Baby By Accident: International Billionaires III: The Italians by Caro LaFever Read Free Book Online Page A

“How could you—?”
    “It’s his.” Hannah’s gaze was tender, even if her words were tough. “You have to work with him.”
    “Never.”
    “If you work with him than maybe the company can become both of yours. Wouldn’t that be the best for everyone?”
    “I’m not going to work with him on anything.” The sick feeling mixed into the residual anger, making her feel queasy and inflamed all at the same time. “I’m going to work against him.”
    Her PA sighed. “Eventually, you’ll change your mind.”
    “No.” She walked toward her office, ready to get away from this conversation and away from the feeling of betrayal.
    “You’re too smart not to finally figure this out,” Hannah called after her. “I know you’re capable of changing your mind, and you will.”
    Lise slammed the office door behind her.

Chapter 4
    “ I don’t believe it .” Lise stared down at the test strip in her hand.
    “This is not the time to do your usual and stick your head in the sand,” her best friend, Suz, said from the other side of the bathroom.
    “This can’t be.” She jerked around in a panic and threw the offending object into the wastebasket. “This must be a mistake.”
    Suz sat on the edge of the bath, her hands clasped before her, long, shiny red nails tapping against each other. “This is the fifth test, Lise. Taking one right after the other is a bit obsessive even for you. So I think we can safely move on from the mistake comment to the what are you going to do question.”
    “God.” She turned back to the mirror and stared into her horrified eyes. How could she have done this? How could she find herself in such a predicament? She was Lise Helton. CFO. Confident. Intelligent. “I am a complete and utter idiot.”
    “We’ve always known that.” Her other friend, Tracy, lounged back on the bathroom’s door. “It’s one of the reasons we love you, kiddo.”
    Leaning her forehead on the cool glass, she groaned. One night. Only one tiny night she’d let herself go. Let herself take a man she wanted. Other girls, hell even Tracy and Suz themselves, had gone wild several times with no tragic results. How could fate be so utterly unfair and malicious? “What am I going to do?”
    “Tell Robert?” Suz suggested.
    “The cold fish who got married to his new squeeze last Saturday? Only six weeks after he broke his engagement to Lise?” her other friend exclaimed. “He doesn’t deserve to know after what he did to our girl.”
    “I’m amazed he had it in him to get her pregnant.”
    Vico Mattare. His baby.
    The horror rushing through her turned from a raging river into rampaging rapids. The tide roared over her and in her, sweeping her emotions down into the cold pit of her stomach.
    “Not his.” Her blurted words landed like a bomb in the middle of the conversation. Lise lifted her head and met the astonished eyes of her two friends reflected in the mirror. She hadn’t told them. Hadn’t told anyone. The night she replayed endlessly in her head had stayed right there.
    In her head and body and heart.
    “What the hell?” Suz stood, her hands waving wildly like red firecrackers in the air. “Whose is it?”
    “Are you kidding me?” Tracy crowed. “Our Lise did something crazy for once in her life and fell into bed with another man?”
    The truth of the comment stung like acid. Embarrassment warred with horrified comprehension of her new reality.
    Pregnant.
    From a one night stand.
    With her boss.
    Yanking herself away from her image in the mirror, she headed for the door. The door blocked by one determined female.
    “No you don’t.” Tracy straightened and stepped into the doorway. “You aren’t plunking down such a hot piece of info and then walking away. Not a chance.”
    “Let me past,” she hissed. Tears welled in her eyes and she swept a hand across her face to stop them.
    “Hey.” Her friend’s hands grasped her shaking shoulders. Big brown eyes filled with concern and