Jed Salvatore ended the video conference he'd been holding with someone on the other side of the Pacific. It had gone well. It was eight o'clock in the evening, and he was finally done with work.
He ran a hand through his hair and thought of Isabella. He'd managed not to think about her for a couple of hours, but he was out of excuses now.
Marixa, his secretary, stepped into the office.
"Do you need anything else from me?"
"No, you can go," he said.
"You look tired, Jed. Let me bring you a whisky and give you a massage — you'll be able to relax."
"The whisky, yes. The massage, no." He looked at his secretary, surprised she'd offered. He must look terrible.
Marixa was a very attractive brunette and an exceptionally efficient worker. He considered himself lucky to have her as a secretary — she never made mistakes. She would never have gotten herself pregnant.
Isabella was much younger, twenty-one, and he'd been her first. Maybe the pregnancy really had been an accident.
"Here's your whisky." Marixa set the glass on the desk and placed the bottle beside it. Then she moved closer and rested her hand on his shoulder. "Are you sure you don't want that massage?"
"I'm sure, Marixa. Go home. I'll be fine."
"All right." She leaned down and murmured in his ear, "Don't forget we're leaving for Paris tomorrow — try to get some rest."
She's just worried about me, he thought as she left the office. Then he remembered how little he'd worried about Isabella that morning.
He picked up the glass and took a long swallow.
When had he become such a cynical, hardheaded bastard?
He'd never wanted to get married, but he'd always known that someday he'd have a child — an heir for his fortune. He'd had a happy childhood, a beautiful family, parents who loved him and two sisters who adored him.
At least, it had been that way until his mother died fifteen years ago, when he was twenty. Things with his father had grown rocky after that, once Victorino remarried — a much younger woman, a social climber, a cheap little schemer who flirted openly with Jed every time he went to visit.
He poured another glass. He didn't trust women — with the exception of his mother and his sisters. He'd never thought about getting married. But he also knew that no child of his would ever be a bastard.
Isabella. His beautiful, sexy Isabella. Would marrying her really be so terrible? They'd been together a year. When he'd met her in that restaurant, he'd pursued her for a month before she agreed to go out with him, then waited another month before taking her to bed — and to his surprise, she'd been a virgin. They got along well, in every way, right up until that morning when she'd told him she was pregnant. She was his most responsive lover, and as far as he knew she had never been unfaithful. The thought of her with anyone else disgusted him.
He'd made up his mind. If everything went the way he intended, he would make Isabella an honest woman.
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Comments
🤍Lee🩶
Sometimes what you weren't looking for arrives without asking permission.
2026-01-21
1
Debbie Lloyd-Moyer
Free sex with no strings attached to him. Wow
2025-06-12
0
Irma Medina
He is so immature he acts like teenage
2025-06-10
3