Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Niccolo’s eyes snapped open before he was even fully roused from his sleep.
The pain above his hip throbbed, his reason for being in this bed flashing like a movie in his mind.
But it was a hazy movie because at some point in the hours they’d slept, Georgia had rolled over.
Her repose face was only inches from his.
His heart tightened then softened as he noticed the hand resting beneath her cheek. She had such pretty, delicate hands.
Not for the first time, he thought how angelic she looked in sleep.
When they’d been lovers, he’d adored waking to her sleeping face.
He couldn’t count the times he’d simply gazed at her, his body coming to life as he soaked in the slightly too-long upturned nose and heart-shaped lips that were succulent in their softness.
In those days, she’d slept like an angel too, her clear, unblemished complexion the perfect canvas of tranquillity.
There had been no furrow between her eyebrows, not like there was now.
When had that furrow appeared? Had it always been there, but he’d simply failed to notice it?
Staring at her now, he could feel his body coming to life as it had done all those months ago.
As it had singularly failed to do since he’d called time on them.
The ache in his head and the throbbing wound in his side diminished as heat of a kind he hadn’t experienced in so long crept through his veins.
When they’d been lovers, he’d soaked in all her angelic features and then pressed his mouth to those succulent lips, waking her with a kiss. It was a kiss that always led to more.
The furious kiss they’d shared when he’d pinned her to the sofa had been his first real kiss in four months, and suddenly he could taste it. Taste her.
He could be blindfolded and still recognise Georgia’s taste, and he inched his face a little closer, memories of just how good they’d been together spilling out of the box he’d done his damnedest to lock them in.
Taking her for the first time had been beyond anything.
Niccolo had never had sex with a virgin before.
He’d been so mindful of his capacity to hurt her that he’d taken greater care of her than he’d taken of anything in the whole of his life.
She’d had no doubts. She’d eagerly welcomed him into her tight depths with hitched, husky moans of encouragement he could still hear as vividly as the night she’d made them.
Even with the slight ache in his bottom lip where she’d bitten him – unlike the kicks to his ribs, which, he suspected, she’d restrained herself from really letting loose on as there was no pain in them, there had been no restraint in her bite – his mouth tingled with the compulsion to feel the soft succulence of her lips one more time.
Dio, he wanted to feel the soft succulence of Georgia in her entirety one last time. Caress her soft skin. Knead the breasts like pillows and suckle deep on the rose-red nipples. Slide deep inside her and make her his again…
The big blue eyes that had snatched his attention before he’d even caught sight of her glorious body opened.
Their gazes fused. Air caught in his lungs, and suddenly he tumbled back in time to the Parisian hotel. The furious agony that had rung from those eyes when he’d told her his engagement party to Siena was only a week away…
It shouldn’t have cut so deeply. He’d never made promises to Georgia. The future had never been so much as alluded to between them.
But their affair had been intense and, despite the instant attraction between them, it had never been just sex.
Niccolo had felt insta-lust many times before Georgia, but never like he had with her.
It had been more than mere attraction. He’d walked into the conference room at The Diamond to receive her company’s pitch, and the first thing his gaze had locked onto were those big blue eyes. In that moment, the room had shrunk.
When names had been exchanged and she’d stayed in the background, the only one not pushed forward for introduction, he’d deliberately gone to her with his hand outstretched.
His hand had swallowed hers, and when she’d told him her name and he’d heard her husky voice for the first time, he’d known he would have her or die trying.
Their affair had been thrilling and all-consuming.
His intention to stay in London for only a few days had stretched into weeks until other commitments had forced him back home to Italy.
From that point, he’d made numerous trips back and forth to London, his insistence that Georgia be the interior designer of his apartment in The Diamond the perfect excuse to lock themselves away from the world.
But at no point had he committed himself to her.
Not with words.
No commitment. No promises. Only his agreement to marry Siena and Lorenzo’s insistence that he make the pecking order between the women clear to the world had opened his eyes to the possibility of being able to indulge himself in Georgia’s heavenly body and enjoy her affectionate company indefinitely.
Instead of appreciating the gravity of the commitment he was offering her, she’d flown off the handle and accused him of treating her like a prostitute.
There was no anger in the beautiful blue eyes gazing into his now. Only softness.
“How are you feeling?” she whispered.
Close to being overwhelmed by all the feelings the memories had agitated inside him, he tried to mask it, deadpanning, “Like I’ve been stabbed with a knife and hit over the head with a vase.”
The new groove between her eyebrows deepened. “I’m sorry.”
He took a deep breath through his nose. The beats of his heart had become painful. “And I’m sorry you’ve been dragged into this whole mess. I never imagined the Espositos would come after you.”
Niccolo’s decision to end things with Georgia had been impulsive, but once he’d dropped her back to her flat and been alone with his thoughts, an unexpected weight had lifted from his shoulders. Where that weight had come from or what it meant, he’d never known.
He’d pledged to forget about her. Forgetting lovers was easy. He’d walked away from dozens of them and hardly given them a second thought.
Forgetting Georgia had been impossible. He’d had to actively fight his own brain to stop himself from thinking about her. He’d had to actively fight his fingers to stop them pressing her name on his phone.
Somehow, the groove deepened even further and, her eyes glittered with thought, she razed her teeth over her bottom lip. “I think I know why they’re targeting me,” she said quietly.
Something in her tone made his antenna rise. “What is it?”
Her teeth sank deeper into her lip, her stare suddenly filled with apprehension. “I don’t know how they found out…”
“Found out what?” he asked when her voice trailed off.
She blinked hard. “I was going to tell you after your honeymoon.”
“Tell me what?” But the hard thumps of his heart and the coldness snaking through his veins were already telling him.
Her voice was barely a whisper, but her anxious stare didn’t leave his. “I’m pregnant.”
Georgia watched what little colour was left of Niccolo’s deep olive complexion drain away. His strong throat moved. She could see his mind working overtime to make sense of what she’d just said.
“You’re pregnant?” he eventually dragged out.
Her heart pounding, its painful ripples beating through her entire being, she nodded.
“Conception dates to our weekend in Paris.” A gastro bug days before their trip had reduced the efficacy of her contraceptive pill, but they’d been less than careful about using condoms, had treated their use almost like a joke.
He blew out a long puff of air and rolled onto his back, his gaze fixing on the ceiling. “You didn’t think of mentioning this before?”
“I wanted to. Of course I did. But…”
His face turned sharply to her. “But what? What possible reason could you have for not telling me I’m going to be a father?”
It hurt to even say it. “You were marrying another woman.”
“All the more reason to tell me.”
“What, even when that woman was a member of the Esposito family? I knew telling you would…”
“Screw your excuses,” he interrupted, his handsome face contorting. “You should have told me the second it was confirmed – sooner. The minute you suspected you might have conceived.”
“But I knew you had to marry Siena,” she defended herself shakily. “I couldn’t predict how you’d react. I was trying to protect you.”
“Bullshit. You hid it from me because you were punishing me. You turned into a Tasmanian Devil when you realised it was me in that apartment last night. Hardly the actions of someone wishing to protect me.” Throwing the duvet off, he sat up, fully naked, and swung his legs off the bed, getting to his feet with a pained curse, as if he’d forgotten he had a stab wound above his hip bone.
“I know you’re angry with me, but please be careful of your stitches,” she pleaded.
His furious face turned back to her. As impossible as it should be, he’d lost even more colour. “Don’t pretend you give two shits about me,” he snarled. “You hate me, remember?”
Although Georgia longed to defend herself some more, she could see the mood Niccolo was in meant there was no reasoning with him. Callie had warned her of his guaranteed fury at her keeping the pregnancy from him. God, how she’d warned her.
He stormed into the ensuite and slammed the door shut.
Flinching, she reached down for her little bump and gently stroked it for needed comfort.
She’d told him. That was the main thing, she assured herself. She’d never disagreed with Callie that Niccolo needed to know. And now he did.
But his knowing meant another layer of mess had been added to an already fraught situation.