page17 (1/2)

‘He won’t,’ he clipped back, i, it will be at the car, not the passengers If you’re that worried, you can slide down the seat so that you’re completely out of view’

‘But why?’ she questioned ‘Why risk it?’

Why indeed? Even Dimitri was perplexed by his own reaction Was it just to convince himself it was true—because he was the kind of man who liked to see the evidence with his own eyes? Or because his love of risk wasn’t as deeply buried as he’d thought?

He stretched his fingers out and then bent the in the close confines of the car ‘We’ll wait five o’

He could feel her tension rising as the minutes ticked by He could see it in the stiff set of her shoulders and he felt a grian to shift nervously in her seat Now ht she understand how it felt to be powerless?

‘Please, Dimitri,’ she said

But then soed—softened—it was like a flower opening to the sun Following the direction of her gaze, he looked out of theas a little boy ran along the road with an unknoo a plastic lunch box in one hand and a flapping piece of paper in the other

Diliolden hair and bizarrely found hisback to his own childhood He remembered the professional photo his parents used to insist on being taken every year on his birthday—stiff-looking portraits where nobody was s There hadn’t been a lot to smile about, despite the wealth and the lavish home and the servants

But this little boy

His heart clenched

This little boy was laughing as he pushed open the door and disappeared inside the café His features looked so like Dimitri’s own and yet they were completely different—transformed by a wave of sheer happiness

Di to shift the dryness in his throat He had expected to feel nothing but distance when he first saw the child—and hadn’t part of him wanted that? He kne much easier it would be if he could just turn his back and walk away frohted to see the back of hihted not to have to endure two days in a strange country with a ry with her He could speak to his bank and arrange to have the child funded until he was eighteen If he performed well at school or showed some of his father’s natural acuiven a role within Dianisation And if he proved himself worthy, there was no reason why one day he shouldn’t inherit some—maybe all—of Dimitri’s vast fortune, for he had never planned for hie and fatherhood

So as that i? Why was there a stab of so deep in his heart which he couldn’t quite define? A feeling of pride and possessiveness, like the day when he’d picked up his first super-yacht—only this was stronger Much, er