Dante's Marriage Pact (7 page)

“I wasn't dodging you,” she corrected. “I had a job that involved extensive travel.”

“Yeah, right.” He didn't bother to conceal his skepticism. “Regardless, Juice tracked you all over Europe. Maybe if your employer, Algier, weren't such a recluse who keeps his schedule top secret, I would have managed to catch you. I almost pulled it off in Copenhagen.” Disgust ripped through his voice. “We probably passed each other at the airport. After that, you fell off the grid.”

“I came home,” she said simply.

“That was three months ago.” Three months. Three impossibly long months and she'd been here all along. Son of a— “I've called your grandmother weekly since you left me high and dry in San Francisco, asking whether you'd been in touch. She categorically denied being in contact with you.”

Shayla lifted a shoulder in a shrug that caused her dress to swirl across the surface of her rounded belly. More than
anything he wanted to touch her burgeoning flesh, to feel again the impatient kick of the baby tucked safe within her womb. “I asked her not to.”

“Got it.” A wintry bitterness descended. More and more it would seem Lazz was right. “Was seducing me part of your grandmother's plan in order to gather inside information on the Dantes?”

She froze. “Is that what you think?”

His temper escaped his grasp. “What the hell am I supposed to think, Shayla? We spent one incredible night together. You acted as though it meant as much to you as it did to me. But it was all a lie, wasn't it? You made a date with me, planning all the while to stand me up. You left without a word of explanation, not so much as a note or phone call. Then you went abroad with Derek Algier. Personally, I think you were running like you had the devil at your heels.” He allowed nine months of fury to underscore his words. “And you would have been right. I was behind you almost every step of the way, hell-bound to find you.”

Other than a telltale trace of color sweeping across her cheekbones, she remained remarkably composed. “If you found out I worked for Derek, then you must know I wasn't running from you.”

“I think that job turned out to be a very convenient way of avoiding me.” He cut her off before she could slam him with a heated reply. “And if it wasn't, why else would you keep running?” He tried to keep the bite out of the question and failed miserably. “Why else would you have kept your pregnancy a secret?”

“Because you're married.”

It took every ounce of self-control not to roar like his name sake. “For the last time, I am
not
married.”

“Well, no. But I thought you were.” She sighed. “I'll have
to remember to check my facts when it comes to my grandmother.”

“How many years have you known her, and you're only just now coming to that conclusion?” He waved that aside. “Never mind. Answer me this, Shayla. What would you have done if you'd been told the truth from the start? If that—” He swallowed the epithet he was about to use to describe Leticia so he wouldn't offend Shayla. It went down like a bitter pill. “If your grandmother hadn't lied and told you I was married, what would you have done?”

She fell silent for an endless moment. With the light at her back, he couldn't read the expression in her dark eyes. Couldn't tell what she thought or how she felt, and it was killing him inch by torturous inch. Finally, she spoke. “I would have called you to tell you I was pregnant with your baby.”

The simple statement hit like a blow to the solar plexus. It took endless seconds to regain use of his lungs and limbs. Once he had, he approached and sank onto the padded bench beside her. The sunshine streamed in through the window and warmed his back like a blessing. Ever so gently he reached out and slid his hand across her abdomen. The Inferno burned hot against his palm, hot against the life cupped beneath.

“Our baby,” he murmured.

To his surprise, Shayla leaned into him and allowed her head to fall against his shoulder. It struck him that if he'd been wrong about his suspicions—that going to bed with him had not been part of some Machiavellian plot forged by Leticia Charleston—then Shayla had probably spent the past nine months standing strong, all on her own. Granted, she had the Wicked Witch to assist her, but that couldn't have been much help. Not when her grandmother had a hidden agenda she was clearly running, play by dangerous play.

The best he could tell, there were two options. Either
Leticia and Shayla had devised a plan of revenge to even the score with the Dantes for long-past transgressions, and sleeping with him was somehow part of it. Or Shayla was an innocent bystander. He was absolutely certain about one thing. Leticia was up to something. The Dantes just hadn't uncovered the how-and-when portion of the slowly unfolding play. But guaranteed, the instant the curtain fell on the final act, it would be with a dagger in their collective backs.

It was also clear to him that Leticia wanted to keep him well away from Shayla and their baby. The question was…why? Was the baby somehow part of her plot, or an unexpected wrinkle? And how much did Shayla know? How involved was she in all this? Only time would tell. Until then, first things first.

“Why would your grandmother go out of her way to keep us apart?” he demanded. “Wouldn't she want the baby to have a name?”

Shayla stiffened. “The baby will have a name. My name. The Charleston name.”

“Our baby is a Dante,” he corrected implacably. “He'll have the Dante name. We'll marry as soon as it can be arranged.”

Where some women would have gotten angry and obstinate, Shayla simply smiled. “You can't force me to the altar, Draco. I've lived almost my entire life with Grandmother Charleston. She's spent the past seventy-two years learning how to operate a steamroller and she's one of the best at it I've ever seen. I've lived my entire life sidestepping her. If she can't force me in the direction she wants me to go, what makes you think you'll have any better success?”

Shayla was like moonbeams and stardust, filled with magic but impossible to pin down. But that didn't mean he wouldn't try. “Because you want what's best for our child. And staying here, raising a child as a single mother, having
your grandmother as a strong influence in your baby's life is not in our child's best interest.”

“But you are?”

“I'm his father,” Draco stated simply.

“His?” she repeated.

“Chances are it's a boy. The Dantes have never quite gotten the hang of producing daughters, despite the occasional error in judgment.” He grinned to let her know he was teasing about his sister, Gianna. “Regardless of the sex, I intend to be there for our child on a daily basis. Not for the occasional, flying visit, but every single day of his or her life.”

“I see.”

She appeared troubled, which disturbed him more than he cared to admit. After all, what had she expected him to say? “Good luck and goodbye”? Or… “Here's the monthly check, don't call me, I'll call you”? He tilted his head to one side. “You have a problem with my being involved?”

“Not exactly.”

He pushed. “Then what exactly?”

She fussed with the blankets some more, though the best he could tell they weren't going to fold any neater. “I gather that this daily contact is supposed to take place in San Francisco?”

“I'd be willing to move here,” he conceded. “But there's another important point you should take into consideration before deciding where we live. If you and the baby join me in San Francisco, you'll both be surrounded by the love and support of my family. Our son will have grandparents who'll adore him and be an intricate part of his life. And he'll have more aunts and uncles and cousins than he can count.”

“I grew up without all of that,” she countered. “I've done just fine.”

That was open to debate. Fortunately, he retained sufficient discretion not to point that out. “The Dantes all get together
at least once a week at Primo's. We vacation together during the summer at our lake house. The wives all support each other and help with babysitting duties. Granted, considering your background you may find all the intermingling a bit overwhelming at first, everybody in everybody else's business. But would you deny our son the opportunity to be part of such a large, close-knit family? Be honest, Shayla. Didn't you miss that growing up? Which is the better lifestyle, here or there?”

“If I decide that moving to San Francisco is a better option, why does it have to involve marriage?” she asked in a reasonable voice. “Marriage is a huge commitment. And it's not like we're in love with each other.”

He forced himself to remain silent, to choose his words as though they were the most precious of commodities. “I come from an old-world, extremely traditional Italian family, one in which premarital sex doesn't happen.”

She blinked. “Then what did we have?”

He smiled. “Premarital sex.” His smile faded. “But for my grandparents it doesn't exist, and therefore, didn't happen.”

“Boy, are they going to be in for a surprise in a couple weeks,” she murmured.

He didn't want to think about that, couldn't be distracted by it. But he wanted her to understand who he was and where he'd come from. “If you were to have our baby outside of wedlock, I would shame Primo and Nonna because I didn't marry you and provide our son with the Dante name. They would never get over it.”

Distress filled her eyes, turning them black as midnight. “They'd disown you, wouldn't they?”

“Once upon a time, perhaps, when the line was blacker and more rigidly drawn. But they lost their son and daughter-in-law—my uncle and his wife—in a sailing accident. It changed my grandparents, made them hold tighter to those of us who
were left. So, no. They wouldn't disown me. Even if that were a possibility, I wouldn't try to force you to marry me because of it.”

“But your relationship with them will never be the same if I don't marry you.” When he remained silent, she pressed. “Will it?”

He hadn't expected her to be so shrewd. “It would change,” he conceded.

“And if we married? Even if it's only weeks before our baby is born?”

“I'd make it clear that I moved heaven and earth these past months searching for you, intent on finding and marrying you. That even if I'd known you were pregnant I couldn't have done any more in order to track you down. I'll also make it clear that you didn't contact me because you were operating under the mistaken impression that I was already married. Primo would have words with me, no question there. But since you and the baby would bear the Dante name, it would go a long way toward smoothing everything over.”

“Why, Draco?” she asked in bewilderment. “Why have you been looking for me all this time?”

“You know why.”

He laced her hand with his, pressing palm against palm, Inferno against Inferno. He watched her weigh the options, watched while his entire future hung in the balance. She almost tipped, when suddenly she grimaced. She slipped her hand from his to rest it low on her back and press, the gesture one of supreme weariness. He'd been around enough pregnant women in recent months to understand the source of her discomfort and take a fairly accurate stab at how to relieve it.

“Let me help,” he offered.

Gently he shifted her on the window seat so he could get to her back. Running his hands down her spine, he cautiously
pressed until he found the bundle of knots just above her buttocks. Then he sank the heel of his palm into the source of her pain and worked at it. Her low moan had him clenching, building a number of knots of his own to replace the ones he relieved in her back.

“How did you learn to do that?” she marveled.

“Watching my cousins and brothers with their wives.”

He rested his jaw alongside her temple. He wished he could sit like this for hours, absorbing the soft texture of her skin against his, inhaling her sweet scent with each breath he took, feeling the quiet joy of having her in his arms. He didn't care what it required or what sacrifices he needed to make. This woman was his and he refused to let her go. Not again. Not ever.

“Shayla…”

She stiffened, pulled away from him. “Don't pressure me, Draco. I'm not going to marry you because I'm pregnant with our child, or because of Primo and Nonna, or even for Alessandro and Elia.” The use of his parents' names had him shooting her a questioning look. “I've made a point of acquiring a genealogy of your family,” she explained.

“Why?”

“Because the baby will need to know who his family is.” Her response registered on some deep, elemental level, but before he could comment, she continued. “I can't make any decisions until I speak to Grandmother Charleston. I want to know why she told me you were married.”

He could take several wild guesses, but kept them to himself. At least, for now. It wouldn't help his cause to go after Shayla's sole remaining family member. A hideous thought occurred to him and he closed his eyes, wincing. Hell. If he and Shayla married, he'd be related to the old bat through marriage. She'd be his grandmonster-in-law.

And the hits just kept on coming.

As though waiting for her cue to return, Leticia swept into the room and shot off her opening volley. “If you've settled your business with my granddaughter, Mr. Dante, you may feel free to vacate my home.”

Draco folded his arms across his chest. “I'm not leaving without Shayla.”

“We'll just see about that. One phone call and I can have you removed, by force if necessary. My second phone call will be to my lawyer telling him to tear up the contract authorizing the sale of the Charleston mines to your family.”

Shayla waded into the fray. “If everyone is finished making idle threats, we all have some decisions to make.”