A Touch of Temptation(15)
She swallowed, the emptiness she felt exaggerated by his words. In that moment she didn’t doubt him.
Diego would do everything for their child. She could see the resolve burning in his eyes. If only he had felt a little of that toward her when they had been married. If only she felt one tenth of the emotion he felt for their child.
“We don’t have to be married for that. We could share custody.”
“My child is not spending half its life traveling between you and me like a soccer ball. We will be a family—a proper one.”
“I’m not sleeping with you.”
He laughed—the first sound he’d made that was filled with genuine amusement. “Afraid you won’t be able to resist? Don’t worry, Kim. I’ve learned that there are some things in life that can damage even dirty-fighting and wicked me. Like sleeping with you.”
“Finally something we agree upon,” she said loudly, trying to drown the thundering of her own heart. It figured that now he had caused maximum damage Diego had no interest in her. Why that should bother her of all the things that had happened today was beyond her.
Really, she was becoming a regular passenger on the cuckoo train.
She slid into the couch again, her knees shaking beneath her, trying to grasp the rollercoaster she was signing up for.
“So—a sexless, everlasting marriage to a man who hates me, who owns the biggest share of my company and who will no doubt find unadulterated joy in telling me what a horrible mother I make for the rest of my life? Sounds like a perfect recipe for happily-ever-after.”
“Happily-ever-after? Is that what you want, princesa? Would you even know it if it bumped you on your over-achieving head?”
Hulking over her, he surrounded her, his gaze drilling holes into her.
“For the last time—your company is just a bargaining chip for me. I only ask that you do your best for our child. And as to sex—” his voice lowered to a sinuous whisper, his breath tickling her lips “—if you really want to change that part of the equation we can revisit it—say in a couple of years?” Dark enjoyment slashed the curve of his mouth.
She pulled her gaze upward. The whole situation she found herself in was absurdly comical. If only it wasn’t her life. “A reward system? Great. Sex for good behavior?”
His mouth curved again, in a smile that dimpled his cheek, pure devilish amusement glittering in it. Her breath stuck in her throat. She had always loved that dimple. On any other man it would have looked effeminate. On Diego it touched his ruthless masculinity with a mischievous charm.
“See—just the way you like it. Everything reduced to a simple business transaction. Be a good little wife and you can have all the sex you want.”
CHAPTER FOUR
STANDING IN FRONT of the elevator on her floor, Kim studied herself in the gleaming doors and breathed in gulps of air. So much for her hope that she might be one of the women that Mommy Mary mentioned, who had breezy pregnancies, nesting instincts and glowing skin.
Right.
What she had was nausea, exhaustion, acne—and mood swings as though she had just gotten off of antidepressants. And nothing but an unrelenting detachment at the sight or talk of anything baby-related.
Only a ninety-hour work week, with the added stress of handling PR about the new investment and the expansion of her company, had kept her from spiraling further down.
Two days after he had cornered her in her apartment Diego’s legal team had contacted her own. She refused to feed her curiosity by asking where he was. Negotiations had been completed in a day and she now had two million dollars to sink her teeth into. It was more than she had expected in her wildest dreams.
She should be overjoyed—she had the investment and she was being awarded the prestigious Entrepreneur of the Year award by the Business Bureau Guild tonight.
But she couldn’t turn her mind from thoughts of Diego. It was like a rerun of six years ago, when she had returned to New York, her heart in pieces, wondering if he would call her, if he would come after her...
Not even a month since he’d come back into her life and he was already reducing her to that pitiful self—to someone who signed up for getting hurt so easily.
Maybe she should have accepted Liv’s offer to attend the awards ceremony with her and Alex. But she was still avoiding Liv and her well-meaning questions, and arriving with them would only give rise to more of the speculation that was beginning to mess with her head.
Running her company meant she always worked sixteen to eighteen hour days, and that didn’t leave time for abiding friendships—or anything else for that matter. It was how she had tailored her life. And she loved it just that way.