Page 34 of The Italian's Pregnant Enemy (A Diamond in the Rough)

“I know,” she said softly. “I know that’s all it might be. I’m okay with that.”

She wasn’t sure what she was okay with. She didn’t feel okay now at all. She wasn’t sure why she was speaking with such authority when she wasn’t entirely sure there was a name for the emotions that were rioting through her.

Maybe because she needed to believe it herself, far more than she needed him to believe it.

“All right. If that’s what you want.”

“It’s what I want.”

“Then that’s what shall be.”

She could have made fun of him. For acting like having sex with her was such a big, arduous task. But she felt far too raw.

They slept on the same bed but didn’t cuddle. But then, he reached over and found her, and took her again. And after that, he held her.

After that, they didn’t talk about her past experience—or lack of it. They didn’t talk about anything. They also didn’t wear clothes. They stayed in his room unless they had to go forage for food. They made love, and they slept. For three days. It was all there was. There was no world beyond Lyssia and Dario.

She forgot why it was improbable. She forgot why they were unlikely. She could barely remember a time when she hadn’t known Dario’s body.

She couldn’t imagine going back.

She couldn’t.

But on the third day, Dario came back to his bedroom wearing sweatpants, looking grim.

“Your father has just arrived. Or rather, he is about to. The helicopter has landed out the front.

“Oh.”

“Get dressed,” he said, sharp and curt.

And she obeyed, because what else was there to do.

She looked out the window, and saw not just her father, but a snowplow. Along with a team of people. And that was when the attempt to free them began in earnest. It took several hours, and the entire time, she sat there with Dario, not speaking, not touching. By the time the door opened and her father appeared, the mask that Dario wore was so convincing that even she wouldn’t have guessed at everything behind it.

Even she would never have known that they had ever been lovers.

He was as he’d ever been.

And she tried to be too.

“I’m so glad you survived,” her father said, half joking, she could tell by his tone. But not entirely.

And then, they were whisked outside, and to the helicopter. And when they left that cocoon, she knew that they would never be able to go back.

And part of her broke in half.

CHAPTER SEVEN

INTHESIXweeks since they’d returned from being snowed in, Dario hadn’t seen Lyssia at all. She had been completely scarce around the office, and she hadn’t contacted him.

He didn’t know why she would have.

He was the one that had made it clear that they needed to keep what was between them at the chalet. But he thought about her. All the time. He woke up having dreamed about her.

He had no interest in other women. It was grim and unprecedented. And it was beginning to affect his work.

But he felt like something had changed within him, and so it all felt... Wrong.

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