Italian Billionaire's Black Love (BWWM Interracial Romance) (11 page)

His gaze raked over her body. “And you would have given me a chance if you knew?”

Her shoulders sagged.

“Yeah, I thought so.”

Alessandro grabbed both of her hands in his, brought them to his lips and closed his eyes. He savored even this small taste of her. He released a long breath and looked deep into her gold flecked eyes. “I love you Eve, and I think we have a real shot at being a family. Me. You. The baby. But we both know it’s up to you.”

A lone tear slid down her cheek. “How can we be a family, Alessandro, while you’re already married? What if Sabrina wakes up and doesn’t remember that you were in the middle of a divorce? What if she stays in that coma for the next hundred years? Are the baby and I just supposed to wait until you’re free?”

He groaned his frustration. “No! Don’t you see? Now, I can petition the courts for a divorce without the approval of her parents. Between the divorce petition and being in a serious relationship with a child on the way, it’ll be next to impossible to deny me this.”

She looked at him thoughtfully, the emotion shining in his eyes. He had thought it all through, which meant he was serious about a relationship with her. Didn’t it? “Are you sure you want this, Alessandro? I mean, me and a baby, that’s a lot of commitment.”

“Sweetheart, the problem was never about commitment. It was about committing to the wrong woman. You, Eve, are definitely the right woman.”

“You mean that, Alessandro?”

“Goodness, woman, are you blind? You think I put up with your obnoxious behavior because you’re fun to be around? Hell no! I did it because I love you and I knew you loved me, too. I just need to stick around long enough for you to realize it.”

His wink knocked her off kilter and her breath stumbled out of her body. God she wanted this man more than had ever wanted anything in her life – more than the scholarships that got her through college, more than the loan that helped her launch her first salon. At this moment, she wanted him more than she wanted the next breath. “Alessandro, I-I,” she stopped to consider he words and a telltale buzz began in his pocket.

He looked at her apologetically. “I’m sorry, I should get this.”

She watched him stand and listen to the voice on the other end of the line. His brows twisted in confusion and anger. “Deal with it, then. You wanted it this way, so you fucking deal with it!” He was breathing fire when he turned to face her.

“Problem?”

He shook his head, debating on whether or not to tell her about the call. If he didn’t tell her it would cause further problems, but if he told her before she admitted her feelings, well, he didn’t want to think about that. “That was Sabrina’s parents.”

Shit
.

***

“I love you, too, Alessandro, but I don’t know if I can allow myself to love you.” He listened as she told him that she felt more for him than she had for any man in her life. He felt ten feet tall when she told him he felt like home to her. It was the best compliment she could have given, yet all he could focus on was that she couldn’t allow herself to love him.

“Why can’t you,” he’d asked with desperation in his voice. He needed to know what was holding her back. He suspected it was about more than his inconvenient wife.

“Because I’ll never be your first priority. The baby will never be your first priority. Whenever there’s a problem, you’ll be on the first plane to Seattle to sort it all out. For me, that would be half a life, and I can’t live like that. I’m sorry. As much as I love you and want a future with you, I just can’t.”

Then, she leaned in and kissed him until all he could see, hear, and taste was her. She was the only thing that existed for him in this world. Her lips were the only thing tethering him to the earth. The kiss was sexy and bittersweet, painful and full of longing. Longing for a future they would never have all because Sabrina’s parents were greedy fucks who got off on screwing with his life. He kissed her and kissed her until they were both breathless and panting. He wanted her.

He had to have her.

Now.

Alessandro cupped her head in his hands and devoured her mouth until she was scratching at him and begging for more than his lips. And, he gave her everything she asked for. His hands skated up and down her body, noting all the wonderful changes that had taken place as their baby grew inside her. Her breasts were larger, much larger, and so tender he could probably make her come just by sucking them. When his tongue curled around a sensitive peak, she gasped loudly and held his head to her, arching as much as she could into his mouth.

“Alessandro,” she moaned and when his teeth grazed her nipple she screamed out and her juices flooded his fingers until they dripped with her arousal. He smiled and moved to her other sensitive peak, straining to get closer to his mouth. He did it all over again and this time when she came, she made the sweetest sound.

“I want you, Eve
–
now. Say you want me, too.” She nodded, but that wasn’t good enough for him. “Say it,” he urged her on and on. “Tell me you want this, want me, too.”

“Alessandro, I want you. I want you so fucking bad. I need you deep inside me. Now.” That was all he needed to hear to free himself and strip her clothes from her sexy body, round with his child, and plunge deep inside her. She was wet as hell and tight for him, crying out when he was fully seated.

“Is this okay?” He held himself still so she could adjust to make sure he wasn’t too rough on her or the baby. With one solid pull, her ass was hanging off the bed, her feet rested at his shoulders as he began to move.

“Yeah, it’s great.” He smiled at her husky voice, thick with lust. Her disappointment ran out when he pulled all the way out and her screams made him puff with pleasure when he thrust deep inside her again. “Alessandro. More.” He gave her exactly what she asked for
–
more of him. So much of him they were both sweating and grunting their pleasure as they both stretched closer and closer to that lowest hanging star, put in the sky just for them.

“Eve. Sweet Eve.” He repeated those words over and over again. His spine tingled and her nails dug deep into his shoulders, they were both so close. His thrusts were more frantic, wilder, until they were both screaming their pleasure like wolves howling at the moonlight. “Fuck, I love you,” he said into her eyes and those words, his love for her pushed her up and over that precipice until she was squeezing him so tight he saw stars.

“Alessandro, I love-” She cut herself off as the ripples took her over and over and her orgasm lasted for minutes. When she finally came down, her breathing was labored, but her eyes were closed tight and she wasn’t moving. Alessandro was smiling the smile of a well loved man who knew more than he should. When she opened those gorgeous amber eyes, they were heavy with lust and that satisfied smile made him love her even more. Her hand cupped his jaw. “Alessandro, that was incredible. I’ve never come like that before, it was…magical.”

“Stop,” he joked, “you’re making me blush.”

Then, his phone rang again and ruined it all.

He sat on his plane as it taxied and all he could think about was that tortured, yet resigned look on her face. That look that said it all.
I knew this would happen and this is why I wouldn’t let myself love you. I knew you would leave me, leave us, and go back to your family.
And, that’s exactly what he was doing, no matter that it was reluctantly.

His heart was breaking and the last fucking thing he wanted to do was deal with Sabrina or her parents. But she had some type of respiratory infection and he was her healthcare proxy, so he had to make the decisions. He didn’t care what happened to her, not anymore. Not since her decisions had effectively ended their marriage and her own careless behavior had locked him in a prison and made life unbearable for the woman he loved. Over and over, he replayed her last words and the look on her face as she said them. “
Maybe you should just go back to your place when you get back to town.”

It wasn’t over between them. It couldn’t be.

He wouldn’t let it be.

***

Two days of endless tears and buckets of pistachio chocolate chip ice cream and Eve was officially done. She was through mourning the first and only man she had ever loved. Probably
would
ever love. She was through wasting water on a man who would always be running off to another woman, and she was done wishing for fairy tales and happily ever after. From this day forward, she was a true realist. Her goals were twofold: take care of her baby the best way she could and grow her business so they would always be taken care of.

As soon as Alessandro had left to go see about his
wife,
she hopped in her car and went to her Beverly Hills salon. Based on the numbers she’d seen, business was up twenty percent from last month and a pop starlet had been in and made a second appointment. She smiled – life was good. She didn’t need Alessandro or love to make her happy. She had everything she needed right here.

Over the next couple of days, she visited each of her salons and discovered they were all doing sound business. She couldn’t be happier. Even the new location had been open two months and was doing a brisk business. Marcus suggested she run deals with the nail salon next door and she told him to go for it. As she drove back to the Hollywood Hills, she felt a deep sense of accomplishment. She’d delegated plenty of tasks to her managers so she would be ready when this baby came in twenty three days.

She stopped at her favorite Indian takeout and went home. She would shower and put on her comfortable pregnant lady clothes, watch a bunch of junk television, and get used to the quiet life. Twenty minutes after she got home, that’s exactly what she did. At least, it was until the spicy food began to play tricks on her baby.

She cried out at the cramps that felt as though they were tearing her body in half. “Oh no! No, no, no, no!” This could not be happening. She still had almost a month before her precious baby was due. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths to calm down so she could think. “Okay, I’m not in labor, but,” she talked herself through everything she could remember reading, learning in her childbirth classes, and hearing from Dr. Baker. Even though it wasn’t labor, she knew she needed to go to the hospital, so she called 911 and almost an hour later she was being wheeled into the emergency room. Again.

“We really have to stop meeting like this,” Dr. Baker joked when she entered the room.

“Hardy har, doc.”

“I guess you haven’t been taking as easy and I’d hoped. So,” she pressed her tablet to her chest, “we’re doing things my way now. You’re staying here in the hospital until that baby comes out. End of story.”

Eve didn’t care where she stayed as long as her baby was safe. She turned her head away from Dr. Baker. “Fine, we’ll do it your way.”

Dr. Baker patted her thigh sympathetically. “Is there anyone you’d like us to call for you?”

She shook her head. “No, doc, no one at all.”

She stayed in the hospital for a week before she called Carla. When she finally explained everything, her friend came to the hospital and spent twenty minutes reading her the riot act. “I can’t believe you were in the hospital for a week and you didn’t tell me! Do you know I was calling police stations, morgues, and hospitals looking for you? They wouldn’t tell me crap.” She slapped Eve’s arm to display her disapproval.

“Well, I’m not dead or in jail, so there’s that.”

Carla took a step back and looked at her friend. She noted the dark stains under her eyes, the sadness shining in her amber gaze, and her defeated posture. “Where’s Alessandro?”

“He’s with his wife.” She explained everything that happened last week before Alessandro boarded a plane back to his wife and her family. Eve was proud of herself, she’d only shed a handful of tears.

“Well, if she’s sick he doesn’t really have much choice, Eve.”

She slapped the mattress. “Don’t you think I know that, Carla? That is precisely the point. It will always be Sabrina first, the baby and I second, and I just can’t live like that.” She deserved more than that from the man she loved and if he couldn’t give it, then she didn’t need him around.

“You don’t think that’s a tad black and white?”

The sympathy in her friend’s eyes nearly tore apart her resolve, but she couldn’t afford another breakdown. She needed to be strong. She was all her baby had. “No, I don’t. I’m here in the hospital and he’s at his
wife’s
side. If ever there was a preview of the future, this is it.”

“Does he even know you’re in the hospital?”

She looked away because she did feel a small twinge of guilt for not letting him know. But he knew she was on bed rest when he rushed from her bed back to his wife, so that’s what she went with. “No, but did he bother to find someone else to look after me while he was gone? Let me answer for you,
no,
he didn’t. They called and fifteen minutes later, he was gone. That was a week ago, Carla. A
week
.”

Carla fixed her mouth to speak several times, but nothing would come out. “I got nothing. I’m all out of excuses for the miserable bastard.” Finally that got a smile out of her. “I’m sorry, Eve.”

“Don’t be. I’m not.”

***

Alessandro sat outside under the gloomy Seattle sky in shock. His life had just changed in a major way and he was numb. He should be happy, and he was, but it was more a sense of relief and freedom. Like he imagined it felt to be released from a long prison sentence. This morning at 10:51 a.m., Sabrina took her final breath and was pronounced dead. Her parents had screamed at him and threatened legal action when they learned of the Do Not Resuscitate order that prevented the hospital from taking extraordinary measures to save her life.

The infection would have likely killed a healthy person, but someone in a coma for years with a compromised immune system hardly stood half a chance. There was nothing else they could do, especially as long as the DNR stood. In those moments when they could have helped, he had acted like a bastard, telling them he would rescind the order as soon as they granted him a divorce. They refused and so did he. After a few minutes of ranting and threatening, Alessandro told them they could stay in the house
he
had rented until the end of the month. He hadn’t seen them since.