Page 44 of The Italian's Pregnant Enemy (A Diamond in the Rough)

He bent her over the counter in the kitchen when she was in black, with matching heels.

He couldn’t understand how she was pregnant. She’d said she was on the pill. He also knew that it was his child. Lyssia would never claim to be pregnant with his baby if it was someone else’s. No. In fact, being pregnant with anyone else’s baby would probably be an ideal situation for her. Then he called and arranged for a highly visible table at his favorite restaurant.

They would perform this. And when it was done, they would go and visit her father and tell him the news. As he sat at his desk, looking at the diamond ring, he called Lyssia. “I’ll be at your house by six. We’ll be having Italian.”

“Well, that means it’s probably going to be amazing,” she said. “I doubt you would pick a bad Italian restaurant.”

“You’re correct. I am given to believe it is like old home cooking. I would hardly remember that. I barely remember what it’s like to have a home in Italy much less anything cooked for me. But I like to think that my blood recalls.”

“I assume I am to dress up?”

“Yes.”

He got off the phone with her quickly, and cleared his schedule for the next three days. There would be nothing but working toward assembling this wedding, and finalizing that business deal with her. He would not sign anything for it until they were married. Using it as a carrot was perhaps low, but it was necessary.

He wasn’t sure which thing had gotten to her. The offer to join in business, or the comment about her father.

Because he did know that Lyssia cared very much what her father thought.

At a quarter to six he made his way to Lyssia’s penthouse in Midtown, where he left his driver idling at the front and entered the code for the building. Of course he had it. Her father had given it to him in case there was ever an emergency.

This was the right thing to do. Not just for the child. Her father wanted him to take care of her. And this would not just protect their child, but her as well.

It was the right thing to do.

He went up the elevator to her floor, and walked down the hall. She opened it suddenly, her eyes wide. “What are you doing here this early?”

“I’m not early. Five minutes, maybe.”

“Well, you didn’t ask to be let up.”

“I have a code. You didn’t check to see who it was.”

“I assumed it was somebody who works in the building. Or a neighbor.”

She was half-dressed, wearing a silk nightgown.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. I’m just... Trying to find something to wear.”

“I can help.”

“No thank you,” she said.

“You don’t think I have good taste?”

“I don’t see the point of trying to look nice for a date with you if I then also show you all the things I try on. It doesn’t actually make sense.”

“It’s not a date,” he said. “We are putting on a performance.”

“Right. Noted.” He had clearly said the wrong thing. Or not. With Lyssia he could never really tell. Sometimes she acted put out just to fight with him.

“Don’t be upset about it,” he said. “You asked me what I think about love. I don’t believe in it. Not as a philosophical concept. What I believe in is action. Taking care of the people that we have a responsibility to.”

“Wow. Very romantic.”

“I never said that it was romantic. But it is the truth.”

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