Page 117 of The Billionaire's Baby

"What?"

"I need to puke." I yank my hand from his hold, jump up to my feet and race to the doorway

I wrench open the door, race out and stare about me. Oh, shit, where do I need to go? Where’s the bathroom? Arpad reaches me. He scoops me up in his arms, races down the corridor, shoulders open a door and darts in, then deposits me near the commode. I drop to my knees, and hurl. Ugh.

I retch and retch, emptying the contents of my stomach. My hair is pulled back and held. Bloody hell. How romantic. The man I’d fucked… Who I’d fallen for, who had tricked me into the kind of arrangement I’d wanted to avoid my entire life... When I finally stop, he reaches over and tears off a sheet of tissue paper for me. I wipe my face with it, while he reaches over and flushes.

I slump back against the wall, too exhausted to move. He scoops me up in his arms again.

"Don’t touch me." I whisper, but he doesn’t acknowledge me. He walks over to the counter, lowers me to the ground, then turns on the tap. I reach over, rinse out my mouth, then splash water over my face. He hands me a paper towel. I turn away, snatch up a different tissue and pat my face dry.

"Better?" he asks. "Is it something you ate? Do you want to lie down?"

"It’s the bloody company I am keeping right now that’s making me want to throw up," I snap.

He stiffens, reaches for me. I evade him, drop the tissue in the waste-paper basket and walk out.

"Sparks?" He draws abreast. I speed up my pace. The last thing I want to do is talk to him.

"Karina." He grips my shoulder.

I angle my body and pull away from him.

"Karina, please listen to me."

"No," I yell, "you lost the right to ask anything of me."

His features tighten and a nerve throbs at his temple. "Don’t talk to me like that."

"Oh yeah?" I stab a finger into his chest. "How about, I don’t talk to you at all? You dare dictate to me about how to converse with you? When you are the one who’s pulled a fast one on me all this time?"

"It’s not what it seems."

"Ha!" I blow out a breath and the hair on my forehead rises. "That’s what they all say. Pray, tell me, what it is then? You are in cahoots with my family, you know how much I hate their profession, how I’ve tried to keep away from anything related to them, personally—"

"Even as you helped us investigate the Mafia who are behind our kidnapping?"

"The Mafia are Sicilians; they are different from the Bratva, who are Russian in origin." Why the hell do I feel the need to point that out. Apparently, even though I'd tried to keep myself aloof from my family, their biases and opinions had rubbed off on me.

"Besides, that was professional," I mutter.

"So is this."

I gape at him.

"Bloody hell." He sets his jaw. "I didn’t mean it that way."

"You’re the one who’s always said that he never says anything he doesn’t mean."

"No, I said I wouldn’t lie to you."

“And isn’t this a lie of omission?”

He drags his fingers through his hair and I stare. Jesus, this man... I’ve only seen him as authoritative and confident, but this… The way he stares at me with an unreadable expression in his gaze... It’s not something I would have expected.

"I admit my interest in you started off as a way to get in your pants." He shifts his weight from foot to foot. "Then when your father and brothers approached me with the proposal of marrying you—"

I snort, his gaze narrows, and he shoves his hands into his pocket, "—that's when I decided to offer you the contract to run security for the Seven," he says.