Bound By My Scandalous Pregnancy / Redemption Of The Untamed Italian. Clare Connelly
movements jerky, unlike the smooth, animalistic grace he’d exhibited earlier, he headed for the drinks cabinet, but at the last moment veered away and stopped before the glass wall.
Silence pulsed as he stared out, ferocious tension riding his shoulders.
I dragged my fingers through my hair, shoving it out of the way in order to secure my bra, and hurriedly punched my fingers through the sleeves of my blouse. I was tugging the sides together when he turned.
If his eyes had been turbulent pools before, they were positively volcanic now. But that fury was aimed more at himself than at me. There seemed to be bewilderment, as if I was a puzzle he’d tried and failed to put together and now loathed himself for attempting.
He stared at me for another unsettling minute, his lips parted, his chest rising and falling as if he detested the very words he was about to utter.
‘We have a problem,’ he grated.
I was surprised he could speak at all, with his jaw locked so tight and the tendons in his neck standing out.
The feeling of unworthiness returned—harder, harsher. Not good enough, the insidious voice whispered. Never good enough.
I pushed it and my roiling emotions away for examination later. Much, much later.
‘I can tell. Although I’m at a loss as to what it is.’
But even as the firm words tumbled from my lips, the cascade and echo of old hurts was deepening, intensifying.
‘If you’re about to tell me you regret what happened, please save your breath. We don’t need to dissect it now or ever. I’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes. You need never set eyes on me again if that’s what you—’
‘The condom broke.’
The words were delivered like a chilling death knell. I was glad I hadn’t attempted to stand, because my legs would have failed me. I was aware that my jaw had sagged, that I probably made an unattractive sight, sitting there half-dressed, with my skirt askew and unzipped and my blouse wrinkled.
He confirmed it with a quick rake of his gaze and a harder clenching of his teeth. ‘Get dressed, Sadie.’
I ignored the command for the simple reason that I couldn’t move, couldn’t force my brain to stop repeating those three damning words on a loop.
‘I… What?’ I finally managed.
‘Cover yourself,’ he repeated tersely.
‘Why? My nakedness didn’t cause the condom to fail,’ I flung back, and then compounded my words with a furious blush as his eyebrows hiked upward in flaying mockery.
I turned my back on him, a much more earth-shaking tremble seizing me as the ramifications landed home. While he’d listed everything I may have deprived him of, Neo hadn’t definitely confirmed his inability to father children. So did I face a possible pregnancy on top of everything else?
Dear God…
Motherhood? When my own blueprint of childhood was so flawed?
Somehow, through sheer will to fight this battle on somewhere-near-equal footing, I straightened my clothes, slid my feet into my shoes.
There was nothing I could do about my hair, what with the cheap band I’d used nowhere in sight and my refusal to dig around for it under Neo’s heavy, brooding stare. So I took a deep breath, and turned around to face the consequences of yet another wrong turn.
MISTAKE.
Big, colossal mistake.
Disbelief, raw and searing, tunnelled deep, bedded down into my bones with unstoppable force until I had no choice but to acknowledge its presence. To accept that I’d simply compounded one problem with not one but two further mistakes.
For the first time in my life I wanted to find the nearest sand dune. Bury my head in it. But I couldn’t.
Because there she stood, a flaming hot testament to the temptation I’d given in to when I should’ve walked away. Should have heeded my own agency to retreat and regroup instead of arrogantly imagining I could handle this—handle her—like a normal business challenge, to be ruthlessly and efficiently dismantled before moving on to the next problem.
The chaos she’d brought upon me wasn’t a business problem or even a wider family problem, to be accommodated only so far until it could be slotted under someone else’s problem when in reality it was deeply, straight-to-the-core personal.
It had needed addressing, sure. But only once I’d thought things through. Executed a solution with military precision, as I did with everything in my life.
Not losing myself in the very object of my misery. Not letting go of the reins of my sanity so thoroughly and completely that the world could’ve burned to the ground and I wouldn’t have minded in the slightest if it meant I could continue to enjoy her silken warmth, the intoxicating clutch of her tight heat. To hear those spellbinding gasps and cries fall from her lips as she begged for more.
Acid seared my throat, flooded my mouth, bringing with it a recollection of the only other time I’d let blind lust get the better of me.
An invitation to some faceless heiress’s birthday party in Gstaad I’d almost refused—until a possible business opportunity had been thrown in to sweeten the invitation.
A big deal bagged, followed by a night of hedonistic revelry.
A mistaken conclusion that I’d found a worthy soulmate, even though I’d never truly believed in that sort of flighty fantasy.
When that illusion had seemed to hold true in the clear light of day, for weeks and months, I’d congratulated myself for a wise choice made even in the midst of frivolity and decadence.
A proposal in Neostros, before friends and family, an engagement party to trump them all, and I was all set to buck the Xenakis family trend of backstabbing and buckling underneath the smallest pressure.
Even when suspicions arose…even when I allowed Anneka to talk me into another visit to Gstaad and a reluctant turn on the black ski run ended with me being launched twenty feet into the air and descending via a jagged aspen tree…she hadn’t bailed.
Unlike most, who barely remembered their trauma, mine still played out in excruciating detail. I heard her cries as she held my hand and urged me to hold on. And I held on, remaining alert right until the doctors were forced to put me in a medical coma. I embraced even that, knowing she would be waiting for me when I woke.
But those fervent wishes for me to hold on had been born not of love but of callous greed and an unconscionable disregard for loyalty and integrity.
She calculated every move, right up until my eyes opened—literally and figuratively—to the betrayal and falsehoods so deeply ingrained she wore them like a second skin. One she attempted to hide with tears and cajoling until she’d learned that she couldn’t fool a Xenakis twice.
I’d made a vow never to be caught in another traitorous web ever again.
Where was that vow an hour ago, Neo?
I stifled a growl at the mocking inner voice. There’d been quite enough growling for one night. One lifetime. The cold calculation with which I should have approached this situation finally arrived.
I stared at Sadie Preston. Watched her fidget, like she did in my office.
Then slowly that chin went up, throwing the face I’d framed in my hands and caressed into alluring relief while those green eyes began to spark.
‘Are you going to