Page 25 of The Italian's Pregnant Enemy (A Diamond in the Rough)

“You do. I am realizing these past days that you do. Why do you think you need to be with a partner who is less successful than you? Why do you think that you’re a failure, when in fact you’re simply young? You do not trust herself. You are the one who looks down on you.”

“Also you, sometimes,” she said.

“Yes. Sometimes.” But there was something unreadable in his dark eyes. Like there was more that he wanted to say, but wouldn’t. But didn’t.

She felt tension growing in the space between them. Expanding.

She felt herself growing hot beneath the intensity of that gaze.

“Why?” she asked softly. “Why have you always been so hard on me?”

He said nothing, but regarded her closely. She felt his gaze like a physical touch, as it moved from her face, down her throat, to her breasts, down her thighs.

The open masculine appreciation nearly undid her. From Dario. Dario, who she would’ve said hated her. Dario, whom she would’ve said she hated.

But nothing that was passing between them right now felt like hatred. It felt like something much more dangerous. Something she didn’t fully understand. Something she didn’t have full access to. But she wanted it. It felt like something entirely different from what she had imagined she might find with Carter. But then, on some level she had known that. She had.

But... She couldn’t be right about this.

“It is safer,” he said finally. “To allow myself to believe that you are young. Foolish. That you do not know your own mind. And you believe that as well.”

“No, I don’t,” she said.

“You do. It keeps you safe. In many ways, it keeps you safe.”

“From?”

She knew that asking the question was dangerous. And yet, she was so close to the flame, in every way.

It made her want to reach out and touch.

In spite of it all.

She didn’t move forward, but she didn’t move away either. And everything in her was screaming that it would be better if she did.

But she sat, rooted to the spot. Protected, somewhat, by the way that her plate sat on top of her knees. Acting as a barrier. Sort of.

“From myself, Lyssia.”

He was dangerous. That was something she knew instinctively. A truth that radiated through her. She had never been drawn to danger, not even once. She had always valued her safety. She wasn’t brave. She wasn’t adventurous. She wasn’t...

She had chosen Carter because he represented safety. Not because she wanted him. She had told herself all kinds of stories about why she wanted something that felt easy and fun. Something that lacked intensity and consequence.

At every turn, she downplayed the deepest of her own emotions, and denied herself anything with real resonance.

Was he right? Was it because she didn’t trust herself? Because she didn’t pay heed to herself?

She told herself so definitively all the things that she wanted, and in some ways, when she was telling Dario what she wanted it was like she was trying to reinforce all of those truths inside of herself.

But they started to feel thin now. For and in the face of what he had just said. That he was trying to protect her from himself.

And more than that, it was the way those words unfurled inside of her.

It was more appealing than it ought to be. And it was... Was she really understanding it right?

This was where she suddenly felt woefully inadequate next to him. He knew how to survive. He knew how to build something from nothing.

And he knew about sex. In a way that she simply didn’t. It felt unbelievable that a man of his prowess would be interested in her. That he would’ve had to try to hold himself back from her in any capacity, and yet reading between the lines that seemed to be what he was saying.

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