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It’s hard not to go to her in this moment, to offer comfort as she grieves her mother. My mom is one of the few people I still trust in this world. Alessandra has no one.

“I’ll hire someone.”

Alessandra’s pronouncement wipes away the sentimental bullshit and reminds me that whatever we had that night is gone.

“You would rather waste money on a stranger than let the father of your child help?”

“Look at us, Sullivan,” she snaps back. “Three out of four times we’ve ever seen each other have been a disaster. How are we going to survive an entire week? And how can you give up—” her voice trails off and she waves one hand in my direction “—whatever it is you do with your security company to just monitor me on the off-chance I keel over?”

“To answer your first question, given that we’re going to be connected for a lifetime, we better be able to figure out a week.” The color drains from her face. “And as to the second, I own the company. I can delegate any work I need to. This is more important.”

Silence stretches between us. The machines continue to beep relentlessly in the background. At last, Alessandra speaks, so softly it takes a moment to register.

“All right.”

There’s no sense of victory. No rush of success. Just a hollowness as the mother of my child looks as if she’s lost something very important.

She eases back down onto the pillows. “I’d like some time to myself.”

I want to lay a comforting hand over hers or offer a shoulder for her to lean on, the desire to touch her so strong it’s almost a compulsion.

So I step back, skirt around the bed and head for the door. She needs space. So do I. Given how strongly I’m reacting to her, time apart to evaluate everything that’s happened is in both our best interests. My reactions to her are understandable given the nature of her revelation and the massive upheaval to my life. But I need to get my guard back up, solidify my walls before she comes to stay with me for a week.

I open the door and walk out without a backward glance.

CHAPTER FOUR

Alessandra

I thought myview of New York from my corner office was unparalleled. But as I sit on the terrace of Michail’s penthouse ninety-one floors above Fifth Avenue, I’m forced to admit it doesn’t hold a candle to this.

The entire city is spread out beneath me. As night rolls across the sky, lanterns flick on in Central Park beneath me, dots of gold glimmering behind leafy trees. The lake is a wandering, dark shape toward the north end of the park, a natural oasis amid steel and stone. Skyscrapers, towers and the thousands of other buildings that make up Manhattan glitter with millions of lights.

It’s beautiful. Stunning. The kind of view most people will never see in a lifetime. But instead of relaxing and enjoying myself, I’m tense, waiting for Michail to make an appearance. We’ve seen each other a few times today. But almost all our interactions have been less than five minutes and consisted of Michail asking if I was okay, if I was eating, and then disappearing upstairs to his office.

Leaving me torn between relief and irritation.

A chilly breeze stirs my hair and makes me shiver. The doctor finally cleared me to leave this morning. A nurse wheeled me out a private entrance where Michail was waiting with his car,a sleek Rolls-Royce with tiny lights embedded in the ceiling and black leather seats that felt like I was sinking into a cloud. He thankfully turned on the radio for our thirty-minute drive to my apartment in Queens. He insisted on walking me up. I countered with ordering him to stay in the hallway. When I go back, I need that space to still be mine. To not carry any memories associated with Michail.

I packed a few essentials, then dosed for the ride back to Manhattan. I woke up when Michail pulled into the private parking garage beneath Central Park Tower. The three-minute ride from beneath New York to one of the tallest floors in the world felt like an eternity. He stayed on the other side of the elevator, his handsome face dark and brooding, his gaze fixed on the control panel. Once we reached his penthouse, he gave me a quick tour of the four-bedroom, five-bathroom space, including my own bedroom with more jaw-dropping views and a marble soaking tub.

It took every ounce of control I had not to let my relief show on my face when he had to go into the office for one last meeting before working from home the rest of the week. It gave me an hour to explore my new surroundings and, yes, snoop. The penthouse is inherently masculine, black-trimmed furniture with hunter green cushions, offset by pale-colored walls and the massive windows that made me feel like I was on the same level as the sun. The rooms practically glowed in the midday light.

But my exploration was jarring, too. Glimpses of the man behind the seductive lover I knew in Santorini and the cold, calculating scion of his own security empire. A spy thriller left on an end table with a bookmark stuck between the pages. A surprising number of watercolors, mostly landscapes, on the walls.

I hadn’t gone past the threshold of his room; that would have been creepy. But I did stand in the doorway and glance around,noting the massive bed with a black headboard and a divan in that same shade of dark green arranged in front of another epic window. I could easily imagine lying there on a day when the clouds hung low over the city and feeling like I was living in the sky. And then turning as Michail entered the room, stretching out my hand as I invited him to join me—

I’d slammed the brakes on my runaway imagination and turned to leave when I’d spied the framed photograph on his bedside table. Michail and an older woman with silver hair falling over her shoulder in a long braid. He had one arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders, a huge smile on both their faces.

His mother.

His smile had slammed against the walls I’d constructed around my heart. So too had the protective, loving way he held his mother against him as they stood on a cliff overlooking the ocean.

I’d wanted to learn more about the father of my child. And I did, including that he likes to read and enjoys brandy, judging by the very expensive bottles I spied in his pantry. And chocolate. The man has enough bags of M&Ms in his kitchen pantry to last through an apocalypse.

But the experience was also intimate, little insights into a man I crave and detest in equal measure. I’d gone back downstairs and grabbed a fantasy book off the shelf in his living room before settling into the deep cushions. No more snooping. No more insight into a man who continues to tempt me to break every promise I ever made to my mother to keep myself safe.

To not make the same mistake she did and fall for a handsome face hiding an ugly soul.