Read Online A Debt Paid in Passion by Dani Collins - Free Book Online

admonition in favor of reminding him her work ethic had been rock solid. She looked up at him and he met her gaze with an inscrutable frown and a tic in his cheek.
    “I expect you to tell me what your needs are, Sirena. I’m not a mind reader. We’ll go to your room now so you can rest. Can you manage these stairs with me or shall I have a room prepared down here?”
    “Upstairs is fine, but Lucy will need a feed before I lie down.” She deliberately kept her gaze on the baby and not on these beloved surroundings. Silly, naive fool that she was, she used to host fantasies about one day being mistress here. She loved everything about its eclectic style.
    The lounge where she moved to nurse was one of her favorite rooms, with its Mediterranean colors, contemporary furniture and view to the English garden. Raoul had a lot of worldly influences in his life, from his Spanish mother’s ancestry of warmth and sensuality to his father’s Swiss precision. He had been educated in America, so he brought those modern, pop-culture elements into his world with contemporary art and futuristic electronics. All of his homes were classy, comfortable and convenient.
    And all contained the one ingredient to which she was drawn inexorably: him.
    He stood in profile to her, lean and pantherish, thumb sweeping across the screen of his mobile as he dealt with all the things she used to do for him. Her heart panged. She had loved working for him, loved the job that challenged her. Transcribing had put her through business school and kept her fed these last months, so she couldn’t knock it, but it didn’t take her off her steno chair, let alone around the world.
    “Are you going in to the office this afternoon?” she asked, of two minds whether she wanted him to leave. Being on guard against him drained her, but another secret part of her drank up his nearness like a cactus in a rare rain.
    “They’re asking the same. Things are in disarray. When you delivered, I had only starting to put things in place for an absence I thought would happen next month.”
    “I’m sorry,” she said, feeling the habitual words leave her lips and thinking, Why are you apologizing? It’s not your fault!
    “A warning that premature delivery was a possibility would have been helpful.”
    The supercilious remark got her back up. “I didn’t need the extra stress of you hanging over me telling me what to do,” she said with acerbity. “I followed doctor’s orders and tried to go to term, which is all I could do. If you’re inconvenienced by the early birth, well, welcome to parenthood. I believe we’re both in for adjustments.”
    “A little communication goes a long way, is what I’m saying. Keeping things to yourself is a theme that keeps getting you into trouble.” His deceptively silky tone rang with danger.
    “Oh, and you gave me ample opportunity to communicate after informing me through the arrest charges that you knew money had gone missing?”
    “Before that,” he snapped. His jaw was like iron, his gray eyes metallic and locked down, but he did darken a shade with something that might have been culpability. “You could have told me you were having financial troubles and we could have worked something out. Stealing from me was unacceptable.”
    “I agree. That’s why I only borrowed.”
    “So you’ve said,” he ground through his teeth. “But if you—”
    Lucy made a little sputter. Sirena quickly sat her up, glancing at Raoul to finish his sentence, but he had stopped speaking to stare openly at her nude breast. She’d come to the demoralizing realization that there was no dignity in childbirth and there wasn’t much more afterward. You needed two hands on a newborn, leaving none for tucking yourself back into a bra that had more jibs and sails than a yacht.
    “You burp her,” she ordered out of self-conscious embarrassment, screening herself with an elbow and quickly covering up once he’d taken the baby. It was an