“With the pilgrims?” she asked.

He laughed. “Very funny. I was working in hospitality then, and I continued to do so. My course was set by the time I was eighteen. I don’t view age as an excuse.”

He wasn’t entirely sure how much of his personal biography she knew. It would be entirely on brand for her to be completely studied in it, yet look at him with wide eyes and say she’d had no idea.

“Have you not read my biography?”

“The one where you had a literal sea monster’s baby? Oh, sorry, I think that was some weird fanfic I found on the internet.”

“Did you write it?”

She smiled. “I did write you into a story of mine when I was twelve or so.”

“The handsome prince.”

“No. You were the villain.”

He smiled. Slowly. “Sadly for you, Lyssia, I think you’re drawn to a villain.”

She laughed, and then inhaled her bread on accident and began hacking while laughing. “Please!Please.I do not like villains. I like nice men with nice hair and French presses on their desks. Who ask how my day is and who kiss like summer rain. And who will appreciate my underwear, not stare at them like they’re flat animals.”

And just like that his mind went back to that underwear, scattered about the floor, not likeflat animals, whatever the hell that meant, but like forbidden confetti for a party he had no business wanting to attend.

And yet she vexed him. Tormented him. When nothing else on the earth dared to.

“Has he called?” he asked.

Lyssia’s mouth dropped. Her cheeks went scarlet. “I’ve already told you...”

“Careful, your mask is slipping.”

Her eyes narrowed. “There is no mask, Dario. We aren’t all committed to facades.”

“So this is you, then.”

“This is me,” she said, standing from the table. “I am exactly what you see here. I am the ever-underestimated Lyssia Anderson.”

“Sheet masks and self-care.”

“If that’s all you got out of the last couple hours, the problem is you, not me.”

It wasn’t. She was smart and funny, and angry. Very angry. At him, he thought, but also at her father. He knew she felt undermined by his presence. But the truth was, Dario felt like Nathan was taking care of Lyssia by ensuring the business went on, and healthily. Lyssia had many shares in the company in her name, and she would be getting money when the acquisition went through. Her pride was wounded, perhaps, but he couldn’t see Lyssia seriously wanting to run a major corporation.

The problem with Lyssia was she didn’t know herself.

“You are the most committed to facades, Lyssia. You don’t even know what’s beneath your own mask.”

“That is some impressive arrogance.”

“Let me impress you further. You don’t want a nice man. You want a man who will tell you when you’re being a brat. You want a man who will ask you how your day has been, and if it’s been bad, he’ll do something about it. Even unto turning the city upside down to right a wrong against you. You want a man who will call you. You don’t want warm summer rain. You want a hurricane. You don’t want a job at your father’s company because you want to make a name for yourself, but you have to stop being so stubborn about how you want that success to look. And until you can admit that to yourself you’ll be stuck in this insipid in-between space with an insipid in-between man. And you deserve more, Lyssia.”

He had moved nearer to her while he was talking and the space between them was charged. Lyssia’s breathing changed. It was short and sharp, her eyes searching his face as if she might find answers there.

“You don’t...you don’t know me,” she said.

“But I do. I’ve known you for a very long time.”

She shook her head. “You know what you think you see, and nothing more.”

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