His Virgin Acquisition (14 page)

“I am not asking that of you. We will remain married. It is the only option.”

Elation and horror vied for top position inside of Elaine. “What?”

“It is not what I would have chosen, but the simple fact is that I will not be a part-time father. Neither will I deprive a child of his mother. That leaves us with one option.”

“Millions of people share custody of their children—”

He cut her off. “I will not be one of them. It is never in a child’s best interest to be treated as though they are an incidental. My own parents could not be bothered. My father threw us out onto the street—my mother, my brother and myself—when I was just twelve. After a couple of years of scraping by and living in homeless shelters my mother met a wealthy man who did not want children, so she left us to fend for ourselves while she pursued a life of luxury. I will never let a child of mine go through life feeling so insignificant. I will never subject my own flesh and blood to that kind of indifference.”

The charity for homeless children and Marco’s passion for the cause, his reluctance to mention his family, suddenly made horrifying sense. He had been homeless. Not orphaned. Far worse than that. His parents had been alive and too absorbed in their own vacuous existence to worry about the survival of their children.

Her heart ached for the boy he’d been and the man he had become—a man who could not trust and did not believe in love. Yet how could she blame him? How could she even hold his reaction to her pregnancy against him when she knew what he’d had to endure at the hands of those who should have loved him more than they loved anyone or anything else? She felt his pain as though it were her own, and it destroyed the anger that had been growing inside her.

“If you agree to stay in the marriage I will have a new
contract drafted, guaranteeing you the ownership of Chapman Electronics plus a generous allowance.”

She hadn’t forgotten about the company, nor had her desire for it dissipated in any way, but she wouldn’t stay in the marriage for that reason alone—not when the nature of their relationship had changed irrevocably; not when she knew what he thought of her. But knowing what she did now, about his childhood, about the way he had been forced to survive on his own, caring for his younger brother, she knew she could not deny him this chance to have a family, this chance to repair the things that had been broken in his life.

“I accept,” she said, the ridiculously formal words sounding wrong for the situation.

He laughed cynically. “I had a feeling you would see it my way.”

Her defense caught in her throat, stuck behind a lump of grief. Her heart felt broken—for him, for herself, for everything they’d shared together. Everything they’d lost.

They flew back to New York the next day. Marco was silent and avoiding her while burying his head in his work, and she was trying to do the same. She spent a good portion of the flight in the bathroom being sick. Her morning sickness, which did not see fit to limit its active hours to the morning, had hit with a vengeance once they’d hit the sky, and it hadn’t let up.

When the plane touched down in the city she walked on wooden legs to the car that was waiting for them and slid inside. The drive back to the penthouse was as quiet as the miserable plane ride. Marco hated her. He had already tried her and found her guilty based on the past actions of those in his life.

Not that she could blame him. She knew what it was like
to be so shaped by past experience; to carry deeply etched scars inside yourself that were not visible to the naked eye.

Her own life had been one desperate attempt at separating herself from her father’s perception of her, from the influence of her mother. She had wanted so much to achieve what her father thought her incapable of, using that drive to steer clear of the self-destructive nature she feared she might have inherited from her mother.

Her mother, who had been so weak, so needy for someone to fill the gap in her life, so desperate for the attention of a husband who did not love her that she had sought solace in the arms of countless lovers in addition to drugs and alcohol. Her mother had self-destructed: a combination of narcotics, a Ferrari and a tree ending her life when she was much too young.

Elaine knew all about the sort of bitterness Marco carried inside him, only his was much worse. At least her father loved her—even if he did try to impose his medieval ideals on her. What Marco had endured was unspeakable, and she knew his scars ran much deeper than hers.

The elevator ride from the bottom floor of the apartment building to Marco’s top-floor penthouse left her feeling nauseous. She barely made it into the marble bathroom before losing the measly amount of food she’d managed to choke down during the last leg of the flight.

A warm hand settled on her clammy forehead and she tried to move away, hating that Marco was seeing her huddled up against the toilet, sweating and shaking.

“Is this normal?” he asked, his accent thickened with concern. “It doesn’t seem like this can possibly be normal.”

“I’m afraid it is. At least, that’s what I’ve heard from female co-workers over the years,” she said weakly.

“You must see a doctor. This cannot be good for the baby. You are not getting enough nutrition.”

Of course he was concerned for the baby, not for her. Still, pleasure curled at the edges of her heart. He cared about the baby, as she was beginning to. She had been so frightened at first, so unable to believe that she could actually be pregnant, that it had been easy to detach. But now that the symptoms were so pronounced, now that she truly felt different, it was easier to believe, easier to imagine the reality of a child—her child—growing inside of her. It was easier to truly love the small baby that was nestled in the protective embrace of her womb.

“I know.” She stood on shaky knees, feeling like a newborn giraffe and certain she looked just as ungainly. “My normal gynecologist is also an OB. I’ll give her a call.”

“What is her name?” Marco asked, the request more of a demand, coming from his autocratic mouth.

“Dr. Alyssa Calvin.”

As soon as she’d blurted out the name Marco had retrieved his phone from his pocket and hit the one on his speed dial.

“Cassie, I need you to phone Dr. Alyssa Calvin and make an appointment for one o’ clock today for Mrs. Elaine De Luca.” He snapped the phone shut and placed it back in his jacket pocket.

“Marco! What if she has appointments?”

He shrugged. “Not my concern. I happen to be free today, and I want to be present at the appointment.”

“What if I don’t want you to be there?” she asked, knowing already that the argument was a loss. It would take several fully armed guards to stop Marco when he was on a mission.

“You would have me miss the medical confirmation of
our little miracle?” He regarded her closely, his sexy mouth pressed into a grim line. “Is there a reason for that?”

“Are you implying that I’ve lied to you about being pregnant?”

“It is not unheard of.”

“You think I engineered
this ?”
She gestured to the toilet.

“I’ve known a great many women who could empty their stomach contents on demand.”

Rage vibrated through her. “I’m not going to spend the rest of this marriage trying to prove that I’m not plotting against you!”

Anger was replaced by a feeling of crushing defeat, and she swayed on her feet. Marco reached out an arm to steady her, bringing her close to the heat of his body. It was the first time she’d been so close to him since she’d found out about the baby and she melted into him, her body craving the heat from his.

Marco felt wetness from her tears penetrate the fabric of his shirt. Guilt assailed him. He was not a man who allowed uncertainties. He made decisions and he acted on them. He charted a course and he followed it. There was no room for doubt, no room for any sort of confusion. And yet with Elaine he wasn’t certain of anything. She could be strong, yet she could also be achingly vulnerable. He wanted to lash out at her, condemn her for what she had done, and yet he also wanted to fold her into his embrace and promise her that everything would be all right.

“I’m sorry, Elaine.”

She stiffened in his arms. “For?”

“For what I said a moment ago. I know you did not lie about being pregnant.”

She pulled away from him and turned to face the vanity, trying to put her disheveled hair in order. “But you’re not
sorry for saying I orchestrated the whole thing in the first place?”

“It does seem rather convenient.”

She laughed. “Oh, yes, so convenient. The vomiting combined with being married to a man who thinks me so mercenary that I would conceive his baby to get my hands on his cash is about the most
convenient
thing that has ever happened to me.” Tears welled up in her blue eyes and spilled down her waxen cheeks.

His heart twisted, the pain from witnessing her anguish was like a physical blow.

He clenched his teeth and hardened himself against the unconscionable swell of emotion.

He turned away from her. “I cannot be manipulated, Elaine. Do not waste your time trying to appeal to my softer side with your tears.”

It took every ounce of discipline to leave her standing there, looking shocked and injured, but he could not allow her to affect him. He’d never had trouble keeping his emotions separate from his affairs, and yet he had allowed Elaine to get closer, deeper inside of him, than he had ever allowed another woman to get.

It had been his mistake—trusting her, permitting her to mean something to him. He was not a fool. He had clawed his way up from the depths of poverty, he had built up a billion-dollar industry from nothing, and he would not allow himself to be taken down by a woman.

He would not make the mistake of trusting her again.

“E
VERYTHING
looks good, Mrs. De Luca,” Dr. Calvin said as she wiped the ultrasound gel from Elaine’s stomach. “I’ll need to see you again in another month, but until then, unless you have any questions, I think you’re free to go.”

Elaine opened her mouth to say she didn’t have any questions but Marco, who was standing next to the exam room bed, arms folded, looking like some Roman god of thunder, interrupted.

“You are certain that she can continue to work?”

Dr. Calvin gave Elaine an understanding smile before addressing Marco. “She should be able to continue all of her usual activities, within reason.”

“But if her work is too stressful…”

“Then give her a foot-rub when she gets home. Really, Mr. De Luca, women have been having babies since the dawn of time. As much as it might feel that way, your wife isn’t the first woman to experience pregnancy.”

Elaine tried to hide the smile that crept slowly across her face. Marco was looking stormier than he had a moment ago.

It was easy to pretend that he was just like any other
concerned husband, even though she knew that was far from the truth. She was just the vessel to carry his child—the female figurehead who would play the role of mother to his heir. He hated her. He had made it abundantly clear that morning. If he’d experienced a moment of concern over her being sick it was simply because he was worried about the health of the baby.

Yet—silly, stupid woman that she was—she’d soaked in his attentiveness, craving his touch, the feel of his lips on hers. It was humiliating to love him so much when she knew that he would get rid of her if his conscience would allow it. Even more humiliating that she couldn’t kill her love for him. And he couldn’t kill the love she felt for him either, though he was doing a good job of trying.

When they left the doctor’s office Marco’s limo was already parked against the curb, waiting for them. Marco let her get in first, and when he sat down she noticed that he kept a long stretch of empty seat between them.

“I have to go to the office now,” he said curtly.

“Then I’m going to work too,” she said, daring him to disagree. “The doctor said it was fine.”

He turned, his dark eyes flashing. “You need rest. You must be jet lagged, and you spent the entire flight being sick.”

“I need to check in,” she insisted.

“Absolutely not.” He leaned forward and pressed the intercom, and spoke in rapid Italian to the driver. He leaned back heavily and pulled his BlackBerry out of his jacket pocket, intent on email and very purposefully ignoring her.

The car pulled up at the De Luca Corporation headquarters and Marco got out with barely a nod of farewell. The slam of the car door expressed the anger he had chosen not to voice.

She leaned back in the seat, fighting the uncharacteristic tears that were threatening to fall again. She
was
tired. She
did
just want to go home and curl up in a ball and sleep. But she was not going to be dictated to, and the sooner Marco realized that the easier life would be.

She pressed the button on the intercom.
“Scusi?”
She knew her Italian was pitiful, but she thought it would be best to at least try.

“Si?”
Paolo’s muffled voice came over the speaker.

“I’ve changed my mind. About going home, that is. I need to go to Burke and Black. It’s on Sixth.”

“Si.”

She managed to make it through a half day without falling asleep at her desk, and took the rest of her work back to the penthouse to finish in the comfort of her own bed, with the aid of Chinese takeout.

Paolo, Marco’s chauffeur, had made himself available to her when he wasn’t shuttling Marco around, and he’d agreed to take her to her favorite Chinese restaurant and then back home.

She’d ordered three extra entrées with the feeble hope that Marco might be home in time for dinner, and that he might join her. Both desires seemed to be unlikely, but she was always painfully hopeful when it came to Marco.

Any normal person would be angry with him for the assumptions he’d jumped to, but it was becoming clear to her that when it came to Marco her emotions defied logic. There was some anger, but mostly she just ached for the boy who had grown up with no one to show him what true, unselfish love was, and for the man he had become—the man who couldn’t trust anyone for fear of being hurt again.

She’d been hurt. Her own family had been a dismal example of suburban dysfunction, and she’d let that affect her. She’d also allowed what had happened with Daniel to halt her dating career. But none of those things mattered. Not now. She was making a new life with Marco, with their child. She was determined it would be a good life, better than the childhood either Marco or herself had experienced.

Finding out she was pregnant had been the single most terrifying thing that had ever happened to her, but after going to the doctor, after seeing the little barely formed shape on the ultrasound screen, she knew she wanted her baby. She knew she loved her baby.

She didn’t know where the company would fit in yet. It still mattered—she’d worked her whole adult life at becoming qualified and finding a way to take over Chapman Electronics. But the baby had to come first. On that point both she and Marco were in total agreement.

Her stomach was begging for nourishment before she finally gave in and ate, abandoning the idea of a nice dinner together. She ate the Chinese food with none of the relish that she normally felt. It all just seemed bland without him.

She opted against working in her room, and spread all her documents out on the coffee table in her usual organized disaster. She tried to pretend she wasn’t watching the clock and listening for the sound of the elevator moving between floors.

The overwhelming pull of exhaustion finally won out over her desire to be awake when Marco arrived home and she fell asleep on the couch, her work still spread over her lap.

The pinging of the lift doors jerked her out of her sleep. “Marco?”

He moved stiffly from the entry to the living area, his jaw tight, his eyes flat and unreadable. “You should be in bed.”

“I was working and I fell asleep.” She stretched, trying to get the kinks worked out of her joints.

“You need your rest,” he said curtly. “This isn’t good for the baby.”

“There’s leftover Chinese food in the fridge,” she said, ignoring his autocratic statement.

“I already ate.”

It hurt her that he’d had dinner without her, without even letting her know. It was a small, stupid thing, but in Hawaii, before she’d found out about the baby, they’d shared every meal together. Her face heated as she remembered the time they’d shared a mango at the private beach, and he’d let the juices of the sweet fruit drip down her chin before licking away the stickiness.

The face of the man standing before her and the face of the man in her memory were impossible to meld together. The man from the beach was a fantasy—her lover, her friend. This man was a cold, remote stranger.

She stood and took a step toward him. He turned away and began to move in the direction of his office. “I have more to do,” he said by way of explanation. “I’ll be leaving early for work, so I doubt we will see each other in the morning. Get some rest.”

He left her standing there, her arms wrapped around herself, trying to hold in what body heat she had left, trying not to give in to the misery that was filling her entire being.

Marco managed to completely avoid her over the next week. He spent most of his time at the office, and when he wasn’t there he was in the home office. She wanted nothing more than to close the ever-widening gap that had opened up
between them, but he seemed determined to speak as few words to her as possible. He only ever talked to her to ask about her health, and that was out of concern for the baby.

She looked at the clock that hung on the wall of her cubicle. It was pushing nine o’clock and she was still at work. All of her co-workers had left hours ago, and she was still sitting, alternating between quadruple-checking that week’s time card and adding up some data projections for Chapman Electronics. She didn’t want to go home and face Marco’s chilly silence. It was always painful, but she was even more aware of his rejection when they were both in the same space.

Finally, at ten, she knew that she couldn’t avoid the penthouse any longer. Marco was likely to be cloistered in his office by now anyway, pretending she didn’t exist. Her heart clenched.

By the time she made it back home she felt ready to fall asleep standing up. She’d had to take a cab home, which she didn’t like to do, but she’d liked the prospect of walking home in the dark, almost overcome by exhaustion, even less. The lift doors swung open and she stumbled into the living room, fatigue slowing her movements.

Marco was standing by the bar in the living room, his expression dark. He brought the tumbler of Scotch in his hand down onto the marble bar with a crack. “Where have you been?”

“Work,” she said, trying to sound flippant.

“Tell me,
cara mia,
how will you bleed me for child support if you drop dead from exhaustion before you are able to collect it?” He crossed the room in long strides.

Were it any other man he might have frightened her, but she knew that Marco would never harm her, no matter how angry he was.

“The doctor said going to work was fine. I don’t have to take orders from you.”

“No, but you might want to try and engage some common sense.”

“It isn’t as though I was out running the New York Marathon! Sitting behind a desk isn’t likely to put me at any great risk!” Her tiredness began to ebb as adrenaline surged through her veins.

“Is that what you were doing? Because I’ve had hours to put together all the possible scenarios for how you were spending your time. You could have been injured. Something might have happened to the baby.”

He was leaning close to her now, the spicy scent of his cologne teasing her nostrils, reminding her of forbidden pleasures. Pleasures that seemed as though they were from another lifetime.

“You could have been in the hospital, or worse, and you didn’t even afford me a courtesy call to let me know you would be late. Your office phone rang straight to voicemail, and you didn’t have your mobile on you either, so I had no way of reaching you.” His dark eyes were blazing with more heat than she’d seen in over a week.

“I…I’m sorry. I didn’t want to worry you.” That much was true. She hadn’t really imagined that Marco would care where she was. He seemed content to avoid and ignore her when they were in the same vicinity, and she certainly hadn’t envisioned him pacing the floor in concern over finding her missing.

“Anything could have happened to you!” he said roughly. He stroked his thumb over her tender lower lip. “I pictured you lost. Hurt. I could not reach you. You cannot do that to me again.”

He hooked an arm around her waist and leaned in,
claiming her mouth hungrily, desperately, his tongue plundering the depths of her mouth, his lips moving furiously over hers.

She was helpless to do anything but submit to his passion. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pouring every ounce of the frustration that had been building over the past few days into the kiss.

Marco drew Elaine hard against the length of his body and pressed his erection firmly against her. Let her feel what she did to him, what he was powerless to control.

Rage had reached boiling point, turning to passion, desperation. He forked his fingers through her mass of blond hair and began to press hot open-mouthed kisses to her neck, her collarbone, the faint shadow of cleavage that was just barely hinted at by her demure blouse.

When he’d returned home and found her gone he had imagined her leaving, returning to her old apartment, or simply disappearing. It had gutted him. Utterly. Completely. He had imagined never seeing his child, not being able to care for him, raise him. He had promised himself that if he were to ever have children their care would be his top priority. He had imagined losing that chance. Imagined having his child grow up believing his father did not care.

And he had imagined never seeing Elaine again. Never kissing her soft lips or sinking into her warm, willing body—never having her legs wrapped around him again as she cried out his name in ecstasy.

She would not leave. He knew she wouldn’t. There would be no way for her to collect her precious company if she did that. And yet old fears had claimed him, images of being left, of feeling stranded and utterly, completely alone.

It’s because of the child.

If not for the baby the gold-digger could go and latch
onto any other man she pleased. What he felt for her was all about sex and lust. He should not want her as he did—not knowing what she was. And yet he was a slave to his passion for her. At this moment he could no more deny himself her body than he could deprive himself of oxygen.

“I need you,” she whispered, her voice broken, her body trembling.

“I need you too,
bella. Amore mia.”
He deftly unbuttoned her shirt and parted the fabric, revealing her pearly skin. Her perfect breasts were shielded from him by only the sheerest whisper of lace. “So beautiful.”

He swept her up off the floor and carried her down the hall. Her eyes were wide, her kiss-swollen mouth parted in surprise. “I cannot wait,” he said. He could hear the torture evident in his own voice.

He laid her down on his bed and knew that he had never seen a lovelier sight than this woman, spread out before him, offering herself to him with total trust, total desire.

He knelt down on the bed and leaned over her, kissing her softly on the lips. She squirmed beneath him. She was hot for him, ready for the next step. But he would make her wait. He would make her feel the desperation that consumed him, make her ache as he did.

His pulse pounded in his head as he undid the front clasp of her bra and pushed the flimsy cups aside, leaving her bare for his inspection. Her rosy pink nipples were puckered, begging for the attention of his mouth.

He swirled his tongue around one tightened bud, careful to avoid the pouting tip. She arched beneath him, her breathing ragged. A low moan escaped her lips as he laved the swollen flesh that surrounded her taut nipple. She bowed off the bed when the tip of his tongue brushed the dusky skin of her areola.