Page 17 of The Italian's Pregnant Enemy (A Diamond in the Rough)

“Yes, but I want to know.”

Anyway, his confidence had soothed her. She felt slightly calmer now, but also a bit rueful, because he was the one who had calmed her.

She hadn’t ever appreciated before that it was an asset to be near a man like him who had experienced certain things. The truth was, she didn’t have experience with much.

She hadn’t really been conscious of that until now. She had never thought of it as a lack, or something that would give her a deficit. She did feel young then. Next to him. She did feel sheltered and cosseted and unaware. In a way she never had before.

It made her... Feel respectful of him. It was a strange experience, and she didn’t like it. And yet she was in no real position to push back and be bratty. Mostly because she had already overplayed her hand quite a bit. But also, because he was the person offering to keep her alive during this unexpected blizzard.

“Yes, I had a house. A normal house. And then things changed. As I think you know life often does.”

“What happened?”

“The usual sorts of sad things,” he said, his tone clipped.

He wasn’t being honest. Because Dario was always honest. It wasn’t a lie, necessarily, she had a feeling it was all very sad, but she also had the sense that there was something underlying it.

“Come,” he said. “I’ll make you coffee.”

“Why are you being nice?”

“Who said I was being nice? Perhaps I simply want you quiet.”

That was how she found herself hooked up on a fluffy round white chair in the living room, waiting for him to deliver her a hot cup of coffee.

He bestowed it upon her and she was struck by the strange irony of the moment. How many times had she brought him coffee in his office?

She looked up at him, and decided that was a mistake. There was something in his dark eyes that made her stomach feel tight.

Then she reached out and took the cup of coffee from his hand. Their fingertips brushed. In spite of herself, she felt that same arrow of pleasure right there between her thighs that she felt when she thought about being in the bathtub with him up in her room. Correction, she hadn’t thought about it. Her brain had implanted the thought into her consciousness. She had not thought of it on her own. No way.

And now something was happening to her here.

“Thank you,” she said.

She sat there in the living room brooding for the next couple of hours, and then she heard his deep voice coming from the other room. He was talking to her father. Assuring him that everything was all right.

She couldn’t hear the exact words, but she could hear the melody of his voice.

It was deep, and reassuring.

She felt bad he’d called her dad first, actually. She should have done it but she was all tangled up in hurt over him sending Dario in the first place.

You’re glad Dario is here now...

And that was when she realized that she should probably give Carter a video call.

She also realized that she was hungry.

And she wanted to talk to him, so why shouldn’t she?

She pushed aside all of the things that Dario had said to her last night.

It wasn’t Dario’s business what she was doing. A side effect of being snowed in was that she happened to be in his vicinity. But that was not her choice. She grabbed her phone and walked into the kitchen, setting it on the counter as she pushed in the numbers to make a video call, reaching for some bread from the cupboard as the phone rang.

She heard the tone that indicated he had picked up, and she looked down at the screen, smiling. He had his phone sitting on his desk, but she could tell that he looked happy to hear from her.

“Hi, Carter,” she said.

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