his attention was elsewhere. The woman on his arm—a beautiful heiress he’d met at a recent business dinner—bored him. He didn’t remember her boring him when he’d met her only a few weeks ago. He remembered that he’d been interested.
She was lovely and articulate, and she had her fingers in many causes. But he saw beneath that veneer tonight. She had causes because she needed something to do with her money and her time.
She didn’t care about the people she helped. She did it because it was expected of her. And because it brought her attention. He remembered seeing her in the paper only a couple of days ago, being interviewed about some fashion show she’d attended in Europe.
Even that wouldn’t have been enough to make him think she didn’t really care. No, it was her behavior tonight. Her need to be seen on his arm and her ongoing catty chatter about some of the other people in the room. As if she were better than them. As if he were, too, and needed to be warned about them.
The disconcerting thing was this: he wasn’t quite certain any of these things would have truly bothered him just a few days ago. But now he thought of Holly sitting in that squalid apartment and feeding her baby a bottle, and a hot feeling bloomed in his chest.
Holly knew what it was like to struggle. To have almost nothing. She’d lost her home, and she’d gone to work as a waitress to make ends meet. His mother had done much the same, though for reasons of her own that had made no sense to anyone but her.
This woman—Danielle, was it?—wouldn’t know the first thing about what struggling really meant.
He did. Even if he hadn’t been a part of that world in a very long time, he knew what it was to have nothing. To rely on the kindness of strangers to eat. To beg and struggle and do things you didn’t want to do, simply because you needed to survive. He’d only been a child, but the memory was imprinted deep. It was also usually buried deep—but not since Holly Craig had come back into his life.
“Drago, did you hear anything I said?”
He looked down at the glittering creature by his side—and a wave of disgust filled him. He didn’t want this artifice. Not tonight. He didn’t want to spend his time in the company of a woman who was superficial and selfish. She had millions, but she was still a user. A user of a different kind than his mother had been, but a user nonetheless. It dismayed him that he’d never seen it before.
Tonight, he wanted a woman who would look at him like he wasn’t a god, a woman who would refuse to accept his pronouncements as if they were from some exalted place and, therefore, not to be questioned.
He wanted Holly. He wanted a woman who was direct with him. Oh, she hadn’t always been. But she was now. She knew where she stood with him, so she was no longer trying to scam him. There was no need for pretense between them. She glared and huffed and stubbornly tried to get her way. She did not cajole. She spoke her mind.
No one spoke their mind to him. Not the way Holly did. She didn’t even seem to like him much—but she did want him.
He knew that from the way her breath shortened when he was near, the way her eyes slid over him and then quickly away, as if she didn’t want to be caught looking at him. Her skin grew pink and her breathing shallow.
That wasn’t hatred, no matter what she claimed. It was desire.
“I heard you,” he said to the woman at his side. “And I am terribly sorry, but I have to leave. I’m afraid I have another engagement tonight.”
Danielle’s mouth opened, as if she couldn’t quite believe it. “But I thought...”
Drago lifted her limp, cool hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss there. “Ciao, bella. It was lovely to see you again.”
And then, before she could utter another word, he strode from her side, out the front doors and down the sidewalk. His apartment wasn’t far. His driver would have come to pick him up, but he wanted to walk. He needed to walk if he were to quench this strange fire for Holly Craig, before he stormed into his home and took her into his arms.
It was inconvenient to want a woman he’d once thrown out of his life. But he couldn’t seem to stop himself.
He reached his building in less than fifteen minutes. The doorman swung the entry open with a cheery good-evening. Drago returned the greeting, and then he was in his private elevator and on his way up to the penthouse.
It was quiet when he let himself in. He glanced at his watch. It wasn’t late, only nine-thirty. But his apartment was just as always. There was no television blaring, no one sitting in the living room, no baby on the floor surrounded by toys.
He found that oddly disappointing. He didn’t care much for babies, but when he’d walked in earlier and seen Sylvia playing with the child while Holly made up a bottle, he’d had an odd rush of warmth in his chest. He’d dismissed it as something minor; a physical malady like acid reflux.
But now he felt strangely hollow, as if that warmth would rush back if Holly were here with her son. He strode through the living room and toward the hall where the bedrooms were, his heart pounding. What if she’d left? What if she’d changed her mind and taken her opportunity to leave while he was out?
He’d taken the precaution of informing his driver—and the doorman—to alert him if she did, but no one had called. So why did he feel anxious?
A sound came from the direction of the kitchen, and he stopped, his heart thumping steadily as his ears strained to hear it again. It was late enough that the staff he employed would have gone home for the day, so he didn’t expect to find any of them lurking about the kitchen.
He stopped abruptly as his gaze landed on the figure of a woman standing at the counter, her long blond hair caught in a loose ponytail. She was wearing yoga pants and a baggy T-shirt that looked as if it had been washed so frequently the color had faded to a flat red, one shade removed from pink.
She reached up to open the microwave and took out a bowl of something. Then she set a baby bottle inside it. Something about watching her warm the bottle hit him square in the gut. He’d never considered his life to be lacking, never felt as if he were missing out by not having a wife and children. He didn’t know how to be close to anyone, not really, and he didn’t know how to bridge that gap.
He’d always been on the outside looking in. And it had never bothered him until this moment. It was not a pleasant sensation to feel like an outsider in his own house.
But he did. And it made him feel empty in a way he had not in a very long time.
SOME SIXTH SENSE told Holly she wasn’t alone. The skin on the back of her neck prickled and heat gathered in her core. She knew who it was. She didn’t have to see him to know. She could feel him. Smell him.
She turned slowly, nonchalantly, her heart pounding in her breast. The sight of him in that tuxedo nearly made her heart stop. He was dark, beautiful, his gray eyes heated and intense as he watched her. He looked...broody, as if he’d had a bad evening. As if something had gone awry.
Was it wrong that her heart soared to think his date might not have worked out?
“You’re back early,” she said, keeping her voice as even as she could. Hoping he didn’t hear the little catch in her throat.
“Perhaps I am not,” he said, moving toward her, all hot handsome male. His hands were in his pockets and his jacket was open to reveal the perfect line of studs holding his shirt closed. His bow tie was still tight, as if he were going to an event instead of coming from one. “How would you know which it is?”
Holly turned to check the bottle. Not quite ready yet, so she dropped it back in the water. Then she shrugged. “I wouldn’t. I’m just guessing. You don’t strike me as the ‘home and in bed by ten o’clock’ type.”
The