Modern Romance March 2021 Book 5-8 Carol Marinelli (ebook reader computer txt) 📖

“The doctor is even now setting up an exam room in one of the guest bedrooms. He will perform a full examination.”

“A prison infirmary,” she replied gaily. “What a treat.”

Kendra looked at him then and she wished she hadn’t.

Because looking at Balthazar...hurt.

He looked like exactly who and what he was. The devil, one of the richest men alive, and her enemy.

All wrapped up in that brooding, near brutal intensity and a dark, bespoke suit that proclaimed his power to the whole of the Mediterranean.

If he was less beautiful, would she be less...thrown?

It shouldn’t matter how beautiful he is, she snapped at herself. It should only matter that he’s locked you away on this island.

“I don’t know why you bothered to come,” she continued, keeping her voice brighter than it should have been. “At this point, wouldn’t it be easier if you just stayed away? I can raise your child in shame and solitude all by myself.”

“I doubt you feel anything approaching shame,” he said, with one of those hard laughs that nearly made her shiver, though she sat in the sunshine. “And it is of no matter, anyway. I have no intention of leaving you here forever, no matter how tempting the prospect. Like it or not, you will be the mother of my child. And I am Balthazar Skalas. There are certain conventions that need to be followed.”

“I can’t imagine what you mean. More kidnaps? More insults and accusations? I can hardly wait.”

His smile then was wintry. It made something cold and bright flash over her, worse than before.

“Why, Kendra. I thought you knew.”

That he seemed to be enjoying himself made her shudder, and she knew he saw it.

He thinks he’s beaten me, Kendra thought, and found she was holding her breath.

“I’ve come to congratulate you, of course,” Balthazar told her. His dark eyes gleamed with satisfaction. Worse, with triumph. “As we are to be married tomorrow.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

IT WAS ALMOST worth the fact that Balthazar was marrying her against his will, if at his command, to see that stunned look on Kendra’s face.

Better still, a flash of temper besides, proving she wasn’t nearly as calm or collected as she sometimes acted.

Balthazar almost slipped and showed her how much her reaction pleased him, but caught himself just in time. She didn’t deserve to see his own responses, but why should he be the only person dreading the inevitable? She was a Connolly, she had conspired against him from the start with her vile father and brother, and this was her fault.

He ignored the voice inside him that reminded him that her conspiracies could not have gained any ground had he not lost his head completely and sampled her without protecting himself. The way he’d been ignoring that voice for weeks.

But he didn’t like to think about that. He was appalled that he’d lost control of himself so utterly, when his father had spent long years teaching him how to strip any and all emotions out of every last moment and situation. Even sex was meant to be a release, nothing more.

Nothing...overwhelming.

He wrestled himself back under control. As he should have done from the start.

“I will not be marrying you,” she shot back at him, predictably. She bristled in her hanging chair and he watched dispassionately as she struggled to pull herself out of its embrace, then stood. Rather rounder than the last time he’d seen her, though he refused to focus on that. On what her fuller figure meant. “Not tomorrow. Not ever.”

“You’re beginning to bore me,” he replied, almost idly, and knew he sounded sterner than perhaps he’d intended when she stiffened. “You will not do this, you will not do that. I suggest you come up with a new song. In the meantime, the doctor is waiting.”

“What magical powers I must possess that I can bore you in six seconds after your absence of six weeks. Maybe the problem is your attention span.”

Balthazar did not lower himself to sniping with her, especially because he wanted to do just that. He gestured toward the archway that led into the house and waited for her to obey him.

For a moment, he wasn’t sure what she would do. Refuse? Fight him? Worse, he wasn’t entirely sure what he planned to do if she did either of those things. Nor could he read the expressions that chased each other across her lovely, flushed face when she swept past him, though he got the overall impression of feminine fury.

She would be his wife come the morning. She was carrying his child.

She was his enemy.

All good reasons not to want her with that greedy, driving need that had gotten him into this mess in the first place. And yet Balthazar had to order himself to stand down. To keep his hands to himself. To stop himself before he made this unfortunate situation worse.

He, who could stare down the most powerful men alive and make them regret catching his eye, could barely control himself in the presence of a woman who should have disgusted him.

It was an outrage and it never eased. Three years hadn’t dulled his reaction. Why had he assured himself six weeks would do the trick this time?

Balthazar had no answer. Instead, once inside, he led her down the long, bright hallway, across an interior courtyard covered in pink bougainvillea, then ushered her into the set of rooms his staff had rearranged so they could stand in for a medical suite.

And because he knew his doctor would report to him in full, he left her there.

Though he would have died before admitting it, and by his own hand, he was happy for the breathing room.

Because the truth was that Balthazar had been utterly unprepared for the sight of her.

The glow he’d seen in France and had attributed to the lighting at her cottage—or the glory of the Côte d’Azur itself—was worse now. Or better, more like. She was a gleaming, bright and