successor. And if he was anything like Salvatore had been, then he was not a man you demanded anything from.
When she walked out of here, she had nothing more than she’d walked in with. The bit of cash she’d saved from her allowance and the credit card on her grandmother’s account. She kept hoping her grandmother wouldn’t notice the charges, though she had no idea how much longer that could last. She’d fled while her grandmother was out of town, but Teresa would return any day and find Lia gone.
Then what? The family would shut down her ability to spend a dime other than her cash. Then someone would come for her. Lia shuddered.
Her heart thundered while Zach stared her down. Please, she silently begged. Please don’t reject us. Please don’t send us back there.
His eyes did not change. There was no warmth, no sympathy. No feeling at all. She’d been too hasty with that ultimatum. Too stupid.
“Without me,” he said, his voice low and measured.
She considered him for a long moment, her eyes pricking with tears, her breath whooshing in and out of her chest as she fought to maintain control. He was a bastard. A horrible, rotten bastard.
What had happened to the man who’d been frightened and alone in that ballroom back in Palermo? The man who’d been vulnerable, and who’d dropped his military medal because he must believe, on some level, that he didn’t deserve it?
She’d come here with such hope for the future. She’d come here expecting to find the man who had charmed her and made her feel special.
But this man was not the same man. She despised him in that moment. Despised herself for being so weak and needy that she’d had sex with a stranger—not once, but many times over two days. It was as if she’d wanted to challenge fate, as if she’d been laughing and daring life to knock her in the teeth one more time.
Well, it certainly had, hadn’t it? She’d let herself feel something for a man she didn’t know, let herself believe there was more to it than simple biology. Not love, certainly not, but … something. Some feeling that was somehow more than she should have felt for a man she’d only just met.
She was so naive.
The pain sliced into her heart. “I spoke with Taylor Carmichael after you left Sicily. She thinks you are a good man,” Lia told him. Something flickered in his gaze, yet he said nothing. “But I think she doesn’t really know you the way she thinks she does.”
She turned and headed for the exit, though the door was a blur through her tears. One of the patrons in the bar looked up as she passed. He grinned at her, an eyebrow lifting, but she kept walking, her entire world crumbling apart. She hoped Zach would stop her. Prayed he would.
Prayed that she was wrong and he was just very surprised and not reacting well.
But she reached the door and tugged it open, and still he wasn’t behind her. Lia stepped into the corridor and hurried down it, her heels sinking into the plush carpet. And then she was outside, nodding to the doorman’s query if she would like a taxi. Here, the world moved as it had before. Nothing had changed. Inside her soul, however, everything was different.
She was pregnant. She was alone.
She wished she had someone to talk to—a friend, a sister, anyone who would listen—but that was wishful thinking. She’d never had anyone to talk to.
A taxi glided up the rounded drive and the doorman opened it with a flourish. Lia handed him a few dollars and then slid inside and turned her head away from the elegant building as the taxi drove away. She refused to look back. That part of her life was over.
LIA DIDN’T SLEEP WELL. She’d returned to her hotel, ordered room service—soup and crackers—and then taken a hot bath and climbed into bed with the television remote. She’d fallen asleep almost instantly, but then she’d awakened when it was still dark out. She lay there and stared at the ceiling.
Her entire life was crashing around her ears, and there was nothing she could do about it. Zach had rejected her. She had no choice but to return to Sicily. No choice but to tell her grandmother everything that had happened. She could only pray that Alessandro was a better man than her grandfather had been, and that he wouldn’t force her to marry someone she didn’t love simply for the sake of protecting the family reputation
She didn’t hold out much hope, actually.
She put her hand over her still-flat belly. What was she going to do? Where was she going to go? If she tried to keep running, the Correttis would find her. She couldn’t melt away and become anonymous. She couldn’t find a job and raise her child alone. She had no idea how to begin. She had no skills, no advanced education. She’d never worked a day in her life.
But she would. She would, damn it, if that’s what it took. She wasn’t half-bad with plants. Maybe she could get a job in a nursery, or in someone’s garden. She could prune plants, coax forth blooms, mulch and pot and plan seasonal beds.
It wasn’t much, but it was something.
Tears filled her eyes and she dashed them away angrily. Eventually, she fell asleep again. When she woke this time, it was full daylight. She got up and dressed. She thought about ordering room service again, but she needed to be careful with her expenses. She would go and find a diner somewhere, a place she could eat cheaply.
And then she would figure out what to do.
Lia swept her long hair into a ponytail and grabbed her purse. She was just about to open the door when someone knocked on it. The housekeeper, no doubt. She pulled open the door.
Except it wasn’t the housekeeper.
Lia’s heart dipped into her toes at the sight of Zach on the threshold. But then it rose hotly as anger beat a pulse through her veins. He’d been so cruel to her last night.
“What do you want?” she asked, holding the door tight with one hand. Ready to slam it on him.
“To talk to you.”
He was so handsome he made her ache. And that only made her madder. Was she really such a pushover for a pretty face? Was that how she’d found herself in this predicament? The first man to ever pay any real attention to her had the body of a god and the face of an angel—was it any wonder she’d fallen beneath his spell?
This time she would be strong. She gripped the door hard, her knuckles whitening. “I understood you the first time. What more can you have to say?”
He blew out a breath, focused on the wall of windows behind her head. “I called Taylor.”
Her heart throbbed with a new emotion. Jealousy. “And this concerns me how?”
“You know how, Lia. Let me in so we can talk.”
She wanted to say no, wanted to slam the door in his face—but she couldn’t do it. Wordlessly, she pulled the door open. Then she turned her back on him and went over to the couch to sit and wait. He came inside and stood a few feet away, his hands shoved into his jeans pockets.
“You went to see Taylor,” he said. “To find out where I lived.”
She lifted her chin. “I knew you lived in Washington, D.C. You told me so.”
“Yes, but it’s a big city. And you needed an address.”
She toyed with the edge of her sleeve. “I’d have found you. You did tell me about your father, if you recall.”
But it would have been much harder, which was why she’d gone to see Taylor. And how embarrassing that had been. She’d had to explain to a complete stranger that she needed to find Zach because she had something to tell him.
Taylor hadn’t accepted that excuse.