“I figured I didn’t have to look like a corporate drone anymore,” she said, shrugging slightly.
“It’s pink.”
“Only the tips.”
He finally dragged his horrified gaze from her hair down the rest of her body.
“Did I disturb your sleep?” he asked, looking truly confused.
“I didn’t see the need to get dressed when I don’t have a job to get ready for.”
“And you did not consider going out to look for a new job?”
Jeez, rich people really had no clue how the real world worked. He sounded way too judgmental for her liking, and she bristled defensively.
“I just got fired from my previous position yesterday. I haven’t had time to sit down with the classifieds to job-hunt yet.”
He nodded and shoved his hands into his coat pockets as his gaze roamed around the small, slightly dingy, and far-from-tidy interior of her apartment.
“This place has lousy security. A student type in baggy jeans and a Rastafarian cap simply let me in. Held the door open and waved me through.”
“Oh.”
“I think he might have been on something,” he said, voice ripe with disapproval.
“If it’s who I’m thinking of, then he was very definitely on something.” Young Isaac from down the hall was always high. Cleo didn’t know how he managed to get any studying done. Dante’s brow furrowed in response to her words.
“And you feel safe in this dump?”
“Why are you here?” she asked, refusing to answer any more of his questions.
“May I sit?” After a brief hesitation, she nodded. He glanced around the room again before heading toward the kitchen table and turning to wait for her there. Once she joined him, he dragged out a chair, ushered her into it, and took his own seat. A little flustered by the gentlemanly gesture, she waited for him to speak. But he didn’t say anything for a long time and merely stared at his loosely folded hands resting on the table in front of him.
She shifted uncomfortably before he lifted his eyes and trapped her with that intense gaze of his. She froze beneath that stare, feeling like a butterfly pinned to a board.
“You’re pregnant.”
“I know.”
“How far along are you now?” he asked. She couldn’t help it; she allowed her hand to drop to her abdomen, still in awe that there was a life in there.
“Twelve weeks,” she whispered. “This week her eyelids started to grow in properly.”
“‘Her’?” he asked gruffly, and she shook herself out of her reverie to focus on him again.
“The baby’s a ‘she’ this week. Last week a ‘he.’ Last week was exciting; she-or he-started making fists. Can you imagine this little life, barely the size of a prune, with tiny hands that can make fists?”
“Can you feel it doing all that? Making fists and stuff?” he sounded fascinated despite himself.
“No, I can’t. I’ve been reading this week-by-week pregnancy book. It’s really good.”
There was another long, awkward silence as Cleo tried to figure out if she could say or do anything to convince him to leave. “I wish I had security guards too,” she said wistfully, and he glanced up at her in surprise.
“So that you can kick me out?” He sounded amused rather than offended.
“I want you to leave,” she admitted. “I don’t like having you here in my home.”
“I came to tell you that I agree to your terms. I’ve signed your documents. If I am the father of that baby, I will pay an amount toward its support.”
“You won’t try to take her from me?” Cleo verbalized her worst fear on a whisper.
“No. Your baby doesn’t interest me. You don’t interest me. I want you both out of my life as quickly and quietly as possible.”
Well, she’d always known that was how he would feel, but the rejection still stung. She felt the pain more for her baby than she did for herself. She’d known the stakes going into this thing with Dante Damaso, but the baby was an innocent in all of this, and now would never have a father to love her and protect her. Still, he was cold and ruthless and would undoubtedly make a lousy father. She’d grown up without a dad, and while she was a mess at times, she’d turned out mostly all right. Luc barely remembered their father either; the man had stuck around for five years and had skipped out on his family less than a month after Cleo’s birth. Their mother, never the most stable of creatures, had gone on a downward spiral after that, and five years later had dumped her children with their grandparents and swanned off to Asia. None of them had seen or heard from her again, and Luc and Cleo had received word of her death soon after their grandparents had passed. Luc flew to Nepal, where she died, and took care of the funeral arrangements. He returned with a few boxes of her personal items, and that had been that. A sad and lonely ending to a sad and lonely life.
“Why didn’t you send your attorney to take care of the matter?” she asked Dante. “You didn’t have to come in person.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.