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“I will.”
He came over and stood beside her, and her body was suddenly made of rubber. She wanted to lean into him, into his heat, and rest there while he explained what was in the papers. But she didn’t. She forced herself to remain stiff, forced herself to keep forking food into her mouth while Drago pulled up the top sheet and laid it down.
“This is a basic contract,” he said. “You’ll appear in the ads, if all goes well with the test shots, for the next year. You’ll be available for appearances to promote the perfume—industry functions, parties, etc.—and for more shoots as necessary. In exchange, you’ll receive five hundred thousand dollars—”
Holly nearly choked on a bite of Mongolian beef. Drago glanced down at her, one brow lifted curiously.
“Sorry,” she said a few moments later, after she’d gulped water from her glass and coughed enough to embarrass herself thoroughly.
“If the test shots aren’t good,” Drago continued while she mentally reeled over the sum he’d just named, “if we decide you aren’t right after all, you’ll receive a fifty-thousand-dollar severance fee and all your expenses for returning home.”
Fifty thousand was still a lot of money. She could do something with fifty thousand. She could find a decent job, afford a better apartment. But half a million? Heavens above.
It was far more than she’d hoped—and yet a part of her was oddly disappointed. This wasn’t how she’d envisioned her future. She wanted to work for a top company like Navarra Cosmetics. But she didn’t want to stand in front of a camera and be the face of a fragrance. She wanted to create the fragrance.
But she had no choice. Since Nicky had come into her life, her desires took a backseat.
“What about my perfume?” she asked.
He flipped a couple of pages and tapped his finger on a line. “It’s here. You get a half-hour appointment. Nothing more, and there are no guarantees.”
“Do I get the appointment even if you decide not to keep me for the campaign?”
“Yes.”
Her heart took up residence in her throat. “All right.” She set down her fork and wiped her fingers on her napkin. “Can I read it?”
He pushed the contract toward her. “Take your time. But it needs to be signed tonight, cara. We leave for Italy tomorrow.”
She’d thought her chest couldn’t get any tighter, but she was wrong. “So soon?”
Drago looked so imposing standing there, hands in pockets, watching her. “Sí. There is no time to waste.”
Holly perched on a bar stool and began to read the contract from beginning to end. There was a lot of legalese, but it was straightforward enough for her to understand. If the test shots went well, she got a lot of money. If they didn’t, she still got money. And she got a chance to present her perfume to the head of Navarra Cosmetics, which was all she’d ever wanted in the first place.
When she finished reading, Drago laid a pen down in front of her. She glanced up at him, met his gaze. He seemed...very self-satisfied. The heated look on his face sent a sizzle of sensation straight to her core.
Her body softened, her insides melting as if she’d drunk a glass of wine. She felt fluid, languid. And intensely in need of his touch.
Holly picked up the pen, concentrated on the warm, smooth feel of the expensive barrel in her fingers. Anything that would take her attention from Drago. Anything that would make her heart stop tripping along as though it was running a marathon. Finally, she took a deep breath and pushed the pen across the signature line. Then she laid it on the table.
“Grazie, cara,” Drago said, reaching for the documents. He shoved them into an envelope and then made a quick call to someone. A moment later, a man appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. Holly blinked as Drago handed him the envelope.
“You had someone waiting?” she asked when the man was gone.
“It is a courier, and yes, he was waiting to take these back to my attorney.”
“But I was in my room,” she said inanely.
“This I know,” he replied. “But he only just arrived before you came out. I was coming to get you in five more minutes.”
“Oh.”
He was still looking at her, his gaze somehow both hot and assessing at the same time. “Feel better?” he asked.
Holly swallowed. Her mouth was dry. “Truthfully, I’m not sure. I’m not a model,” she added, as if he didn’t know.
His eyes sparkled with humor as he went back to his seat. “What is a model, except someone who advertises a product? You are not a professional, no. But you will learn.”
“I don’t want to be a model,” she told him truthfully. “I want to make perfume.”
She wondered if he was irritated with her for mentioning it, because he picked up his pen and tapped it on the island. “Ah, yes. And I have promised to let you present your fragrances to me. It seems to me as if you are gaining your chance in exchange for your participation.”
Her heart thumped and her skin tingled with a different kind of excitement. “You won’t be sorry,” she said. “I know you won’t.”
She wasn’t arrogant, but she knew her fragrances were good. And she wanted him to know it, too. She was confident in her ability, even if sometimes she felt like a total failure on the business side of things.
And a total failure elsewhere, as well. A cloud of doubt and fear drifted through her happiness, and she shivered. He was the father of her child and he did not know it. And she didn’t know how to tell him. If not for that, everything would be perfect.
The thought made her want to giggle hysterically.
“What is wrong, Holly?” Drago asked, and she realized that something of her mood must show on her face.
“It’s nothing,” she told him carefully. “Nerves. Just a few days ago, I was taking drink orders. Now I’m here, in New York City again. With you. I keep waiting for the bottom to fall out.”
He reached across the island and touched her hand. A shockingly strong current of heat flashed through her. Skin on skin. It was heavenly. Her entire body concentrated its attention on the limited surface area where they touched. It wasn’t enough, and it was too much.
When he traced his thumb over her knuckles, she thought she would moan. She bit her lip to keep it from happening. It’s just skin, she told herself. But it was his skin, his hand.
“You worry too much, cara mia,” he said, his voice a sensual rumble deep in her core. “We’re tied to each other now. For the foreseeable future.”
He was talking about the contract and the Sky campaign. Though, for a single dangerous moment, she envisioned a different kind of bond. A bond between two people who wanted to be together. Two people who shared a child.
Holly licked her lips nervously. Her chest rose and fell as her breath came in short bursts. She wanted to run. She wanted to shove back from the island and flee before she fell any deeper into the morass. Before the truth came out and everything fell apart again.
Her life had been on the brink of disaster since Gran had died. She was accustomed to it. She was not accustomed to having hope. It terrified her. She tugged her hand away and tucked it into her lap.
Storm clouds fought a battle in Drago’s expression. He looked frustrated and confused, and then he looked angry, his eyes hardening by degrees. Finally he sat back again. Incongruously, she wanted to reach out to him, beg him to touch her again.
“You have no reason to be scared of me,” Drago said, shoving his chair back and standing. “I’m not a monster.”
She tilted her head up to meet his hard gaze. But it stunned her to realize there was something more in his eyes. He looked...lost, alone. Her breath razored into her lungs.
“I don’t think you’re a monster,” she said softly.
“I’m not sure I believe you.”
Impulsively, she put her hand on his arm. His skin was warm beneath his sleeve, the muscle solid. His eyes were hooded as he stared at her, and a wave of fire sizzled through her body, obliterating everything in its path except this feeling between them.
This hot, achy feeling that made her body sing.
She dropped her hand away, suddenly uncertain. Why did she want to tempt fate again? Why did she want to take the risk and immolate herself in his flame?
Drago tilted her chin up when she would have looked away. “I don’t understand you, Holly Craig. You are hot and cold, fierce and frightened. One minute I think you want...” He shook his head. “But then you don’t. And I’ll be damned if I can figure it out.”
She tried to drop her chin, but he wouldn’t let her. He forced her to meet his gaze. It was unflinching, penetrating. She trembled inside, as if he were reaching deep inside her soul and ferreting out all her secrets.
Except, he wasn’t. He couldn’t know what she kept hidden.
“It didn’t end so well the last time,” she told him. “Maybe that’s what scares me.”
He blew out a breath and closed his eyes for a long moment. “I make no apologies for what happened, Holly. You lied to me.”
“I know. And I’m sorry for it. But I already told you why.”
“Yes, you did.” He sank onto the stool beside her and rubbed his palms along his jeans. “I don’t like being lied to. And I don’t like being used.”
She wondered if he could see her pulse throbbing in her throat. Her palms were damp, but she didn’t dare to wipe them dry while he watched her.
“I understand,” she said.
“I don’t think you do,” he replied. He picked up a glass of some kind of liquor that had been sitting beside his paperwork and took a drink. She watched the slide of his throat, wondered how on earth such a thing could make her gut clench with desire.
“I’ve always been a Navarra, but I haven’t always lived as one,” he said quietly, after a long moment of silence.
Holly wrapped her arms around herself, her gut aching with the loneliness of his words.
“My parents were not married. My father was a playboy, a wastrel. My mother was easily corrupted, I think. When he wouldn’t marry her, she might have had a bit of a breakdown.” He shrugged, and she wondered what he did not say. “They were together for a couple of years, at least. I was a baby when he left her. He died in a car accident not too long after that. And that’s when my mother started trying to use me to get things from his family. She spent years trotting me out in front of my uncle, demanding money and then spending it all foolishly.”
“Babies need a lot of things,” she said. “Maybe she didn’t have enough, and...”
The fire in his eyes made her words die. She swallowed, her soul hurting so much for him. And for the woman who’d tried to raise him alone.
“She had enough, Holly. But not enough for her to get what she wanted.”
“What did she want?”
His throat worked. “I wish to hell I knew.” He threaded a hand through his hair, dropped it to his side again. “My uncle offered to take me in, but she refused to give me up.”
Holly’s stomach tightened. “I understand that. I wouldn’t give Nicky up, either.”
Drago leaned toward her. His expression was filled with pain and confusion. “She refused because she knew what she had. I was the golden goose, and periodically I brought her a golden egg. Eventually, my uncle offered her enough to let me go.”
Holly’s heart thudded painfully for him. But she understood why a mother wouldn’t give up her child. Why she tried and tried to make it work before she finally gave in. What must Drago’s mother have felt when she’d realized she couldn’t keep him? That he would be better off with the Di Navarras than with her?
And why wouldn’t Drago’s uncle take them both? Why didn’t he provide them with a home instead of an unthinkable option for a mother?
“I’m so sorry, Drago.” What else could she say?
His features were bleak, ravaged. She wanted to put her arms around him and hold him tight. But she didn’t. She didn’t know if he would welcome it. If she could be strong enough to do it without confessing her own sins.
Oh, God, how could she ever tell him about Nicky now? He would never comprehend why she’d kept it a secret.
“I don’t like to be used, Holly. I don’t like the way it makes me feel.”
“I understand,” she said, her throat aching, her eyes stinging with tears. “And I’m sorry.”
For so many things.
He sighed again. And then he shook his head as if realizing how much he’d said. “You should finish your dinner.”
She looked at the food congealing on the plate. There was no way she could eat another bite. “I’m finished.”
He stood again, shoved his hands into his pockets. He looked more lost than she would have ever thought possible.
“Do you see your mother much now?” she asked tentatively, imagining him as a little boy who must have felt so alone and confused when his mother had finally given in to his uncle’s demands.
His eyes glittered as he turned to look at her. “I have not seen her since I was eleven and my uncle finally convinced her to sign over custody. And I never will again. She committed suicide six years ago.”
Holly’s heart hurt. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged with a lightness he could not possibly feel. “This is life.”
“But...your mother,” she said, her throat aching.
He reached out and slid his finger over her cheek, softly, lightly. “I believe you are a good mother, Holly Craig. But not all women are as dedicated as you.”
His words pierced her in ways he would never know. What kind of mother kept a son from his father? What kind of mother struggled to raise him, to provide for him, when he could be the heir to all of this wealth? When he could have everything?
“Drago, I—” But she couldn’t say it. Her throat closed up and nothing would come out.
He smiled, but it was not a real smile. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Go to bed, Holly. Tomorrow will be a long day.”
Like a coward, she fled.
CHAPTER NINE (#u7a4c4a26-b33e-537e-bdd9-bc5118cd1434)
HOLLY DIDN’T SLEEP very well. She kept waking up for myriad reasons. First, she couldn’t stop thinking about Drago telling her, his eyes stark and lonely, that his mother had given him to his uncle and that he’d never seen her again. Then she kept worrying about Nicky, wondering if he was safe in his crib or if he was awake and crying and feeling alone.
She knew he wasn’t crying, because she had a baby monitor. But every time she’d drift off to sleep, she’d hear him crying. Lost little boy. Lonely little boy. So she’d pop awake to silence—or as silent as the city could be with the cars rolling by far below, the honk of horns and squealing of brakes reaching high into the sky and finding her ears even in this protected environment.
She thought about Drago and Nicky and wondered how she would ever—or could ever—broach that topic. And she thought about getting on a plane and flying across a vast ocean to a place she’d never been. A place where she knew no one. Where she would be as lost as if she’d been plunked down on another planet.
Finally, Holly gave up and got out of bed. She showered and dressed in her best pair of jeans and a silky top with a cardigan she could put over it if she got chilled. She looked at herself in the mirror and felt woefully inadequate in her simple clothes.
Unsophisticated. Plain.
She leaned closer to the mirror, peering into it, trying to figure out what it was about her face that Drago wanted for his perfume. Freckles? She had a few of those, but she thought of them as imperfections rather than characteristics.
