A Facade to Shatter by Lynn Raye Harris Read Free Book Online Page B

anything besides sex from him were nonexistent.
    He would not make that mistake again.
    Lia blinked. Her tongue darted out over her lowerlip, and a bolt of sensation shot through him at that singular movement. His body wanted to react, but he refused to let it. She was a woman like any other, he reminded himself. If sex was what he wanted, he had only to walk back in that ballroom and select a partner.
    Her gaze flicked to the door. “Perhaps we should go somewhere more private.”
    “No. Tell me what you came to say, and then go back to your hotel.”
    She seemed taken aback at the intensity of his tone. She ran a hand down her dress nervously, and then lifted it to tuck one of the dangling locks of hair behind her ear. “You’ve changed,” she said.
    He shook his head. “I’d think, rather, that you do not know me.” He spread his hands wide. “This is who I am, Lia. What I am.”
    She looked hurt, and he felt an uncharacteristic pinch in his heart. But he knew how to handle this. He knew the words to say because he’d said a variation of them countless times before.
    “Palermo was fun. But there can be nothing more between us. I’m sorry you came all this way.”
    He’d expected her to crumple beneath the weight of his words. She didn’t. For a long moment, she only stared at him. And then she drew herself up, her eyes flashing. It was not the response he expected, and itsurprised him. Intrigued him, too, if he were willing to admit it.
    “There can be more,” she said firmly. “There
must
be more.”
    Zach cursed himself. Why, of all the possible women in the world, had he chosen this one to break his long sexual fast with? He’d known there was something innocent about her, something naive. He should have sent her back to her room. Unfortunately, his brain had short-circuited the instant all the blood that should have powered it started flowing south.
    “I’m sorry if you got the wrong idea, sugar,” he began.
    She didn’t let him finish. Her brows drew down angrily as she closed the distance between them and poked him hard in the chest with a manicured finger. He was too stunned to react. “The wrong idea?” she demanded.
    She swore in Italian, curses that somehow sounded so pretty but were actually quite rude if translated. Zach was bemused in spite of himself.
    “There were consequences to those two days,” she flashed. “For both of us,
bello.
”
    Ice shot down his spine, sobering him right up again.
    “What are you talking about?” he snapped.
    Her lips tightened. And then she said the words that sliced through him like a sword thrust to the heart.
    “I’m pregnant, Zach. With
your
baby.”
    Lia watched the play of emotions over his face. There was disbelief, of course. Anger. Denial.
    She understood all those feelings. She’d experienced each one in the past few days, many times over. But she’d also experienced joy and happiness. And fear. She couldn’t forget the fear.
    “That’s impossible,” he said tightly. His handsome face was hard and cold, his eyes like chips of dark, burning ice as they bored into her.
    Lia wanted to sit down. She was beginning to regret coming here tonight. She’d only just arrived in Washington today, and she’d hardly rested. She was suffering from the effects of too much air travel, too much stress and too many crazy hormones zinging through her system.
    This was not at all how she’d pictured this happening. She hadn’t thought beyond seeing him, hadn’t thought he would force her to tell him her news standing in the darkness and watching men tap golf balls toward a little hole in the ground.
    She also hadn’t expected him to be so hostile. So cold.
    Lia swallowed against the fear clogging her throat.She had to be brave. She’d already endured so much just to get to this point. There was no going back now.
    “Apparently not,” she said, imbuing her voice with iron. “Because I am most assuredly pregnant.”
    “How do you know it’s