Buch lesen: «Valentino's Pregnancy Bombshell»

Chapter One

PAIGE DONALD could feel Valentino Lombardi’s gaze on her from across the altar. Not even the beauty of the ceremony or the happiness in her heart for her friend, Natalie, could distract her from the intensity of it.

It caressed every inch of her body, making her even more self-conscious about what she was wearing.

The bridesmaid’s dress clung to non-existent curves. The hem grazed her knee and she suppressed the urge to yank it lower. This wasn’t her. This frothy, clingy, femme fatale dress with shoestring straps and low back.

Very. Low. Back.

The crimson creation didn’t say busy single working mother with a high-needs child who hasn’t slept an entire night through in three years.

It said Sexy. Flirty. Time for pleasure. It said the playground is open, come on in. And Valentino Lombardi, possibly the sexiest man she’d ever laid eyes on, probably the sexiest man in existence, looked like he wanted to be first to ride.

But she didn’t have time. Not for flirting. Or riding. Or pleasure. Or any of those trivialities. And especially not for a man who looked like he held a PhD in trivia. There were never enough hours in the day as it was.

There was just never enough time.

She had a sudden hankering for her faded grey trackpants and her favourite oversized T-shirt back in her wardrobe at home in Brisbane. Or better still her baggy blue scrubs. She didn’t like being this…on display. She felt awkward.

The heat from Valentino’s gaze radiated towards her and she slid him a mutinous back-off-buddy glance. It was one she’d perfected since Arnie had walked out on her and it usually stopped a man dead in his tracks. But Valentino just grinned and gave her a saucy wink.

Great! Please, God, don’t let me have to dodge this Italian Neanderthal all night.

‘Can I have the rings, please?’

Paige could have kissed the priest as Alessandro’s best man was given a job to do other than look at her. Unfortunately, though, his actions commanded the attention of the entire female population of the church, including her, and Paige found herself drinking in the way his exquisite suit pulled across broad shoulders and how the fine wool of his trousers outlined powerful quads and one very fine backside.

Very, very fine.

He glanced at her as he stepped back into his place and his espresso eyes told her he knew exactly where hers had been. A smile touched his lips, beautiful lips that could have been carved by one of the masters. Except they were warm and vital.

Desirable. Kissable.

There was a frankness in his gaze that stopped the breath in her lungs. She searched for something more, beyond the promise of tonight. Something deeper. A connection. Something that told her he was interested in more than getting her between his sheets. But all she found was heat and sex and lust.

Totally superficial. Like the man.

Another flashy male. All sparkle, no substance.

Still, her heart skipped a beat and she sucked in a ragged breath.

Paige hit the ‘send’ button and placed her mobile on the table, drumming her fingers. Her gaze returned, yet again, to Valentino as he worked the room. She tried to ignore him and her steadily growing irritation as women almost swooned at his feet but the rich sound of his easy, frequent laughter made it impossible. It reached out from across the room as if he had physically caressed her, drawing her attention like a moth to flame.

Valentino Lombardi was not a man you could ignore. With his killer dimples, boyishly curly hair and Italian playboy charm, he was pure vice.

Paige’s phone vibrated and she reached for it, her pulse spiking.

McKenzie fine. Sleeping well. Stop worrying.

Paige’s fingers flew over the keypad. Apnoea mat on?

Alessandro laughed again and Paige drank the sight of him in as she pressed ‘send’. He threw his head back, giving the belly laugh its full freedom, and her gaze followed the bronzed length of his exposed neck peppered with dark stubble.

Another vibration dragged her eyes back to the table. Yes. Go and dance for crying out loud!

Paige smiled despite the gnawing, ever-present worry. She could almost hear her mother saying the words. But she’d never had a night away from her daughter. Frankly she didn’t know what to do with herself.

Don’t think I’ll stay the night. If I leave after cake can be home by midnight. ‘Send’.

Paige checked her watch, doing a quick calculation in her head. Yep. She could definitely make it home by then.

‘Everything okay?’

Paige glanced up into the bride’s face. Nat had fresh bluebells threaded into her blonde locks, which brought out the colour of her eyes and matched the crystal beading decorating the neckline of her ivory gown. Alessandro’s hand rested possessively on her shoulder and Paige felt a sudden yearning she couldn’t explain.

Why? She’d been where they were. Had the divorce to prove it. She certainly had no desire to do it again.

She smiled at her friend. ‘Just telling Mum I might not stay the night.’

‘Paige? No.’ Nat grabbed her hand. ‘Your parents have booked and paid for it. Including breakfast. Your mother would skin me alive if I let you leave.’ Nat squeezed Paige’s hand. ‘It’s just one night. Don’t you think it’s time you enjoyed a well-deserved break?’

Paige shied away from the earnestness of her friend’s expression. Everyone said that to her—you need a break, Paige. But she was a mother first and foremost and McKenzie needed her. That’s just the way it was. Nat would understand one day too.

The phone vibrated and Paige grabbed it, relieved to break eye contact with the bride. She opened the message and read it three times, a ghost of a smile touching her lips. She held it up to Nat.

Don’t. You. Dare.

Nat grinned. ‘Have I mentioned how much I like your mother?’

Paige rolled her eyes. ‘Okay, okay. I’ll stay.’

‘Good.’ Nat squeezed her hand. ‘The speeches are about to start.’

A deep laugh floated towards them and Nat looked across to where Valentino was chatting with some nurses from their work. ‘You should take a page out of Val’s book. He’s certainly having a good time.’

Paige felt her gaze drawing to him again. ‘Isn’t he just,’ she said dryly.

Nat sighed. ‘I tell you, if I wasn’t utterly besotted with Alessandro and was up for a brief fling, I’d be over there too.’

‘Hmm,’ Paige murmured noncommittally.

‘Do you know he used to date Adrianna de Luca?’

Paige gave her friend a mystified look. ‘Who?’

Nat rolled her eyes. ‘One of Italy’s top catwalk models.’

Of course he did. ‘Fancy that.’

‘They were in all the magazines last year.’

Paige hadn’t read a magazine in for ever. Or a book. Sunday newspapers were about her limit. ‘Of course they were.’ Her voice dripped with derision.

Nat regarded her friend seriously. ‘Not all men are like Arnie, Paige.’ She looked up as Valentino laughed again and poked her elbow into Paige’s ribs. ‘Come on, you have to admit, he’s a bit of a spunk.’

‘I hope you’re talking about me, il mio tesoro,’ Alessandro interrupted, nuzzling his new wife’s neck.

‘But of course.’ Nat smiled, turning to Alessandro, her lips poised to meet his as he lowered his head.

Paige felt a tug at her dress and was grateful for a reason to avoid the blissful clinch she knew was happening beside her. She looked down to see, Juliano, Alessandro’s four year old son.

‘Where’s McKenzie?’

Paige smiled at the boy. ‘Juliano, you look magnificent!’ He was dressed in a mini-tux and was the spitting image of his father.

With the boyishness and dimples of his father’s cousin.

Juliano stood a little higher. ‘Nat says I’m handsome.’

‘Nat is one hundred per cent right.’

Juliano beamed. ‘Is McKenzie sick?’

Paige shook her head, saddened that it was such a natural conclusion for Juliano to jump to. ‘No. She’s at home with her grandparents.’

Juliano’s face fell. ‘I wanted to ask her to dance.’

Paige’s heart just about melted and she pulled Juliano in for a big hug. ‘You are so sweet. I see you have your father’s charm.’ She glanced at Alessandro, who winked at her. ‘Another time, huh?’

Nat had wanted McKenzie to be her flower girl but Paige had declined. The truth was, crowds made Paige very nervous for her daughter. As an ex-prem with chronic lung disease and poor immunity, every single person was a potential source of infection, a silver bullet to McKenzie’s weak defences. It just wasn’t worth the risk.

‘Okay.’ Juliano nodded, squirming out of her embrace. ‘See ya,’ he chirped, and ducked away, heading for the dance floor.

Paige watched him, smiling even though her heart ached. What would she give for her daughter to be so ablebodied, so carefree? She returned her attention to her phone and replied to her mother’s text.

Promise you’ll ring if there’s a problem.

It took five seconds for the reply. I promise.

Paige texted back. Anything at all. No matter how trivial. She released the message into the ether and held on fast to the phone, tension tightening her stomach muscles.

She knew people thought she was too uptight about her daughter but what did they know? It was she who lived every day with the reality of McKenzie’s fragile health, not them. And one thing was for certain—being vigilant had kept McKenzie alive.

With the operation only a couple of months away now, Paige was determined to keep McKenzie healthy and avoid any more delays. It had been rescheduled three times already. No more.

The phone vibrated in her hand and Paige opened the message. I’m switching the phone off now. Go and have fun. That’s an order.

Paige smiled. She’d obviously stretched her mother’s patience enough for one night. Thank God for her parents. She would never have got through the past few years without them.

A tinkling of cutlery on glass cut through the low murmur and Paige turned to see Alessandro standing. She pushed all thoughts of the world outside the room aside, determined to follow her mother’s orders, and motioned for the drinks waiter.

‘So,’ Valentino said, topping up Paige’s half-full glass with some more champagne, ‘I believe it is a custom in your country for the best man and the bridesmaid to dance the bridal waltz together.’

His voice was low and close to her ear and her body reacted as if he had suggested something much more risqué than a customary dance in front of a room full of people. It took all her willpower not to melt into a puddle. Not to turn her head and flirt like crazy.

Except it seemed like a million years ago now that she’d last flirted and she was pretty sure she didn’t have a clue how to go about it. And why she would choose to do so with a man who was all glamour and sparkle, after her experience with Arnie, was beyond her.

The bitter burn of memories was never far from reach.

‘That’s right,’ she said, refusing to look at him, focusing instead on the bubbles meandering to the surface of her champagne.

‘Eccellente. I’m looking forward to that.’

Well, that made one of them. The thought of them dancing, his arm around her practically bare back, their bodies close, was sending her heart into fibrillation. Sitting next to him at the table, aware of his every move, every breath, their arms occasionally brushing, his deep voice resonating through tense abdominal muscles, was bad enough. Being pressed along the magnificent tuxedoed length of him? Frankly it scared the hell out of her.

She felt gauche and unsophisticated and totally out of her depth next to his man-of-the-world, model-dating perfection.

What if she stuffed up the steps? Or trod on his foot?

What if she liked it too much?

‘You are worried your boyfriend will mind that we dance, yes?’

Valentino’s comment snapped her out of the vision of her clinging to him like some sort of groupie as he pressed kisses down her neck. She glanced at him, startled.

A big mistake.

Thus far she’d managed not to look at him this close up. And now she knew why. This near, he was simply dazzling. Gorgeous hair the colour of midnight waved in haphazard glory, thick and lustrous with not a hint of grey. It brushed his forehead and collar and Paige finally understood the itch some women talked about to run their fingers through a man’s hair.

Jet-black eyebrows quirked at her as her gaze widened to take in his square jaw line, heavy with five-o’clock shadow. His full lips curved upward and were bracketed by dimples that should be outlawed on anyone over five. His eyes, dark like a shot of the best Italian espresso, were fringed by long black lashes and promised fun and flirting.

A buzz coursed through her veins at the fifteen different kinds of sin she could see in them.

Valentino smiled at the little frown that knitted Paige’s caramel brows together and crinkled her forehead. She was a most intriguing woman. Her grey eyes were huge in her angular face dominated by prominent cheekbones and a wide mouth.

She wore no eye make-up to enhance them, she didn’t need to. They drew the gaze regardless. Her strawberry-blonde hair had been severely styled into a pixie cut that feathered over her forehead and would have looked boyish on anyone else but only seemed to enhance the hugeness of her eyes and the vulnerability he saw there.

She was no beauty. She certainly wasn’t his usual type. He liked them curvy. Everywhere. Not rail thin like Paige. And confident. Women who were secure in their sexuality, who smiled and flirted and enjoyed life. Women who knew the score.

And yet…

There was something about her that intrigued him. Not least of all the fact that she’d been the only female in the room who hadn’t clamoured to be closer to him.

‘I see you texting. All night,’ he prompted when she still didn’t say anything. ‘I figure a beautiful woman…’ He shrugged and shot her his best hey-baby grin, ‘it must be a boyfriend?’

Paige shook her head to clear it as Valentino’s smile muddled her senses. ‘I’m a little old for a boyfriend, don’t you think?’

‘Paige. We are never too old for love.’

The slight reprimand in his voice didn’t register. Nothing registered beyond the way he’d said her name. Paige. He had drawn it out a little at the end, giving it a very European flair, and it had stroked across every nerve ending in her pelvis.

She shut her eyes. This was madness. He was just a man. God knew, she hadn’t even thought about the opposite sex since her husband had walked out on her. And, besides, she just didn’t have time for a man. Especially not a model-dating, Italian playboy whose interest in her would no doubt wane the minute after he had his way with her.

Which wasn’t going to happen.

Even if, deep down, in a secret, hidden part of her, she wanted it very, very badly.

I am a single-mother of a high-needs child.

I am a single mother of a high-needs child.

She turned back to her champagne and took a long deep swallow, the bubbles pricking her throat as they slid down, matching the prick at the backs of her eyes. ‘I am.’

Tonight, as always, Paige felt absolutely ancient. ‘Excuse me,’ she murmured, rising and headed for the refuge of the bathroom.

Valentino watched his cousin dancing with his new wife, a gladness in his heart that Alessandro had finally found love after the train wreck of his first marriage.

It always humbled him when he saw two people ready to make a lifetime commitment. Sure, after an early escape he’d worked out it wasn’t for him, but that didn’t mean he didn’t believe in it for others. His parents were, after all, still blissfully married after fifty years.

He spotted Paige making her way back to the table and he was struck anew by how not his type she was. The crimson dress outlined a figure that had more angles then curves. Her breasts were small, her body one long, lean line, and she moved with purpose rather than grace.

And yet…

He rose as she approached the table and held out his hand. ‘I believe it’s our turn.’

Paige’s heart thundered. His gaze had tracked her from all the way across the room and her heart beat as if she’d just dashed one hundred metres in less than ten seconds. She looked up at him, caution wrangling with temptation. How easy would it just be to surrender? To forget her mangled heart and the type of man who had mangled it in the first place and succumb to the invitation in Valentino’s eyes?

But Paige had never been into masochism.

She ignored his hand and headed towards the dance floor.

Valentino grinned. If she thought for a moment that he couldn’t read every emotion, the battle in those large grey eyes, she was utterly deluded. He followed her to the floor, his gaze glued to the elegant length of her naked spine the dress afforded him, and wondered what it would take to convince her to let her guard down.

Paige reluctantly let him shepherd her into the circle of his arms. His big hand sat low, just above her butt and just this side of decent. It was firm and hot and she felt a lurch in areas that hadn’t felt anything in a very long time.

Valentino felt resistance as he tried to pull her a little closer. ‘Relax,’ he murmured to her temple.

She jerked her head back slightly to forcibly remove the brush of his lips from her skin. Relax? He may as well have asked her to fly to the moon. She glared at him. ‘Let’s just get through this, okay?’

Valentino chuckled. Paige wasn’t one for stroking egos. Another factor he was finding surprisingly appealing. He’d drifted through life never having to work for the attention of a woman—ever. From his mother to his sisters and cousins, to the girls at school and beyond, he’d always had them twisted around his finger.

He was starting to realise how boring, how predictable, his life had been.

They moved to the music and Paige automatically followed, her senses infused with Valentino’s clean male scent. She sought desperately for something to say to instil distance, to break the hypnotic pull of the music and his warm breath.

Anything.

‘So, Valentino, Alessandro tells me you are a cochlear implant surgeon.’

Valentino smiled at her robotic question. He looked down into grey eyes that were averted to a point beyond his shoulder. That she could see over his shoulder was a first for him too. Most women he’d dated, apart from Adrianna, had been shorter. At six feet two, he still had a few inches on her but the fact that it would just take one tantalising tilt of her chin to claim her mouth was an intriguing proposition.

‘Yes, Paige. Alessandro tells me you have a daughter who needs one?’

Paige stumbled at the mention of McKenzie, grateful for a moment that Valentino’s body was there to lean into, to steady herself. But then aware, too aware, of the muscles beneath his shirt, the strength in his arms, the heat of him, the power of him.

‘Yes,’ she said, pushing away from his chest and holding herself as erect, as far away as was possible, which was severely hampered as the dance floor filled with other couples and they were jostled closer together.

‘She’s scheduled for two months’ time.’

Curiously Paige found herself wanting to tell him about McKenzie, about her fragile health and the long road they’d both been on, but as much as she was desperate for conversation to maintain distance, the ups and downs of her life were not for public consumption.

‘Is she a patient of Harry Abbott’s?’

Paige’s face lightened. Now, Harry, her boss, she could talk about. She could talk about him and his genius all night long. Finally she felt on solid ground. ‘Oh, yes. Only the best for my little girl. Do you know him? He’s an absolute pioneer in the field.’

Valentino smiled, amazed at the difference in Paige as passion filled her eyes and she came alive, her face animated. Is this what she would look like beneath him in bed? His hand tightened against her spine, inching her unresisting body closer.

‘Of course.’ He shrugged. ‘Everyone knows Harry.’ In fact, it had been Valentino’s very great pleasure to finally meet the man a couple of months back during an interview.

Paige nodded. ‘He’s an absolutely magical surgeon, so clever and such a fair boss. And great with his patients. He insists everyone in the audiology department knows how to sign so the patients are at ease.’

She chatted away, finally comfortable in his arms. So comfortable, in fact, she didn’t notice that the song ended and another began. Or that they were now so close their bodies rubbed deliciously against each other as they swayed to the tempo.

Valentino, on the other hand, had noticed. In fact, he could barely register anything else. Her chatter faded into the background along with the music as his body responded to the subtle friction of her dress against the fabric of his trousers and the waft of frangipani and woman lit a fire in his groin.

She shifted against him as someone from behind bumped into her and he almost groaned out loud. ‘Paige.’

His voice, low and throaty, snapped her out of her prattle and she was instantly aware of the chemistry between them. The ache of her taut nipples as they chafed against the fabric of her dress and his shirt. The darts of heat radiating from the fingers of his hand on her spine, shooting waves of sensation over her bottom and the backs of her thighs. The heat in her pelvis stoked by the heat in his.

Her eyes locked with his, the lust, the intent in his espresso gaze frightening. She opened her mouth again to use conversation as a weapon to repel him, to push him away.

But Valentino got in before her. ‘Do you think if you talk enough you’ll be able to ignore what’s going on here?’

Paige’s eyes widened at his insight. ‘I…I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she denied, feeling frantic, like a mouse on a treadmill set on maximum speed.

‘Paige.’ Valentino ground out her name as he flattened his palm against her spine, bringing them even more intimately into contact. ‘I think you do.’

For a few seconds Paige wanted nothing more than to grind herself against him. It was an urge she had to suppress with an iron fist.

The music stopped and people clapped. She used the distraction to gather every ounce of willpower and step out of his arms. ‘No. I don’t.’

And she spun on her heel and got as far away from Valentino Lombardi as she could.

An hour later Paige couldn’t take being sociable another second. She knew it was bad form to leave the wedding before the bride and groom but she just couldn’t stand being in the same room as Valentino, watching him dance and flirt, for a second longer.

She made her apologies, assuring Nat she was staying the night but pleading a headache. When the lift arrived promptly she almost pressed a kiss to its cold metallic doors. The impulse was short lived as they opened to reveal Valentino, his jacket slung over his shoulder, his bow-tie undone, leaning against the back wall.

They stared at each other for what seemed an eternity. ‘Going up?’ he murmured.

Damn, damn, damn. Paige entered the lift after a brief hesitation during which an errant brain cell urged her to run. But she was damned if she was going to show this man he had any power over her. She turned her back on him, keeping to the front of the spacious lift, and searched the buttons for floor twelve.

Of course, it was already lit. Great! Same floor. Next they’d have adjoining rooms! The doors shut and she clutched her bag, reaching for patience.

Valentino, afforded an unfettered view of her spine, looked his fill. He couldn’t deny he wanted to see more of her back. And her front. He wanted to see her become passionate and animated again. And not about a nearly seventy-year-old surgeon who was old enough to be her grandfather. But about him. And what he was doing to her.

But she’d made it perfectly clear that any attraction was not going to be acted on. Valentino Lombardi had never had to beg in his life—he wasn’t about to start.

The lift arrived at their floor and Val smiled as Paige practically sprinted from it. He followed at a more sedate pace, not really wanting to know where her room was. What if they happened to be neighbours? Would knowing she was in the next room be any good for his equilibrium? Wondering if she slept naked? Wondering if she was as sexually frustrated as he that she might help herself to ease the ache?

He shook his head. Dio!

Except it seemed they were to be neighbours and if her cursing and muttering was anything to go by as she rammed the keycard in her door, he was going to have to lend a neighbourly hand.

He hung his jacket over his doorknob and strolled towards her, resigned to his fate. ‘Can I help with that?’

Paige slotted the card in and out several more times, wanting to scream as she twisted uselessly at the handle. She turned to him, glaring like it was all his fault. ‘I hate these things.’

Val smiled. She was animated when she was angry too. Her cheeks flushed pink, her chest rising and falling enticingly, grey eyes sparkling like headlights in fog. He reached for it. ‘Allow me.’

Paige didn’t protest. She couldn’t as his scent infused her senses. She’d done it all back at the wedding. There was no more resistance left. His fingers were sure as they slowly inserted the card into the slot and slowly pulled it out again.

Would he be that slow with her? That thorough? The light turned green and she shut her eyes as he turned the doorknob and opened her door.

‘Entri.’

Paige looked into her room. Her big empty room. She flicked her gaze to Valentino’s big hands with his sure fingers.

Val was surprised by her hesitation and although he couldn’t see her eyes he sensed the battle from earlier had returned with gusto. ‘Maybe I could join you?’

Paige felt absurdly shaky inside. She wanted to cry, burst into tears. She hadn’t realised how lonely the last couple of years had been until an attractive man had propositioned her.

She looked at him instead. Saw the naked desire heat his gaze. This was crazy. ‘I don’t…’ What? Have sex? Make love to? What could she say without sounding gauche or desperate or like a sixteen-year-old who’d never been kissed? ‘Sleep with men I’ve just met.’

After all, it had taken her three weeks and a handful of dates to succumb to her attraction to Arnie.

‘I promise you, there will be no sleeping.’

Paige swallowed hard. Both at the gravel in his voice and the sincerity in his gaze. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. Her throat was parched as she fought a little longer, hoping the sexual malaise invading her bones would lift. ‘Any woman in that room tonight would have accompanied you here in a flash—why the hell do you want me?’

Val gave her a lazy smile as anticipation built in his gut, his loins. ‘Because you’re the only woman who wouldn’t have.’

So she was a challenge? She supposed she should have been insulted but funnily enough they were precisely the right words for him to use. It told her she was something to be conquered and discarded, like all the others. Which, contrarily, right now, suited her just fine. She didn’t have time or room in her life for the distraction of a love affair. But she did have tonight.

Obviously the only thing he was interested in.

It was win-win.

Paige pushed off the wall and without saying a word brushed past him and entered her room. She hoped it looked confident and sexy and that he couldn’t hear the boom of her heart or the knocking of her knees.

She stopped in front of her bed, opened her bag, took her mobile out, checked it for messages then placed it on the bedside table before tossing the bag aside. She heard the click of the door behind her in the muted light and didn’t have to turn to know that he was walking towards her. And in seconds his heat was behind her, his breath at her neck.

He said nothing as his fingers stroked up her arms. Neither did she. Nor did she say anything when his hands peeled the dress off her shoulders, baring her to her waist.

But she did cry out when his thumbs swept across her bare nipples, already hard and eager for his touch.

And when he kissed her neck.