A home. Emotion hit her. How could she refuse? Hana took a deep breath.
“Fine,” she said quietly. “You can be in our baby’s life. You’re the father. The baby can have your name.”
Antonio’s shoulders seemed to relax slightly. He looked at her. “And you will marry me.”
But on that precipice, she shivered with fear. Allowing him to help raise their baby was one thing. But to willingly promise to spend the rest of her life with a playboy who’d never love her? Her heart wasn’t as cold as his.
But he was offering her everything she’d once dreamed about. A real home for their baby. Marriage. A settled family. Stability. Security.
“Where would we live?” she heard herself ask in a small voice.
“Madrid,” he said huskily. “In the house you already love.”
Madrid. She looked away, her heart in her throat. She thought of the palacio, all the people she’d come to care about, the company’s world headquarters, the warm Spanish sun and palm trees rustling softly in the wind. Madrid. “I... I don’t know.”
Silence fell.
“Get dressed,” he said suddenly.
Surprised, she looked at him. “For what?”
Antonio gave her a crooked smile. “Didn’t you offer to show me the sights of Tokyo?”
“Yes, but...what about the Iyokan deal?”
“It can wait.” He went back to the foyer, returning with an expensive designer overnight bag. He flashed her a grin. “Garcia delivered this an hour ago when I called for room service.”
She watched as he opened the bag. “What are you doing?”
Glancing through the window at the bright sun and blue sky, he pulled out a black jacket, white button-down shirt and black trousers. “You’re going to show me what you love about this city.” His lips curved as he looked up at her, then glanced suggestively at the bed. “Unless you’d rather linger...”
“No,” she said quickly. Any more time in bed would surely end with his engagement ring on her finger. She had to resist. Had to. Until he came to his senses and realized marriage was the last thing he wanted. In the meantime she couldn’t let her heart talk her into surrendering her body, her soul and her life!
Safer to be out on the streets, where she wouldn’t be tempted into
wicked pleasures that might lure her into becoming his bride.
Or so Hana thought.
But for the next few hours, as she took Antonio to see the most famous tourist sights of Tokyo, even convincing him to leave his driver and bodyguard behind so they could experience the sidewalks and the notoriously crowded subways, she wasn’t so sure.
Because she’d never seen Antonio like this, so attentive, so good-natured, so darkly charming as he told her amusing stories about how he’d broken into the aviation business, long before they’d met, and the foibles of wealthy acquaintances, stories she’d never heard as his secretary. She was dazzled by his graveled, sexy voice, with its slight Spanish accent, and the burn of his dark eyes every time he looked at her. She kept thinking that any moment, he’d remember the critical importance of the business deal, and announce his departure. But he didn’t.
They visited shrines, parks, museums, peered at buildings constructed for the Olympics, then the noodle museum and lunch. He was always beside her, his hand protectively at the ready. Later, as they took a boat meandering down a waterway that had once been a moat around Edo Castle, she started to shiver in her pale pink sundress and sandals, and he’d pulled off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. But she wasn’t shivering from the cold.
Looking up at him as their small boat went slowly down Chidorigafuchi Moat beneath the blooming cherry trees, Hana’s heart was filled with yearning. How she wished this could be real—that he could be her husband, and she could be his wife, that they could be partners, forever and ever. But she knew the risks. What if he changed his mind? Or worse—what if she gave him her heart and he rejected it?
“What are you thinking?” Antonio said softly. Another thing he’d never said to her before, and that she doubted he’d ever said to any woman.
“Nothing,” she said, looking away. She heard his phone ring from his jacket pocket. Again. It had been ringing incessantly since they’d left the restaurant. “Oh.” Reaching into his jacket still hanging over her shoulders, she handed him the phone, careful not to look at it so she didn’t seem like she was invading his privacy. “Here.”
Taking it, Antonio frowned.
Hana shrank a little, watching him. Who was calling him? Few people had his direct number. Was it another woman? He’d had many mistresses in the past. And time after time, she’d seen him treat those women so casually, discarding them like drive-through wrappers after lunch. Easily consumed, easily forgotten, easily replaced.
Glancing at the phone, Antonio turned it off without comment. He gave it back to her. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Putting it back in the jacket pocket, she told herself she wasn’t going to ask. She had no intention of marrying him, so why would she care who called him?