Sleeping With The Enemy. Annie West

not playing a game, signore. I’m just unsure how to begin this.” It was the truth.

      “You used to call me Nico,” he said. “When you managed to speak to me at all.”

      She felt herself flushing with embarrassment at the memory of how she used to be so tongue-tied around him. His face was stern and foreboding, his body tense as he loomed over her in his expensive suit and studied her as if she were something he’d stepped in.

      If only he knew …

      Tina had to suppress a wild giggle. It wasn’t amusement so much as hysteria, but nevertheless she could hardly give in to it. Besides, he would know soon enough, wouldn’t he? Just as soon as she could manage to say the words.

      “That was a long time ago,” she said. “Life was simpler then.”

      She thought a flash of emotion crossed his features, but it was gone as suddenly as it had appeared. “Life is never simple, cara. It only seems so in retrospect.”

      “What happened between you and Renzo?” The words fell from her lips, though she did not intend for them to. Any softening she might have seen on his face was gone again.

      “We ceased to be friends. That is enough.”

      Tina sighed. She’d always wanted to know why he’d stopped coming around, but Renzo remained tight-lipped about the whole thing. She’d been too young to really understand back then, but she’d thought it was probably temporary. A disagreement between friends.

      She’d been wrong.

      Her stomach clenched again and she splayed her hand over her belly, as if she could stop the churning simply by doing so.

      Nico was on one knee in front of her suddenly. His eyes were the color of a leaden sky, she thought wildly. Any minute the storm would break. Any minute.

      But for now he looked concerned, and her heart squeezed. “What is the matter, Valentina? You look … green.”

      She swallowed the bile that threatened and tried to sip the tea again. “I’m pregnant,” she said, her heart beating in her ears, her throat.

      “Congratulations.” It was said sincerely. And it was all she could do to hold in the nervous laughter pressing at the back of her throat.

      “Thank you.” She felt hot, so hot. She could feel the sweat beading on her forehead, her upper lip. She set the tea down and peeled the jacket from her shoulders. Nico reached up to help her. He stood and laid the jacket over the back of the couch.

      His expression was gentler now, but he was still like a caged lion roaming the quiet space of the suite. Any second, and his fangs would be bared, his claws extended.

      Tina closed her eyes and shook her head slightly. Focus.

      “Can I get you anything?” he asked.

      “One of those biscuits would be nice,” she said.

      He retrieved a vanilla biscuit from the tea table and handed it to her. Tina broke off a piece and chewed slowly.

      Nico shoved his hands in his pockets. “If you could state your business, we can solve whatever this is and go our separate ways.”

      “Yes, I suppose we can.” Would he want to be involved? Or would he wash his hands of her the moment she told him? It didn’t really matter, she decided. She was strong enough to have this baby on her own. No one was going to stop her from doing so, either.

      She finished the biscuit and leaned back on the couch. It seemed the food would stay down this time, but she knew she needed to eat more.

      “I had not realized you’d married,” Nico said.

      Her gaze snapped to his, her pulse thrumming. “I’m not married.”

      His pause was significant. “Ah.”

      Tina fumed at the unspoken implications. “I did not plan this, but I won’t be ashamed of my baby, either.”

      “I did not say you should be.” And yet she did not believe him. People like him—people who came from families like his—had very stringent views on proper behavior. She’d learned that in boarding school when the other girls had treated her like scum for not having a father. For having a mother who had once been a waitress, and who had never married even though she’d had children.

      Those girls had made her life hell at St. Katherine’s. They hated her because she hadn’t been from old money, because she’d been shy and an easy target for their venom. Rotten snobs, all of them. Except Lucia, of course.

      Tina clenched her fingers into the cushion. Nico was one of those people, from old money and lineage. And he was judging her, finding her lacking. It should make her want to hide.

      Instead, it made her angry. “No, you did not say anything. But you’re thinking it.”

      He looked cool and gorgeous standing there. Remote. “I’m not thinking anything. Except for what any of this possibly has to do with me.”

      She stared at him for several heartbeats, as her breath seemed to stop inside her lungs. It was now or never, wasn’t it? He’d given her the opportunity. She had to say the words. But forcing them out was like trying to stop snowflakes from melting on her tongue.

      “It has everything to do with you,” she finally managed, her voice little more than a whisper.

      But he heard her. His expression changed, became even icier. He was the aristocrat, and she was the mixed breed dog who didn’t even have a father.

      “I fail to see how. Until today, I haven’t laid eyes on you in nearly ten years. And believe me,” he said, his gaze skimming over her again, “I would remember doing so.”

      His voice was sex itself, and she flushed. But she looked him dead in the eye and refused to flinch as she said the next words.

      “Not necessarily. Not if it was dark and we—we wore masks.”

       Chapter Two

      NICO’S stomach felt strangely hollow. He was standing here, looking at this woman who he could hardly believe was the grown-up little sister of his old friend and archrival, and he knew what she was saying even though she did not actually speak the words.

      She was telling him she was pregnant. With his child.

      But he knew it was a lie. No matter what she said about Venice and the masks, she was not that woman. It was a trick, a ruse cooked up by her brother in order to settle old scores. Oddly, it disappointed him to think she could be as ruthless as Renzo when she’d once been so shy.

      He didn’t know how they knew, but he would not fall for it.

      His gaze raked her body as he tried to recall the woman he’d shared that night with. He’d found her on the docks outside the palazzo, gulping air and shivering. He’d feared something bad had happened to her initially, but that had not been the case at all.

      He remembered how sweetly innocent she’d been, and how he’d been drawn to her in spite of his usual preference for more experienced bed partners. He had not thought she would be a virgin, but she’d surprised him on that score, as well.

      How could this be the same woman?

      It couldn’t be. Somehow, Valentina D’Angeli knew the woman he’d been with and she and her brother were using the situation to their advantage. It was too outrageous otherwise.

      “You are lying,” he said.

      Her eyes widened with hurt. “Why would I do that? What could I possibly gain from something like this?”

      Fury roared through him in giant waves. She played the innocent so well. “I can imagine a few things,”