Baby By Accident: International Billionaires III: The Italians (3 page)

Damn the man. Damn him for doing this to her.

Her conscience blasted her back. It hadn't been all him. True, he’d dragged her here, wherever
here
was. Yet she’d been the one to get drunk and thus give him the opportunity to sweep her into his arms.

The memory burned her hide, but she had to admit she’d put herself in the position.

Even worse, she’d been the instigator in this bed. She’d been the one to start touching. She'd said yes. Quite clearly. Quite completely. She’d known exactly what she’d been doing. The alcohol haze had been gone. No, she’d be honest enough with herself to admit it.

If only to herself.

To him? Never. Let him feel guilt when he awoke. Guilt that he’d taken advantage of a woman. If he was capable of the emotion, which she highly doubted.

Don't think about this now. Get out of here.

She dressed in seconds, the wool of her skirt scratching her skin, the linen of her blouse tight around her breasts because of the lack of her bra. Lise slipped on her pumps, grimacing as she had to push her feet in without the sleek stockings easing the way.

She took one last glance at the bed.

Unwillingly, unwanted the memory came. The dream no longer a misty fantasy. The lover no longer unreal. The feeling of his fiery taking, of the unbelievable pleasure she'd felt as he slipped inside her, were as vivid and startling as any reality she'd ever experienced.

She would never forget this.

She would never forgive him.

Tiptoeing out of the bedroom, she took a deep breath of release as his purr diminished, then disappeared. She came to a stairway, modern and chic in its design. The stairs swept her down into the foyer.

A gasp escaped her. This? This was his home?

The place wasn't
him
. The furniture, the décor, the impression didn't fit the image she'd developed during these last months as she’d studied her enemy.

Early morning sunlight slid through the filmy floor-length curtains, splashing a cheery light across the rooms. The flat offered a warm welcome. The open layout provided her a view of the living area and the kitchen. Copper pots hung from the kitchen walls and glass-fronted cabinets were filled with colorful china and shiny crystal. The room held a vast array of books and the walls were lined in vivid artwork. Pale pine-wood floors shone under the cover of several antique oriental rugs.

This wasn’t a bachelor pad designed to impress the ladies.

This was a home.

She'd seen enough to confuse her. Add this to the complex emotions and memories pounding in her brain, and the top of her head threatened to explode. She had no memory of coming here last night. How embarrassing. Her imagination provided a revolting picture of him holding her in his arms, laughing at her drunken state as he threw her onto his bed.

He’d taken off her clothes and looked.

Of course he had.

The heat of her blushes could power a steam engine down the tracks.

She hated him. Hated, hated, hated him.

Because she knew, as sure as she knew her own name, he'd done it to prove a point. To get one over her. Not because he truly desired her or thought well of her or wanted her. What awaited her in the office the next time she confronted him would be horrifying.

Don't think about this. Not now.

Her purse lay on a lovely antique oak table standing in the hallway. She grabbed it, jerked around, and opened the front door.

The door thudded behind her as she raced to the elevator.

Stumbling from the lift, she crossed the elegant lobby, stepped out onto the street and immediately realized where she stood. Chelsea. Bohemian and foreign and artistic and flamboyant. Also, a place for only the wealthy to live. She loved this area, came here often to shop and eat, enjoying the free-spirited crowds and funky shops and eateries. She supposed it wasn't surprising she'd found her way to this area last night after the debacle with Robert. Perhaps she’d thought the joy of the place would find a way to fix her broken heart.

The fact that Vico Mattare had picked this place to live stunned her. She’d pictured him in some high-rise penthouse overlooking the financial district. Or in one of those new estates popping up on the outskirts of the city.

Get away from here.

Right. Hugging her purse to her side, she walked in a swift gait up the street, quiet, cool, and deserted in the early March morning. She got her bearings and within minutes, she found herself on the Tube heading for home.

She sat, her hands clenching white on her lap.

Remembering. Everything.

Lise stared at her bare hand, recalling the graceful filigree on the silver ring once adorning her fourth finger. She hadn’t noticed Robert’s unresponsiveness last night. She hadn’t noticed his coolness, his withdrawal.

Until he’d dropped his bombshell.

In love with another woman. Marrying another woman.

Not her.

“She’s everything I dreamed of.” He’d stood in his formal, stately living room, his grey eyes blazing with passion. A passion Lise had never imagined resided in Robert. “I’m marrying her as soon as I can.”

Marrying. Not Lise.

The other woman.

“She’s funny and vivacious.” The man who held himself in aristocratic hauteur in every situation, now beamed with fevered delight. “She makes me come alive.”

Alive.

Exactly as she, Lise Helton, had come alive last night.

She sucked in a shocked breath. No.
No
. This couldn’t be the same thing.

“You can’t really think I’d settle for the kind of sex we’ve had for the rest of my life.” Robert’s smirk had been filled with disdain. “Not after I got a taste of what’s possible to have with a real woman.”

A real woman. Not Lise.

The other woman.

“A woman who responds to me with passion and love.”

A woman who responds.

“A woman who’s not an Ice Queen, personified.”

Ice Queen
.

Forcing her head up, Lise stared blankly at the empty subway seat across from her. Robert’s words no longer punished her or hurt her. Not like last night, when she’d been crushed and destroyed.

Because they weren’t true.

How ironic. She would never let Vico Mattare know this, but he’d given her a great gift. He’d changed something deep inside her, something she’d yearned for in the past few years, even as she’d dismissed it as unimportant.

She was more than the lady her parents had raised.

She was more than an intelligent CFO.

She was so much more than she’d allowed herself to be.

Change. Lise Helton needed to change.

Glancing through the window, she noticed her stop came next. She eased off of the seat and followed the small crowd of Londoners out of the station and onto her street in the heart of Mayfair.

Dignified Mayfair. A bit staid and old-fashioned, in her opinion. But her opinion hadn’t been asked for. Her father had bought her the flat before consulting her. He wanted her around the right sort of people, he’d said. No riffraff or rabble were allowed in Mayfair, he’d proclaimed. She had gritted her teeth, smiled, accepted, and moved in without complaint. Without objecting. Complaining and objecting with her father and mother were not in her repertoire.

Not until now.

Sure, the place was cool and classic and cultured. Still, it wasn’t what she wanted and her father was no longer around to object. She needed to change. So many things. What she wanted, what she’d dreamed of was a home more like…

More like the place she’d just snuck out of.

The thought stopped her cold.

An emotion, something she didn’t want to label as envy, whispered through her. A snort of derision stomped the emotion dead. There was nothing Vico Mattare had that she wanted. Nothing.

Liar.

She shook the word off and marched down the lane to her front door. Letting herself into her house, she dropped her purse on the steel-and-glass side table. A bath first, then sleep. Tomorrow would be soon enough to cancel a wedding she no longer wanted and tell her mother the news.

“Where have you been?”

The horrified voice stopped Lise cold. She squeezed her eyes shut and stifled the groan in her throat. “Mother.”

“I've been waiting for an hour.”

Possibly the last thing she wanted to find in her home right now was her mother. She supposed if Vico Mattare crouched in wait for her she would consider that the worse of two evils. Yet this certainly came in a strong second. Why had she given her nosy mother a key? Why hadn’t she just said no?

“Mother.” She turned to confront the offended woman standing in her hallway. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

Esther Helton looked rather like an enraged chicken. A hen puffed into a fuming bundle of feathers and froth. Actual feathers sprang from her hat and the crimped lace edging her neckline did give her a slightly molted air. Her face flamed in fuming red.

Definitely an enraged chicken.

Disloyal thoughts. But Lise didn’t feel like a devoted daughter at the moment. Things needed to change.

“I realize you young people think it is perfectly fine to…to…” Her mother waved her hand, unable to say the dirty word. “I, however, expect better from you, Elizabeth. I expect you to act as the lady I raised you to be.”

The dull headache turned like a switch into a pounding migraine. “Mother, I don’t—”

“I understand you are engaged to Robert.” The hen huffed. “I would expect you’d wait until after the marriage, though.”

Would a fit of hysterical laughter be enough to drive her mother from her home? If Esther Helton had any idea of what really went on last night, she might very well explode. The idea of her precious daughter passionately embracing a dirty foreigner and having wild sex with him might cause her to burst. Thankfully, she would never know.

But she’d have to be told about the canceled wedding.

Not today. Tomorrow.

Lise hid her left hand behind her back. The last thing she wanted to deal with at this moment was her mother’s horror at a broken engagement. Robert had been a prized future son-in-law for Esther Helton. She’d gone on and on about his ancestry, his wealth, his elegance. If her mother spotted the absence of a ring, she would be off and running. Not only the lack of a ring, but a lack of a fiancé, meant determined questions about where she had been last night, if not with Robert.

“Mother.” She pinned a weak smile on her face. “I’m not feeling well. Is there something you need or can it wait until tomorrow when we go out to lunch?”

“What’s wrong?”

“One of my migraines.”

The older woman clucked. “If you hadn’t stayed out all night—”

“Yes, Mother. I’m sure you’re right.” She’d had enough. She needed to be alone. She needed sleep. She did not need her mother. It had been years since she needed her mother.

Another disloyal thought. Yet accurate. Things really, really needed to change.

Walking to the front door, she swung it open. She glanced over her shoulder and gritted her teeth in another tight smile. “I’m asking you to leave now.”

“Well!” Her mother stiffened, her face flushing once more. “I never thought I’d see the day—”

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” The ache in her head pounded like a drum.

Her mother marched out the door and up the path towards her ancient Rolls Royce. Her hat’s plumes bobbed in the morning breeze in stiff offense. “I cannot believe my daughter would treat me in such a fashion.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” She slammed the door behind her. There would be ruffled feathers flying tomorrow, in definite need of pacifying, but right now she could not care less.

Plodding down the hallway, she walked into her bathroom. For good measure, she slammed this door closed, too.

She never slammed doors. Who would have known it felt so good?

A shower. She wanted to wash every bit of
him
off her body and out of her mind.

Liar.

Ignoring the word once more, she stripped off the scratchy wool skirt and jacket, tossing them into a pile in the corner. Never again would she wear those clothes. She wanted to remember the passion, not the details.

The water, hot and soothing, slipped over her skin. Lise sighed and leaned back on the cool white tile.

Home and safe.

For at least the next forty-eight hours, she didn’t have to think about anything dealing with Vico Mattare. Taking some small comfort from this, she opened her favorite bottle of cleanser and spread a large swath of lavender-scented soap across her shoulders and arms. She only used it on the weekends because she thought the scent too vivid for everyday work life. It didn’t convey the right image. But today she needed this, needed the soothing, flowery smell on her skin. The suds dribbled down her breasts and sides.

Glancing at her body, she sucked in a deep breath.

She might be safe from his presence, but not his mark. The scrapes of his beard patterned her chest and a red blotch branded the one small mole on her left breast. Palming her hand over her skin, she couldn’t help the memories surging through her, along with a heated blush and a hot rush of response between her legs.

The sex had been amazing and a revelation. Last night had blown everything, every particle of what she believed about herself and sex, to bits.

Flipping off the stream of water, she stepped out of the shower. She slowly dried off using a fluffy green towel, watching as the bare left hand moved the cloth across her rosy skin.

Astonishing.

No hurt, no pain. Only relief.

She wouldn’t miss Robert and his picky snobbishness.

She didn’t want to marry Robert. Now she knew the sex they’d had had been less than perfect. Far less. More like a duty than a pleasure. More like an A slotting into B then a passionate encounter.

Robert had been right.

Lise stared into the mirror.

A short bark of laughter erupted from deep inside her.

She’d been a bit of an idiot, hadn’t she? No, really, she’d been a huge idiot.

Her favorite lacy nightgown hung on the door. She slipped the silky garment over her head and turned to look into the mirror. She supposed she should feel chagrined at the stupid decision to get drunk. Perhaps she should feel disgust at what she’d experienced last night with
him.