The Change in Di Navarra's Plan
By: Lynn Raye Harris“Something from the bar, sir?” she asked when the play had finished. She pitched her voice louder than she normally would and looked over at Drago. The woman with him sensed a disturbance in the perfumed air around her—much too heavy a scent, Holly thought derisively, like something one would use in a brothel to cover the smells of sex and sweat—and brought her head up to meet Holly’s stare.
Sweat and sex. Holly swallowed as a pinprick of hot jealousy speared into her at the thought of this woman and Drago tangling together in a bed.
Holly sniffed. No, not jealousy. As if she cared. Honestly.
She was irritated, that was what. Irritated by the haughty look of this woman, and the outrageous presence of the man sitting at the table, oblivious to the currents whipping in the air around him.
The woman’s dark eyes raked over her. And then she did the one thing Holly had both hoped and feared she would do. She said something to Drago. He looked up, his gaze colliding with Holly’s. Her heart dived into her toes at the intensity of that gray stare. A hot well of hate bubbled inside her soul. It took everything she had not to throw her tray at him and curse him for the arrogant bastard he was.
“Dry martini,” the man beside her said, and Holly dragged her attention back to him.
“Yes, sir,” she said, writing the drink on her pad.
When she looked up again, Drago was still looking at her, his brows drawn together as if he were trying to place her. He didn’t know her? He couldn’t remember?
That was not at all the reaction she’d expected, and it pierced her to the core. She’d had his baby, and he couldn’t even remember her face....
That, Holly decided, stiffening her spine, was the last straw. She turned and marched away from the table, perilously close to hyperventilating because she was so angry—and because the adrenaline rush of fear was still swirling inside her. She went over to the bar and placed her orders, telling herself to calm down and breathe.
So he didn’t recognize her. So what? Had she really thought he would?
Yes.
She shook her head angrily. He was a rich, arrogant, low-down, lying son of a bitch anyway. He’d wined her and dined her and seduced her. Yes, she’d fallen for it. She wasn’t blameless.
But he’d promised to take care of the birth control, and she’d trusted him to do it right. But he must have done something wrong, because she’d gotten pregnant. And he hadn’t cared enough about the possibility to take her calls.
Rotten, selfish, self-serving bastard!
Holly grabbed her tray once the drinks were ready. She would march back over there and deliver her drinks as usual. She would not pour them in Drago’s lap, no matter how much she wanted to.
“Thanks, Jerry,” she said to the bartender. She turned to go—and nearly collided with the slickly expensive fabric of Drago di Navarra’s tailored suit.
* * *
Drago’s nostrils flared as he looked at the woman before him. The color in her cheeks was high as she righted her tray before spilling the contents down the front of his Savile Row suit. Her eyes snapped fire at him and her mouth twisted in a frown.
“If you will excuse me, sir, I have drinks to deliver.”
Her voice was harder than he remembered it. Her face and body were plumper, but in a good way. She’d needed to round out her curves, though he’d thought she was perfectly well formed at the time. This extra weight, however, made her into a sultry, beautiful woman rather than a naive girl.
A girl who’d tried to trick him. He hadn’t forgotten that part. His jaw hardened as he remembered the way she’d so blissfully confessed her deception to him. She’d come to New York armed with perfume samples that she hoped to sell to his company, and she’d cost him valuable time and money with her pretense. It wasn’t the first time a woman had tried to use him for her own ends, but it had been a pretty spectacular failure on his part. He’d had to scrap every picture from the photo shoot and start again with a new model, which had been a shame when he’d seen the photos and realized how perfect she’d been in the role.
