The door flew open and crashed against the wall.
Lise Helton’s head jerked upright at the sound, and at the sight of him looming in her doorway her eyes instantly chilled. “Get out,” she said with cutting precision.
“No.” He stepped in and slammed the door closed behind him.
She appeared as fragile and delicate as a snowflake. Her skin was as pale as an eggshell, her eyes as ice blue as the coldest winter day. Yet she held herself like a queen looking down on her lowliest subject.
A hush settled. His breath came hot and fast. She didn’t appear to even breathe.
“What do you want?” She finally broke the silence.
“You’re still sick.”
A blonde brow arched. “You came charging into my office like a lunatic to make this statement? Are you mad?”
“You look like you have one foot in the grave.”
She merely stared down her nose at him.
“You throw up all the time.”
“Really?” she mocked, but a flush of heated color came to her cheeks. “Have you been lurking in the women’s lavatory, Mr. Mattare?”
Her scorn and condescension irked him. It wouldn’t deter him from his mission, though. “I bet you have lost almost a stone in weight.”
Her eyes flashed. “Are you crazy? You have no right to look me over and make such a statement.”
“Are you pregnant?” His words shot out into the room, a blast of emotion, a tidal wave of fear and anger and yearning mixed with guilt and agony and wonder.
She stared at him in horror, the color in her face leeching away.
The hush expanded, grew, magnified. A silence hung between them like the stillness before a wicked, wild, volcanic explosion.
“Yes.”
The turmoil in his gut threatened to pull him into a pit of indescribable pain and hope.
“Is it mine?” His words were harsh, hoarse.
Her eyes widened into two pools of bluest blue. For a moment, for a single moment he thought he saw something, something…something…
“No,” she snapped, as her eyes frosted below her frown. “Of course not.”
Was it possible to feel his heart crash to the bottom of his feet? “Of course not?” he managed to sling at her. “We had unprotected sex—”
“Once.” Her eyes became daggers of ice.
“Once is all it—”
“It’s Robert’s,” she stated with her usual complete decisiveness.
Was his heart still beating in his toes? Or was the pulse pounding in his head all rage and jealousy and—
Vico ripped his brain back into reality.
He should be happy about this. Gloriously relieved. The baby wasn’t his. Certainly not. He should be jumping down the hall high-fiving the staff.
Yet the guilt at what he’d done to her, done to the child, lunged and roared and devoured any relief he might have enjoyed. “Does the father know?” The unwanted jealousy roiled inside. “Are you getting back together?”
Lise Helton stood with cool poise. She calmly walked around the desk and over to him. Staring straight into his eyes, she gave him a look of haughty rejection. “As I’ve said before,” she spat. “It's none of your damn business.”
His arms folded in front of him. He threw on a cocky smile. “I do remember those words being said before.”
She stared down her nose at him with complete disdain. “Then perhaps you’ll remember these words also.”
He forced the smile to grow wider even though he shook inside.
“Get out.”
* * *
She’d lied again.
Shame curled around her. Lying had become a habit with Vico Mattare.
She looked across the boardroom table and straight into his eyes. The eyes that never seemed to leave her whenever she, unfortunately, had to be in his company. Somehow, she’d grown unwillingly entranced with his tiger eyes. The gold mixed with green mixed with brown. A person might describe them as hazel, still there was a focus in them, a predatory intensity that made her think of a cat ready to pounce.
On her.
However, he hadn’t approached her or talked with her since their last confrontation a week ago. He’d shot her his usual stupid, arrogant grin and walked right out of her office after she’d spat those words at him and hadn’t come near her again.
A rude demand. An offensive ultimatum. A complete lie.
She’d been ashamed of herself. Not only for the lie, but her unladylike demeanor. If her mother had seen her, she would have fainted on the spot. In her defense, he’d surprised her. Jumped on her before she could get her wits together. Add in the fact he always brought out the worst in her, the loss of temper was understandable.
“Do you agree, Ms. Helton?” His voice was bland, yet she heard the coil of vindictiveness in his tone.