скачать книгу бесплатно
“Yes,” she whispered.
His face hardened. “For so long, you’ve been such a mystery. An intriguing problem to solve.” He brushed back tendrils of her dark hair the wind had blown across her face. “But now I understand you. At last.”
She shivered beneath his touch, closing her eyes.
Was it possible that everything she’d dreamed of for so long was about to happen? Was it possible he was about to tell her he loved her as well, and in a moment, when she told him shyly about their coming baby, he would take her into his arms and kiss her?
She could barely breathe…
“You’ve been setting me up,” he said harshly. “Just like you and your sister did with your last employer.”
Her eyes flew open.
“My…my sister?”
She felt Rafael’s fingers clench into her shoulders, and she gasped. He looked down at her with something close to hatred in his eyes.
“I thought I could trust you,” he said in a low voice. “But it was all just a trick, wasn’t it?”
“No,” she whispered. She shook her head. “You’re wrong.”
He gave a harsh, cruel laugh.
“I trusted you. Trusted you as I trusted no other woman alive. But have you spent the last five years of your life setting me up for a con?”
“What?” she gasped. Unshed tears stung her eyes as she shook her head fiercely. “I don’t—”
“Tell me the truth!” he said coldly. “Was I a fool to trust you? Did you lie when you said you were on the Pill?”
Horrified, Louisa sucked in her breath.
For a moment, silence fell. The cool breezes from the sea caused the colorful paper lanterns to sway amid the darkness of the garden.
Rafael’s jaw was set in a grim line as his hands tightened on her.
“I thought I’d done due diligence by calling your last employer personally. I spoke to his wife, not realizing she was your sister. Of course she gave you a glowing recommendation—she wanted to help you get your wealthy man, as you helped her!”
Louisa drew back, tears suddenly in her eyes as she thought of all the pain. “That’s not how it was!”
“No?” His lip curled. “Then how was it?”
Louisa took a deep breath. She didn’t want to speak of the past, but she had no choice. For their child’s sake, she had to make him understand that her pregnancy was an accident—not a trap!
“Five years ago, I fell in love with my boss,” she whispered, then stopped.
Rafael gripped her shoulders. “Go on.”
“I’d only been working as his housekeeper for a few months when Matthias asked me to marry him.” Every low, hoarse word felt painfully ripped from her. “But I wouldn’t go to bed with him. I told him I wanted to wait for our wedding night. I was so young, so young and idealistic. Then my little sister came to visit from college.” She looked up at him, blinking back tears. “The night of our engagement party, Katie told me Matthias was going to marry her instead. Because…she was pregnant with his baby.”
Staring down at her, he took a deep, shuddering breath. For a moment, she thought he meant to comfort her. Then his dark eyes looked at her with the fire of betrayal.
“Just as the two of you planned all along. You left him sex-starved, your sister lured him into her bed and he fell into her trap. Just as I fell into yours,” he said in a low, cold voice. “I trusted you, Louisa. Although I should have suspected something when I first took you to bed. There would be no reason for a virgin with no boyfriend to be on the Pill—”
“I told you, it was for cramps, to regulate my cycle—”
“I thought it was just an unfortunate coincidence,” he spoke over her ruthlessly, “that when I came home that night and found you crying in Paris, the apartment was out of condoms. You set me up so methodically, and I wanted you so badly, I was blind.”
Louisa stared at him in shock and grief.
She’d shared something of her past she’d never spoken about with anyone—but he didn’t give a damn. He was just determined to use her own words against her!
A slow burn of anger built inside her.
“I forgot to restock the condoms, but that wasn’t on purpose! Perhaps I had trouble—” she lifted her chin defiantly “—because you were going through boxes so rapidly.”
His jaw twitched. Abruptly releasing her, he folded his arms. “You lured me by acting distant, knowing that would intrigue me. Then you made sure I found you weeping, needing comfort, knowing there was only one kind of comfort I would offer.”
“I never thought you would come home early from your date and seduce me!”
“So you’re not pregnant?”
She sucked in her breath.
This was worse, so much worse than she’d thought. Why hadn’t she realized that her two-day stomach flu had totally ruined the effectiveness of the birth control? She’d never thought he might look at her past and imagine that she could be so devilishly clever.
If she were, she thought bitterly, she wouldn’t have slept with a heartless, suspicious playboy like Rafael Cruz!
Dark shadows and swinging red lights moved over his hard expression, making him look devilish. She sucked in her breath, trembling at the dark promise she saw in his eyes. It made her take an involuntary step backward.
She had to lie. There was no way she could tell him the truth now.
But the thought of denying the existence of her unborn child, the weight of telling such an awful lie, beat down upon her like golf-ball-size chunks of ice.
She felt incredibly hormonal and exhausted from being pregnant and traveling back from Greece. She felt tearful and emotionally drained from the roller-coaster ride of the last few days. Just yesterday, she’d been his adored mistress; today, she’d been ripped apart by the discovery of her pregnancy, and yet she’d been forced to hide her emotion, to serve him and his fancy guests while watching him flirt with another woman.
And suddenly, she’d had it.
Louisa took a deep breath. Slowly she looked up at him. She could live without his love. She could ball up her heart into a block of ice. She could ignore her feelings. She’d done it before.
But he had to love their baby.
If Rafael was cold to their innocent child and treated him badly through his whole life, letting their son or daughter know they were never wanted…No, she couldn’t let that happen. She would deny their child’s existence before she would risk causing her baby such endless grief!
He gently stroked her cheek. But his gaze was anything but gentle as he raked her soul with his fury and rage. She had the sudden feeling of being trapped. His body, his darkness, towered over her.
The heat between them felt like a cold burn. Like ice. Like a threat.
“There’s only one thing I need to know,” Rafael said in a low voice. “One thing that will determine if I was a fool to believe you were the last honest woman on earth. So tell me.” His dark eyes glittered in the swaying light of the red paper lanterns. “Are you pregnant, Louisa?”
Rafael’s muscles were painfully tense as he waited for her answer.
She wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“Could you love a baby?” she whispered.
He nearly growled at her. “Don’t change the subject. Answer my question.”
“If I accidentally got pregnant,” she faltered, “don’t you think it’s possible it could have nothing to do with money, and everything to do with…with…”
“Love?” He sneered.
Wordlessly she nodded. Her eyes were wide, limpid pools in the night. Wild. Desperate.
For a moment, his body instinctively wished to comfort her. It was the same way he’d felt when she’d revealed how she’d loved her last boss then lost him—to her sister. He’d almost pulled her into his arms, until he’d reminded himself that this might be part of her con. Her innocence, her pain, her supposed love—was it all an act to get him to marry her?
His stomach clenched. “A mere housekeeper does not go to all the trouble of getting pregnant by a wealthy man without expecting a payout.”
Turning pale, she gasped.
Then her lovely face hardened, in that aloof, cold expression he knew so well.
“So I’m a mere housekeeper now, am I?” she said in a low voice. Her dark eyes glittered. “Just what sort of payout do you think I want?”
He set his jaw. “Marriage.”
She sucked in her breath. “Marriage?”
“You know very well,” he said grimly, “if you were pregnant, I would have no other choice.”
They stared at each other in the shadows of the garden.
Looking down at her beautiful face, Rafael’s body hurt with tension and fury.
He’d always vowed he would never get trapped by any woman. It had happened to him once, and that was enough. At seventeen, he’d fallen for an older woman who’d callously dropped him to marry a wealthy man. When Rafael had pleaded with her to marry him instead, she’d laughed at his tiny diamond ring. The faded Cruz fortune wasn’t nearly enough to tempt her, she’d said. She liked his body well enough, but money was what mattered most to her.
At eighteen, he’d made it his mission in life to get rich. Ten years later, he’d ruined the woman—and her husband—in payback.
Rafael would never feel desperate over a woman again. It was why he could never have children. He would never give a woman that kind of power over him. Never feel vulnerable again. Never.
He looked at Louisa. Especially her. She had too much power over him already.
Against his will, Rafael’s gaze dropped to her lush mouth. Even now, wondering if she’d tricked him, wondering if she were the most accomplished liar he’d ever met, Rafael couldn’t stop wanting to kiss her. His body ached for her.
“So if I were pregnant, you would really wish to marry me?” she whispered.
In spite of all her defiance, he saw that she wished to marry him. She wanted to pin him down. She was no different from all the rest.
He said evenly, “There’s no way I would allow my child to be raised by some other man. So I would make you my wife. Is that what you want, Louisa?” he said dangerously. “Is that what you’ve wanted all along?”
With a deep intake of breath, she looked away from him, staring out at the view of Istanbul across the Bosphorus. So close across the water, but it was another continent entirely—Asia.
Clenching his hands into fists, he stared at her. Louisa was like that. So close, and yet so far. She was standing beside him. He could feel the warmth of her skin. And yet she was so far away. He realized he’d never really known her at all.
“Would you be a good father?” she whispered into the night, still not looking at him. “Would you love our child?”
His eyes narrowed as he looked at her lovely face, so different without glasses. Her eyes were wide and deep as the night. Her long dark hair brushed against her creamy shoulders in the soft breeze. She was the most beautiful, elusive woman he’d ever known. And he hated her for her beauty.
When he spoke, his voice was low and even.
“I would marry you for the baby’s sake. But I would make you pay for trapping me into marriage,” he continued in a low voice. He reached out and brushed a tendril of hair off her cheek with his fingertips. He felt her shiver beneath his touch as he leaned forward to whisper in her ear, “I would make you pay…and pay…and pay.”
“What do you mean?” she gasped, shuddering.
He gave a cold, cruel smile as he straightened. “I would take pleasure of you in my bed until I had my fill.” He stared down at her. “I would own you, as you would never own me.”
She sucked in her breath.
She looked up at him, her eyes troubled in shadow. “But would you love our baby?”
Suddenly he was done with her endless evasions. Setting his jaw, he reached into his pocket for a cell phone. He dialed a number and spoke into the phone. “Dr. Vincent, please.”
“What are you doing?”
He looked at her coldly. “Since you refuse to tell me if you’re pregnant, I will have you examined by my doctor in Paris.”
Louisa ripped the phone from his hands and ended the call. She took a deep breath.
“Well?” he said coolly.
“I’m…” She licked her lips.
He stared at her, his heart full of darkness and fury.
“I’m…” she said in a low voice. She took a deep breath, briefly closing her eyes as she said, “I’m not pregnant.”
He exhaled in a rush. “You’re not?”
She stared at him. Her eyes were pools of darkness.
Relief coursed through him, almost making him stagger.
He hadn’t been wrong about her! She could be trusted! He hadn’t been such a fool as he’d feared!
Then, staring at Louisa’s tight shoulders and barely concealed fury, he reconsidered that statement. If she was innocent, he’d just treated her very badly indeed.
Looking at her with sudden regret, he rubbed the back of his head wryly. He’d let Novros’s suspicions get to him. The Greek bastard had probably made it all up, he thought in irritation, spinning the facts for his own reasons, hoping to cause friction between Rafael and his housekeeper. Hoping he could get Louisa for himself!
He sighed. So who was a stupid fool after all…?
