think I give a damn?”
“I’m pregnant.”
He didn’t move. He didn’t blink. Not even a muscle twitched in his mobile face.
Hot satisfaction fueled her. She had wanted to shake his infuriating arrogance. She had. On its heels followed raking guilt.
Her knees buckled under her. Only Diego’s hold on her was keeping her upright.
God, she hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that. She hadn’t even dealt with what it meant to her, what it implied...
What did it say about her that the only positive thing she felt about the pregnancy was that it could shock Diego like nothing else could?
After the way he had treated her she owed him nothing. And yet keeping him in the dark required a price higher than she was willing to pay.
He had provided her with the best opportunity to tell him, to get it done with. For all she knew he wouldn’t even care. He had wanted revenge, he’d got it—with little scruples—and now he had divorce papers ready. And he would keep on walking.
His gaze sliced to her, searching her face. Her composure unraveled at his silence.
The roguish arrogance was gone from his face, replaced by a resolute calm. Every inch of her quaked.
“Is it mine?”
Her gut started that dangerous fall again. She needed to get herself under control. Because Diego was a master at reading her. Whatever she wished, he would do the opposite. Just to make her life harder.
She needed to play it cool. “Why do you think I’m giving you the good news?”
“You slept with me mere hours after laying eyes on me again,” he said, his golden gaze betraying his fury, “while the man you were ready to marry still had his lapdog out looking for you and your twin was being your damned placeholder in his life.”
She trembled as he walked away from her, as though he couldn’t bear to breathe the same air as her.
“And you went back to him as soon as I left you. Except he was two-timing you just as you were doing him. So I repeat: is the baby mine?”
“That’s not true. Alex and I—”
She shut her mouth with a snap, leaned back against the soft leather, trembling from head to toe. Guilt hung heavy in her stomach. The media, her father—the whole world had crucified Liv, while Kim was the one responsible for it all.
Except Diego knew where she had been and what she had been up to while Liv had pretended to be her. And of course Diego thought Kim had quietly crawled back to Alex, that nothing had changed for her. That she had jumped into his bed from Alex’s and then jumped straight back.
That was untrue on so many levels.
Even before Diego had made his true intentions known Kim had broken it off with Alexander. Only Diego didn’t know that.
Her next breath filled her with his scent—dark and powerful. Her eyes flew open.
He raised a brow, watching her with hawklike intensity. “It’s a simple question, gatinha, and sadly one only a woman can answer.”
There was nothing in his tone—no nuance of sarcasm, no hint of anger or accusation—nothing that she could latch onto and feed her fury, her misery.
“Alex and I...” she whispered, feeling heat creep up her skin. “We—”
“All I need—” his words came through gritted teeth “—is your word. Not a day-by-day update on your sexual activity.”
Mortification spread like wildfire inside her. Really, she needed to get a grip on herself—needed to stop blurting out things Diego had no need to know.
More information on her non-existent sex-life fell into that category without a doubt. She already had a permanent reminder of how scandalously she had behaved. And now Alex and Liv, her father—the whole world was going to find out...
Her gut churned again with a vicious force. “Of course it’s yours.”
His jaw tight, he nodded. His easy acceptance, his very lack of a reaction, sent a shiver running down her spine. She had expected him to burst out, had braced herself for an attack.
Why did he trust her so easily? He had every right to demand a paternity test. Every right to question the truth of her claim. That was what she wanted from him. That was what she expected from him.
Instead his self-possession—something she usually prided herself on—grated on her nerves. She was still panicking. She had blurted out the news in a petty fit of pique. Whereas he didn’t even blink.
She laughed, the sound edging toward hysteria. “What? No accusations? No demands for proof? No talk of DNA tests? Just like that, Diego?”
He turned away from her to lean against the wall and closed his eyes. He ran his hand over the bump on his nose. Tension overflowed from him, filling up the huge suite, rattling like an invisible chain, reaching for her. His eyes flew open and her gaze was caught by his.
“DNA tests are for women to whom being pregnant with a rich man’s child means a meal ticket to a better life. An accusation my father threw at my mother every time she showed up with me on his doorstep, begging for support.”
His words vibrated with emotion. His very stillness, in contrast to the loathing in his words, was disquieting in the least. “However, with our history, I don’t think that’s what you’re going for.”
Kim tucked her head in her hands, wondering what she had started. A lump of something—she refused to call it gratitude—blocked her throat, making it harder for her to speak. He could have turned this into something ugly if he wished. He hadn’t.
Everything within her revolted at being obligated to him for even that small display of honor. It made her weak, plunged her into useless wishing.
She couldn’t let him put her in the wrong. She couldn’t forget that the very reason she was in this situation was because he had orchestrated payback.
She felt the hard wall of heat from his body and stiffened.
“For a woman who fairly blazes with confidence in every walk of life, your hesitation would be funny if it wasn’t the matter of a child. Are you not so sure who the father is yourself?” he whispered softly, something deadly vibrating in his tone.
“There’s no doubt,” she repeated.
Thinking with a rational mind, she knew she should just tell Diego the stupid truth. That she had never slept with Alexander. But then Diego would never leave the truth alone.
“Now that we have solved that particular puzzle, what do you need from me?”
It took her a moment to realize that he was waiting for an answer. A chill began to spread over her skin. “I...I don’t need anything from you.”
“Of course not.” An edge crept into his tone, his gaze devouring her. Something stormy rumbled under that calm now. “Then why tell me?”
“Honestly? I wasn’t thinking,” she said, wondering if she was destined always to make mistakes when it came to him. “You were gloating. You were...”
“Nice to know something touches you,” he said, a fire glinting in his gaze. She opened her mouth to argue and shut it just as quickly. “And if I hadn’t been here to gloat? Would you have called me then?”
“That’s a question I don’t have to answer, because you are here. And stop pretending as though this means something, Diego. You were ready to walk out of my life, and I say keep on walking.”
“Your arrogance in thinking that you know me is astounding, querida. Did I teach you nothing four weeks ago?”
His words rumbled around her, and images and sensations tumbled toward her