She gave a humorless smile. “I know you, Antonio.”
“You don’t know everything,” he said tightly. No one knew about his childhood—he’d made sure of that. He himself had tried to forget how he’d been shown, over and over, that he hadn’t been wanted as a child, not by anyone. Twice, foster families had brought him home from the orphanage. Twice, he’d been sent right back. The final time, when he was six years old, it had been because his foster mother had unexpectedly become pregnant. “Nothing personal, boy,” his foster father had explained kindly. “But we’re having our own baby now, so we don’t need you anymore.”
Broken.
Yes. Hana was right. She did know him. She’d seen the dark truth in his soul that he’d spent his life trying to hide. The secret no one else knew about Antonio Delacruz, playboy airline billionaire: there was some huge flaw in his soul. Something monstrous about him that had made his birth parents decide to abandon him when he was just hours old, leaving their nameless newborn in a basket on the steps of a Spanish church in the middle of the night.
“What happened to you?” Hana asked gently, drawing closer. “Why would you have a vasectomy when you were only eighteen? How could you already know you never wanted to be a father?”
Her questions felt like stabs through his heart. He couldn’t let her see through his armor to the weakness beneath. He couldn’t. Not anyone. But especially not her.
She was getting too close. Fortunately, he knew exactly how to push people away—by attacking their weaknesses, to distract them from seeing his.
Stepping back from her as the soft cherry petals whirled around them in the park, he said in a bored voice, “Why did I get a vasectomy? Because I’m a selfish bastard, obviously. Which as you said, you know better than anyone. Which begs the question.” His eyes pierced hers. “Why did you kiss me that night?”
Hana’s cheeks darkened to deep pink as she looked away. She mumbled something.
“What?”
Looking at her feet, she said, “When you told me you were going to sell the house in Madrid,” her voice became stilted, “it made me sad.”
Antonio didn’t understand. “Why would you care if I sold the palacio? We’re only there a week or two a month.”
“Because I was happy there. I made friends there. It felt almost like...like home.”
He didn’t know what she was talking about. The palacio was a trophy to him, nothing more. He’d bought it as a big middle finger to everyone in Spain who’d thought him worthless as a boy. But he didn’t need it anymore. He was ready to move on. Strange that she’d come to think of it as home.
He licked his lips. “That still doesn’t explain why you kissed me.”
Hana took a deep, agonized breath. “It was a mistake. I never should have kissed you. No matter how many years I’d wanted you.”
Antonio couldn’t move. She’d wanted him? For years?
“I should have quit my job right then,” she said. “I’ve spent too long traveling from place to place, when all I’ve ever really wanted is a real home. A place in the world that’s mine. A home no one can ever take from me.”
He stared down at her.
“I never wanted a home,” he said finally.
Her lips curved at the edges. “I know. You built an airline to make sure you’re never stuck in one place too long. Not with one place. Not with one person.”
Antonio’s gaze fell to her lips. He felt a flash of heat. Everything she’d said about him was true.
So why had he been faithful to Hana—not just since their night together, but even before, since Christmas Eve?
For years, he’d tried to deny his attraction to her. He was her boss, and she was his valuable employee. But his desire for Hana had never ended. Even now, he was still racked with it, body and soul. More than ever. His nerve endings strummed with need. He felt her every movement, her every breath.
“I never should have slept with you,” Hana choked out. “I should have waited for a man I could marry.”
Antonio clamped down on a sudden emotion in his heart, emotion he didn’t want to identify. He said harshly, “So you admit you want marriage.”
“Of course I do.” She looked again at the families picnicking in the April sunshine of the park, beneath the flowering cherry trees. “I want a man who will be my partner. A man who will help me build a home. Who will love our child and be there for us, every single day.” Her eyes focused on Antonio. “That man won’t be you.”
He felt a strange twist through his solar plexus. As two men passed by on the path, Antonio saw their eyes linger on her.
Hana wouldn’t be alone for long, he knew. She was too beautiful, too kind, too warm. He’d seen the way men looked at her. She could have any man she wanted, begging to bed her, to wed her, to raise her child. Starting with Ren Tanaka.
With her early pregnancy, there was a new lushness about her, not just her ripening body, but her lovely face, her dark eyes glimmering with new confidence and power. She wasn’t deferential to Antonio as she’d once been. Why would she be? He was no longer her boss. No longer her lover. She’d already rejected him as her baby’s father. With better reason than she even knew.