A Touch of Temptation. Tara Pammi
with crystal-clear clarity. She had called him that the week before she had left him, her misery getting the better of her. It wasn’t where he had come from that had bothered her. It was what she represented to him because of it that had shattered her heart.
“Why? Even you can see, after everything you have set in motion, how much Alex loves my sister.”
He circled the pillar and neared her, frowning. “And this doesn’t bother you at all?”
“What?”
“That the man you had been about to marry is now married to your twin.”
“I’m incredibly happy for them. If there’s one good thing that’s come out of this whole debacle it’s Liv and Alex.”
“Only one good thing? Still not sure, then?” he queried silkily, his gaze instantly moving to her stomach.
Her spine kissed the steel refrigerator as he suddenly swallowed her space. “Any child who’s the product of you and me is of course not a good thing.”
“You make it sound like it’s a product we designed together.”
His words were soft, even amused, and yet they lanced through her. “Excuse me if I’m not the perfect vision of maternal instinct you were expecting.”
He stared at her, his gaze searching hers. “Your genes needed a bit of diluting anyway, and you need a bit of softening up. All work and no play makes Kimberly a crabby girl.”
“Yes, well—look where all that playing has landed me.”
She sucked in a deep breath, sheer exhaustion finally catching up with her. Trust Diego to force her to face the one thing she didn’t want to think about.
“We can’t even have a conversation without jumping at each other’s throats, Diego.” Every dark fear she was trying to stay above bled into her words. “How do you think it bodes for the...the child?”
Without looking away from her he pulled her hands from behind her and tugged her gently. Stupefied, she went along, for once lacking the energy to put up a fight. With a hand at her back he guided her to the lounge and pushed her onto the couch.
He settled down on a chair opposite.
She felt the force of his look down to her toes. “You might not want this baby, but you want to do the right thing by it—right?”
She swallowed and nodded, a fist squeezing her chest. It was the only thing she was capable of at this point.
“Good. And, as much as you were hoping that I would walk away, I won’t.” His gaze was reassuring, his tone comforting. “Believe me, gatinha, that’s a whole lot more than most kids ever have.”
Was it?
Maybe if her mother hadn’t left that night...and even when she had maybe if she had at least included Kim...would her life have been different, better, today? No, there was no point in imagining a different past or present. Being weak, trusting her heart, only led to unbearable pain. She had learned that twice already.
“Why are you jealous of Alexander?” The moment the question fell off her lips she regretted it.
His long fingers on his nape, Diego closed his eyes and then opened them slowly. His resentment was clear in the tight line of his mouth. “Alexander King has your confidence. I don’t. And, having crawled out of the gutter, I find my first reaction is to hate any man who has what I want.”
His stark admission pulled the rug out from under her. “You want my confidence?” She sighed. “How about you stop trying to destroy me for a minute and then we can talk?”
He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his expression amused. “Isn’t it interesting how your company being in crisis means I’m destroying your life, but when I ruined your wedding you didn’t have a word to say? So, did he agree to save your company and thus your life?”
His absolutely accurate assumption that her life revolved around her career and her company was beginning to grate on her nerves. She had always prided herself on her unemotional approach. It had been a factor that had put her in direct competition with ruthless businessmen like him.
“No.”
He plopped his ankle on his right knee. “Is it because you deceived him? Have you noticed how you leave all the men in your life with less than nice impressions?”
“Not everyone in the world is as concerned about payback as you are.”
His gaze glittered for a second, but the next he was a rogue, savoring the mess he was making of her life. “So why did Mr. King refuse to be your savior?”
“Because—thanks to your tricks and my own stupidity—my image is in tatters. My company is based on the idea of a panel of experts giving women advice on any topic from health, career and fashion to politics, finance and sex. The operative word being experts. And, as unfair as it is, a woman who seems to not have her personal life together without blemish is not someone others—even other women—want advice from. It doesn’t matter that nothing has changed in the way I think or in my brain matter since I learned about my pregnancy. It just is.”
“But eventually the news would have come out. I just accelerated it.”
He was right. It was something she would have had to face in a couple of months anyway. The sooner she dealt with all this, found a way to resolve this situation with her company, the better.
She still needed an investor, but she was not as worried about running her company as the whole world was. She could do it with her hand tied behind her back.
It was the pregnancy that was the near-constant worry scouring through her.
She had succeeded in everything she had taken up in her life. Pregnancy had to be the same, right?
If she prepared enough, if she was willing to work hard, she could do a good job at being a mother, too. She refused to think about it any other way—refused to give weight to the worry eating away at her from inside.
“What’s was the point of all this, Diego?” she said, feeling incredibly tired. “Would it make you feel better if I begged you for help? Leeched money off you in the name of child support?”
“Yes.”
She blinked at the vehemence in his answer.
“What I wanted was to scare away all your other investors so that you have no one else to turn to but me.”
“Why?”
“It seems putting your company in crisis is the only way for me to get your attention.”
Her temper flared again. “That’s the second time you have mentioned my success, my company, as though it’s something to be sneered at—when you pursued your own success with ruthless ambition. And wasn’t that why you married me six years ago? Because I was smart, ambitious? Now that I’m pregnant you’re asking me to put all that aside and suddenly morph into your vision of everything maternal? I never thought you would tout double standards.”
Diego ran a hand over his nape. Just the mention of their short-lived marriage was like throwing a punch in his face. She was doing it again—getting under his skin. And it would end in only one way.
“Do you really want to go down the rabbit hole of the past, gatinha?”
He didn’t want to argue with her. He could see very well that something about her pregnancy was stressing her out. So why didn’t she make it easy on herself? If she didn’t know how to, he would do it. He would drag her kicking and screaming back into his life and force her to slow down if that was what he had to do to take care of her.
He stepped over the coffee table and joined her on the couch. She scooted to the other corner. He sighed. It seemed either they argued or they screwed, and neither was what he wanted to do. Even if one option had infinitely more appeal than the other.