Italian Bachelors: Unforgotten Lovers. Lynn Raye Harris

been a cocktail waitress in a casino? Especially with a baby?

      There were two fresh spots of color in her cheeks. “I did. I couldn’t make the payments against the debt, so it was sold. A nice couple lives there now.”

      He hadn’t had a childhood home. The thought made him feel raw inside. But he’d wanted one. He’d been eleven when his uncle had finally wrested him from his mother’s capricious grip. Eleven when he’d first entered the Di Navarra estate in Tuscany. It was as close to a childhood home as he had.

      Except, he had no memories of a mother’s love or of warmth and belonging in a place. His uncle had been good to him, and he was grateful, but he’d spent a lot of time alone—or with tutors—because Uncle Paolo had spent so much time working.

      “Where are your parents?” he asked her.

      “I never knew them. My father is a mystery man, and my mother died when I was a baby.” She said it so unemotionally, but he knew it had to hurt. He’d never known his father, though of course he knew his identity. He hadn’t been that lucky with his mother. She had left her imprint deep. He was still trying to cover the scars of what she’d done to him.

      “And what about the father of your child?” he asked, shaking away painful thoughts of his mother. “Why didn’t he step up and help?”

      Her lips flattened and she took a deep breath. “He didn’t want to be burdened, I imagine,” she finally said, her voice soft and brittle at once.

      He imagined her pregnant and alone, without a home, and felt both anger and sympathy. Anger because she reminded him of his mother and sympathy because she’d lost so much. Was that what had happened to his mother? He’d never understood why she’d been so flighty, why she’d moved from place to place, always searching for something that eluded her.

      She might have had to settle down if not for him. If not for the money he represented. The money his uncle gave for his care, but which she would spend taking him someplace remote and hiding him from the Di Navarras. When she would run out, she would emerge again, hand outstretched until Uncle Paolo filled it—and then they would disappear once more.

      Clearly, Holly wasn’t doing that with this child—but she had been living in that dingy building and leaving the baby with strangers. His mother had done the same thing, time and again. If Holly got money from the baby’s father, would she spend it all recklessly in the pursuit of filling some emptiness inside herself? Or would she settle down and take care of the baby the way he should be taken care of?

      “I am given to understand you can sue for child support in this country,” he said mildly. “At the least, you could have gotten a bit of help for your child. I wonder that you did not do it.”

      Her eyes flashed hot. “You make it sound so simple. But I would have needed money for a lawyer, wouldn’t I? Since I couldn’t afford to make the mortgage payments, I couldn’t afford a lawyer, either.”

      “So you got a job as a cocktail waitress.” There was condemnation in his tone. He knew it, and so did she. Certainly she could have found something else. Something safer for a child.

      Her chin came up. “After I left New Hope, yes. I went to New Orleans and got a job in the casino. The tips were good and I needed the money.”

      “But not good enough to afford you a decent place to live.”

      “Not everyone is so fortunate as you.”

      “I have had nothing handed to me, cara. I worked for everything I have.”

      “Yes, but you had all the advantages.”

      “Not quite all,” he said. For the first eleven years, he’d had no advantages. Hell, he hadn’t even been able to read until Uncle Paolo had taken him away from his mother and gotten him an education that didn’t require him to count out coins for supper. “Besides, when you are done here, you’ll have enough money to take your baby somewhere safe.”

      “How dare you suggest I would put my baby in danger?” she said tightly. “Just because I couldn’t afford a home that meets your standards, Your High and Mightiness, doesn’t mean my son wasn’t safe.”

      She was tightly strung, her body practically trembling with nervous energy. Her eyes flashed fire and her jaw was set in that stubborn angle he’d oddly come to enjoy. Such a firecracker, this girl.

      They’d burned together before. What would it be like now?

      He shoved the thought away and let his gaze slide over her lovely face. She was going to make Navarra Cosmetics a lot of money, if his gut was any judge. And it usually was.

      He didn’t need to screw it up by getting involved with her again, however enticing the thought. Instead, he thought of where he’d found her, of the utter desolation of that apartment building, and his anger whipped higher.

      “Do you really want your child to grow up there, Holly? Do you want Mrs. Turner keeping him every night, while he cries and asks where his mother is? Do you want him to only see you for a few minutes a day while you do whatever it is you plan to do with the money?”

      She blinked at him, and he knew his voice had grown harsh. But he wouldn’t take any of it back. She had to consider these things. She had to consider the child.

      “Of course I don’t want that,” she said. “I want a house somewhere, and a good school. I want Nicky to have everything I had growing up. I intend to give it to him, too.”

      Everything inside him was tight, as if someone had stretched the thinnest membrane over the mouth of a volcano. He didn’t know why she got to him so badly, but he didn’t like it. Drago worked to push all the feelings she’d whipped up back under the lid of the box he kept them in.

      “Perhaps you can give him those things,” he finally said when he no longer felt so volatile. “Do you have any idea what the going rate is on a cosmetics campaign?”

      She shook her head.

      “It could be in the six figures, cara. But we’ll need to see how the test shots go first.” Because, no matter how bad he felt for her and the baby, he wouldn’t hand over that kind of money for nothing. He’d go out of business if he allowed sympathy to get in the way of his decisions.

      Her eyes were huge. Then she swallowed and fixed him with a determined look. “I expect to see that contract, spelling it all out, before anything happens.”

      Irritation lashed into him. “You don’t trust me?” he asked, a dangerous edge to his voice.

      She was nobody. She had nothing. She needed this job—and she needed his goodwill, after what she’d pulled last year.

      But she didn’t hesitate to push him. To demand her contract. He had to admit that a grudging part of him admired her tenacity even while she maddened him.

      “Should I?” she said sweetly.

      “Do you have a choice?”

      Her jaw worked. Hardened. “No, I don’t suppose I do.”

      “Precisely.” He shoved back from the table and stood. “You will get your contract, Holly, because that is what businesses do.”

      Then he leaned down, both hands on the table, and fixed her with an even look. “And if you don’t like the terms, you will be taken back to where I found you and left there without the possibility of ever seeing a dime.”

      * * *

      Holly was restless. She was so accustomed to being on the go, to working hard for hours every day and then scrambling to get home and take care of her child, that being in this apartment with a nanny and no schedule felt surreal.

      She’d tried to read a book. She’d tried to watch television—what was with all these people airing their private business in front of a TV judge for public consumption, anyway?—and she’d tried to listen to music. Nothing made her feel settled for more than a few moments.