Rising Stars

Lilley looked even more beautiful than she had a month ago. Her long brown hair was swept back in a ponytail, her face was bare of makeup. Unlike all the other women squeezed into tight girdles and barely able to move in sequined dresses, Lilley wore a simple tank top and a flowery cotton skirt, a casual summery outfit that effortlessly showed off her stunning curves. She shone like an angel standing in front of the distant dark storm clouds over the horizon.

“Alessandro,” Lilley whispered, looking at him. The pupils of her large, limpid eyes seemed to dilate, and the honey-brown gaze pulled him into their endless sweet depths. Hearing her speak his name, he felt electrified.

“Security!” his butler cried, motioning to a bodyguard on the other side of the room. Alessandro grabbed Bronson’s arm.

“I will handle this,” he growled. “Thank you.”

Mollified, the butler nodded and backed away. “Of course, sir.”

Taking Lilley gently by the arm, Alessandro pulled her inside the foyer. She looked up at him, her lips parted.

His hand involuntarily tightened, his fingers trembling at the point of contact against her soft skin. Waves of sensual memories washed over his unwilling body. The last time they’d been together, they’d made love in every room here, including this foyer. He looked at the wall behind her. There.

Suddenly choking with need, he felt an overwhelming drive to carry her up to his bed—to claim her body as his own. He’d thought being away from Lilley would make him forget. It had only made him want her more.

Blood roared in his ears as he reached around her and closed the heavy oak door. Dropping Lilley’s arm, he folded his hands to keep himself from touching her. He said hoarsely, “You shouldn’t have come.”

She took a deep breath. “I had no choice.”

“What is she doing here?” Olivia demanded peevishly in English behind him. “Did you invite her, Alessandro?”

Oh yes, Olivia. He’d forgotten her completely. He glanced back at her, irritated. “No, I did not invite her.” He turned back to Lilley. “Why are you here?”

Lilley moved closer to him, a soft smile on her lips. Her brown eyes were luminous, catching at his soul. She seemed like a creature from another world, a kinder one filled with magic and innocence. Her pretty face was suffused with a strange glow. “I came to see you.”

He stared at her, bewildered. I came to see you. No pretense? No games? No story about just being in the

neighborhood? He hardly knew how to deal with such straightforward, vulnerable honesty. He’d had so little experience with it.

“You weren’t invited,” Olivia said coldly. “You need to leave.”

It was clear by her scowl that she’d recognized Lilley as the woman Alessandro had taken to the Preziosi di Caetani ball. Olivia glared at her as if she hoped the hot laser beam of her eyes might cause the younger woman to burst into flame.

But looking back at Olivia, Lilley’s gaze didn’t have a shred of anger or even fear. Instead, she looked at the Italian heiress with something almost like … sympathy.

“I’m not here to cause a scene,” Lilley said quietly. “I just need to speak to Alessandro, alone. Please. It will only take a moment.”

“Alessandro doesn’t want to talk to you.” When he remained silent, Olivia tossed her head, giving Lilley a nasty glare. “Get out before I throw you out, you cheap little—file clerk.”

But her attempted insult seemed to roll right off Lilley like water off a duck’s back. She turned back to Alessandro with a soft smile. “May I please speak to you? Alone?”

Being alone with Lilley, mere minutes before he planned to propose to Olivia, was a bad idea. A very bad idea. He opened his mouth to tell Lilley firmly that she must go. Instead, his body twisted and he heard himself saying in Italian, “Will you please excuse us?”

Olivia drew back with a hiss between her teeth, visibly furious. “Certainly,” she said coldly. “I’ll go greet the mayor and my good friend Bill Hocking,” she said, referring to a well-known Silicon Valley billionaire. Her warning couldn’t have been clearer. But suddenly he didn’t give a damn.

“Grazie,” he answered mildly, as if utterly oblivious of her affronted fury.

With a scowl, Olivia turned on her heel and stomped away, her bare back looking almost skeletal in the black one-shouldered gown.

Alessandro looked back down at Lilley, who, with her soft body and simple cotton clothes seemed even more impossibly alluring than he remembered.

Amidst all the noise around them, the jazz music, the soft clink of wineglasses and laughter of guests, he felt as if they were alone. “I never expected to see you again,” he murmured. “I can’t believe you crashed my party.”

She smiled. “Really brave of me, right? Or really stupid.”

“Brave and stupid are often the same thing.”

Lilley shook her head, and he saw unshed tears in her eyes as she laughed. “I’m glad to see you, Alessandro. I’ve missed you.”

Hearing her leave herself so vulnerable, he felt it again—that odd twisting in the vicinity of his heart. “But you shouldn’t have come here tonight.”

Her eyes met his. “Because this is an engagement party.”

Alessandro tried to keep his face blank. “You read gossip magazines.”

“Unfortunately.”

Bracing himself, he waited for the inevitable scene, for her tears and recriminations. Instead, she just gave him a wistful smile.

“I want you to be happy.” She lifted her chin. “If Olivia is truly the one, I wish you all the happiness in the world.”

Alessandro’s jaw fell open. It was the last thing he’d expected her to say. He took a deep breath, suddenly uncertain how to proceed.

“You—aren’t upset?” he said finally. His cheeks became hot as he heard how foolish the words sounded to his own ears.

“There’s no point to being upset over something I cannot change.” She stared down at the marble floor. “And I truly didn’t come to cause a scene.”

“Then why did you?”

She looked up, her eyes luminous and wide. Beneath the darkening light of the upper windows, her eyes were the color of a mountain stream. Not just brown, he realized. Her eyes were a thousand shades, depths of green and blue and amber like a deep, ancient river.

“I have something to tell you before I can leave San Francisco.”

Leave? Why on earth would she leave? Then Alessandro remembered he’d convinced a friend to offer her a job in New York. When he’d been in Mexico City, enduring night after night of hot dreams, he’d thought sending her three thousand miles away from San Francisco was the only sane thing to do. Now, he thought it the stupidest idea he’d ever conceived. His shoulders tightened. “Lilley—”

The doorbell rang, and as Bronson hesitantly came towards the door Alessandro grabbed Lilley’s hand. He pulled her out of the foyer, away from the hubbub of the party, leading her down a side hall.

“Where are we going?” she asked, not resisting him.

His hand tightened around hers. “Where we can be alone.”

Turning down a second hallway towards a quiet wing, Alessandro tried to ignore how right her hand felt in his own, tried not to feel the enticing warmth of her soft skin. But as he pulled her into the music room where he often hosted concerts and parties, the large room suddenly felt small, the temperature hot and stifling. As he walked around the grand piano and past the Picasso on the wall, his tie felt tight around his neck. He just kept walking through the music room. Opening the sliding glass doors, he pulled her into a small private garden.

Outside, the air was cool. The garden was green and stark, just a lawn, really, surrounded on three sides by a ten-foot privet hedge that separated them from the poolside terrace. On the other side of the hedge, he could hear muffled conversation and the clink of wineglasses as guests milled around the Olympic-size pool and terrace.

Alessandro realized he was still holding Lilley’s hand. He looked down at their intertwined fingers. She followed his gaze and he heard her intake of breath, felt her tremble.

Their eyes met in the rapidly deepening twilight. The sky above the villa was dark with threatening clouds, and he heard a distant rumble of thunder. He heard the wind howl through the trees. Lilley’s full cotton skirt swirled around her legs.

Electricity filled the air as the temperature seemed to drop five degrees around them. But Alessandro still felt hot, burning from the storm inside him. Desire arced though him, and with an intake of breath, he dropped her hand.

Lilley deserved better than a series of cheap one-night stands. For her sake, he couldn’t risk her loving him. And for his own sake … he couldn’t risk caring for her. He’d learned long ago to trust no one. Sex and money were real. Love was a lie.

He knew this, but his body shook with the effort of not touching her, from not putting his arms around her and sinking into her softness and warmth. He tightened his hands into fists.

“Why did you come?” he ground out.

Colorful fairy lights high in the trees swayed violently in the rising wind. A flash of lightning illuminated Lilley’s stricken face.

“You’re in love with Miss Bianchi, aren’t you?”

He set his jaw. “I told you. Marriage is a mutually beneficial alliance. Love has nothing to do with it.”

“But surely you wouldn’t want to spend the rest of your life without love.” Long tendrils of soft brown hair blew across her face as she searched his gaze. Her expression faltered. “Would you?”

Thunder crackled in the sky above. Alessandro heard gasps from the other side of the hedge as the first raindrops fell, and guests ran back inside the villa.

“Just tell me what you have to say, then leave,” he said tightly.

Lilley blinked, then looked down at the grass beneath her feet. “This is hard. Harder than I ever thought it would be.”

Rain began to fall more heavily. He watched a fat raindrop slide down her rounded cheek to her full, generous mouth. Her pink tongue unconsciously darted out to lick the thick drop of rain against her full, sweetly sensual lips, and he nearly groaned.

He had to get her out of here before he did something they’d both regret forever. Why had he ever allowed himself to take a single forbidden taste of what did not belong to him by right?

“It was a mistake for me to seduce you,” he said in a low voice. “I’m sorry I ever touched you.”

She looked up, her eyes bright with grief. “Was it so awful?”

Awful? A new ache filled his throat. He hated that for the first time in nineteen years, he’d found a heart he did not want to break, and here he was breaking it. “Your first time should have been special, with a man who loved you, who might someday marry you. Not a one-night stand with a man like me.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” She tried to give him a smile. “It was two nights.”

He nearly shuddered with the memory of how good it had been between them. How she’d tasted. How she’d felt beneath him. He forced himself to say, “You will find someone else.”

She stared at him. “That’s why you’re sending me to New York.”

Thunder boomed over them. “You knew it was me?”

“Of course I knew.” She looked at him with a tremulous smile. She swallowed, then squared her shoulders. Rain was starting to soak her long brown hair, causing her tank top and cotton skirt to cling to her skin. “Thank you for arranging the internship. It was—very kind.”

Her generous spirit only made Alessandro feel more like a brute. His head was throbbing with pain. He tightened his hands into fists. “I wasn’t being kind, damn you. I was sending you away because I’m getting married. Not for love. Her father’s company will be an asset.” His hands tightened. “But when I speak vows, I will be faithful to them.”

Lilley searched his gaze. “And if I were an heiress like her?” she whispered. “Would you choose me as your bride instead?”

Looking at her, he held his breath. Then slowly, he shook his head. “You would never fit into my world.” His hand lifted. “It would destroy everything about you that I admire most. Everything that is cheerful and bright.”

He barely caught himself before he touched her cheek. Thunder cracked again above their heads, as loud and metallic as a baseball bat against the earth, and he dropped his hand. “Olivia will be my perfect bride.”

“I can’t let you marry her. Not without knowing what I, what I …” She licked her lips. “What I have to tell you.”

Alessandro’s suit was now completely wet. The two of them were alone in the emerald garden, below the black sky. The scent of rain washed over the leaves, over the earth, over the distant vineyards and the pink bougainvillea twisting up the stucco of his villa.

And looking at her beautiful, stricken brown eyes, he suddenly knew what she was going to say.

“Don’t,” he ground out. “Don’t say it.”

She hesitated, her lovely round face looking scared. Her hair and clothes were now stuck to her skin. He could see the full outline of her breasts and hard jut of her nipples beneath her thin cotton tank top. He could see the shape of her curvaceous legs beneath her skirt as lightning flashed above them. “Alessandro—”

“No, cara.” He put his hand to her lips, stroking the rain off her face with the pads of his thumbs. “Please,” he whispered. “Do not speak the words. Leave us that, at least. I can see your feelings on your face. I already know what is in your heart.”

Lilley looked up at him, her expression breathless. The rain began to fall more heavily and he realized he’d cupped her face in his hands. Her wet, full, pink lips were inches from his own, and he suddenly couldn’t breathe. He was hard and aching, his lips pulsing with the drive to kiss her. His body clamored for him to push her roughly against the hedge and claim her as his own.

Using every drop of willpower he possessed, Alessandro dropped his hands, stepping away. He said harshly, “Go to New York, Lilley.”

“Wait,” she choked out as he turned away. “You can’t go. Not until I tell you—”

He whirled to face her, his expression cold. “Do not fight me. We must never see each other again. There is nothing you can say to make me change my decision.”

She took a deep breath.

“I’m pregnant with your baby,” she whispered.

CHAPTER SIX

THUNDER pounded the dark sky, shaking the earth beneath her feet. Lilley held her breath, waiting for his reaction.

The violently swinging fairy lights above the hedge caused shadows to move across the sharp planes of Alessandro’s handsome face as he said hoarsely, “Pregnant.”

“Yes.”

A sharp flash of lightning illuminated his grim black eyes as he took a single step towards her. “You can’t be.”

“I am.”

“We used protection.”

She spread her arms helplessly. “That one time, in the shower …”

He sucked in his breath. “No.”

“But—”

“No.” Clawing back his wet black hair, he paced three steps across the lawn. Lilley watched him with a building sense of despair. Her body felt ice-cold, soaked to the bone. But that was nothing compared to her heart. She’d known he didn’t want her, and that he wouldn’t want their baby. But knowing it in her head and hearing him say it out loud were two different things.

She wrapped her arms around her shivering body, trying to comfort herself and the baby inside her. It’s all right, she told herself, using the words her mother had often said to her when she was young and sad. It’ll be all right, sweetheart.

It worked. She felt the anguish give way a fraction inside her. Lifting her head, she looked at Alessandro. She whispered, “It’s all right.”

He stopped pacing. “What?”

Love was a gift, Lilley realized. Love was always a gift. Even if the person you loved chose not to love you back.

She looked at Alessandro, so handsome and impossibly sexy even with his expensive suit soaked with rain. His dark hair was plastered to his forehead and tousled. Compassion for him, for this man she’d almost loved, filled her heart, crowding out her grief for the husband and father he could never be. She took a deep breath. “Nothing has to change for you.”

The expression on his face was suddenly as dark and ominous as the storm. “What?”

“You told me from the start that our affair would only be a fling.” She shook her head. “I don’t expect you to help me raise our baby. I just thought you should know.”

Alessandro’s eyes were black. The muscles of his powerful body tightened. “If you don’t expect me to raise your child, exactly what do you want from me?”

She blinked. “Want?”

“What are your demands? A house? Money?”

His words were hard, but she saw the tremble of his body beneath the sheeting rain. And Lilley suddenly wondered what sort of people he’d lived with, that his first thought upon hearing she was pregnant was to expect her to demand money.

“I don’t need anything,” she said quietly. Except a father for my baby, came the painful thought. Except for a man who can love me. But she would have to be brave, to be both mother and father to her sweet baby, who would need everything she could give. “Thank you for giving me two nights I’ll never forget. Thank you for believing in me. And most of all,” she whispered over the ache in her throat, “thank you for giving me a baby.”

Blinking fast, she looked up at his face for the last time, trying to memorize his features into her memory. The aquiline silhouette of his nose. The hard angle of his jaw. His eyes like dark embers, blazing fire. “I hope your life is full of joy. I’ll never forget you.” She turned away. “Good-bye.”

Lilley started walking back towards the villa, her sandals squishing in the wet grass, her heart breaking.

His hand grabbed her shoulder, whirling her around. He looked down at her as the rain continued to pound them both. His eyes burned with fury. “You think you can tell me you’re pregnant—and just leave?”

Lilley sucked in her breath, almost frightened at the darkness in his eyes. “There is no reason for me to stay—”

“No reason?” His voice was nearly a shout. He visibly controlled himself. His jaw twitched as he loosened his grip on her upper arms. “If you truly are pregnant with my child,” he ground out, “how can you just turn and leave? How can you be so cold?”

“Cold?” she gasped, ripping away. “What do you want from me? You want me to fall to the ground and cling to your knees, begging for you to love me and this baby, begging for you never to let me go?”

“That at least I would understand!”

“I can’t change your nature!” she cried, then took a deep gulping breath. “You made your feelings clear. You want a wife you can be proud of. You want Olivia. And you want me three thousand miles away!”

His eyes narrowed as he said in a low voice, “That was before.”

“Nothing has changed.”

“Everything has changed, if the baby is really mine.”

It took several seconds for the meaning of his words to sink in. Then her eyes went wide. “You think I would sleep with another man, then lie to you about it?”

Alessandro’s posture was so taut, he seemed like a statue. Like a stone. She could barely hear his voice as he said, “It happens.” His expression looked strange. “You might have gone back to the jewelry designer. Accidentally gotten pregnant, than decided to cash in.”

“Cash in?” she said incredulously. “Cash in how?”

He searched her gaze. “Do you swear you’re telling me the truth? The child is mine?”

“Of course the baby is yours! You’re the only man I’ve ever slept with in my whole life!”

“I want a paternity test.”

She stiffened. “What?”

“You heard me.”

The insult was almost too much to bear. “Forget it,” she whispered. “I’m not doing some stupid paternity test. If you trust me so little, if you believe I’d lie to you about something like this, then just forget it.”

Lilley’s body shook as she turned and walked away. Tears streamed down her face, blending with the rain. She was halfway across the empty lawn before he stopped her, and this time, the expression on his face had changed.

“I’m sorry, Lilley,” he said quietly. “I do know you. And you wouldn’t lie.”

Their eyes locked. She exhaled as the knots in her shoulders loosened. Then he spoke.

“Marry me.”

She heard the roar of her own heartbeat above the splatter of rain. “Is that a joke?”

His sensual lips curved upward. “I never joke, remember?”

Her head was spinning. She’d never expected him to propose, not in a million years, not in her most delusional dreams. “You … want to marry me?”

“Is that so surprising? What did you expect—that I’d kick you and our unborn child to the curb and merrily go and propose to another woman?”

Biting her lip, she looked up at the ruthless lines of his face. “Well … yes.”

“Then you don’t know me at all.”

“No,” she whispered. “I guess I don’t.” She felt dizzy and still a bit sick. She’d barely made it to Sonoma in Nadia’s old car without being sick, she’d been so nervous. And now he wanted to marry her? She licked her lips, feeling as though she might cry. “You want to help raise our baby?”

Alessandro’s jaw was tight. “I will protect you both. I will give the baby my name. It is my duty.”

Her heart, which had been soaring in blind hope, crashed to the ground. His duty? She exhaled. “You don’t need to marry me to be involved in our baby’s life.”

“Yes. I do.”

“Why?”

“Because it is necessary.”

“You’re old-fashioned.”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t love me!”

He folded his arms. “Irrelevant.”

“Not to me, it isn’t!” She exhaled, clenching her hands. “Listen, Alessandro, I’ll never try to keep you from seeing your child—”

“I know that you will not, once we are wed.”

“I’m not going to marry you!”

“Of course you will,” he said coldly.

She shook her head, causing wet tendrils to slap against her cheeks. “Be in a loveless marriage for the rest of my life? No thanks!”

“I understand. You still want your knight in shining armor.” He set his jaw. “But whatever either of us might have once planned for our lives is over. We are expecting a child. We will wed.”

“No—we would be miserable!”

“Miserable?” he said incredulously. “Don’t you understand? You will be my bride. A princess. Rich beyond your wildest dreams!”

“I don’t care—I don’t want it! Not when I know you don’t love me and never will!”

He grabbed her by the shoulders, his hands sliding against her wet skin. “You would deny our child a name out of some childish yearning for fairytale dreams?”

“It’s not childish.” She closed her eyes, which suddenly burned with tears that he’d used his knowledge of her heart against her. “You are cruel.”

“I am right,” he said grimly. “You have no reason to refuse me.” He paused. “I will even be faithful to you, Lilley.”

He spoke the words as if being faithful to her would require a huge sacrifice, practically more than any billionaire prince could bear. And it was probably true. “Gee, thanks,” she said sarcastically, glaring at him. “But I have no interest in being your duty bride.”

“Your objection is to the word duty?” He narrowed his eyes. “What do you think marriage is?”

“Love. Friendship. Having each other’s backs. A poetic union of souls—”

His grip on her tightened. “And passion?” His voice became husky beneath the rain. “What of passion?”

Her heart fell to her sandals and back again. She felt his strength, his warmth, the irresistible pull of his power. Against her will, she craved him.

“It was good between us.” He ran his fingers lightly along her jawline, his thumb along her sensitive lower lip. His soft stroke caused a spark down her body that made her suck in her breath. “You know how it was.”