He wanted her baby. She had suspected it since her call to the Paris apartment, but hearing him say it was like being tossed into a black hole and having all the air out of the universe at one time. She put her hands protectively over her tummy as if by doing so she could somehow prevent him from carrying through on his monstrous plan.

“You can’t have him.”

“You say him. Do you mean to say you know he is a boy?” Should she lie? Would he fight any less ruthlessly for a daughter? The implacable expression on his face said not.

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“I had an ultrasound at four months.” An expression of dawning understanding came over his hardened features.

“That’s why you called the apartment.”

She refused to answer. His hands fisted against the Italian suit wool covering his thighs.

“You were going to tell me our baby was to be a boy.” He sounded astonished by the fact. Why shouldn’t he be? He’d treated her like the lowest of the low, denied his paternity, ditched her to marry another woman and evicted her from their apartment like a bad tenant ninety days past lease. And she’d called to tell him the of their child. How stupidly sentimental could any one woman be? An expression like grief passed over his face, though what he had to grieve about, she could not imagine.

“And you spoke to Phoebe.”

Why bother answering? He knew the details already.

“You refused to tell her where you were.”

“Do you blame me?”

His jaw clenched. “Funnily enough. Yes. I can blame you. Phoebe begged you to tell her where you were and you refused. I’ve spent months of fruitless searching and hired no less than five world-class detective agencies, only to be told by all of them that Alexandra ceased to exist.”

“They were right.”

“Yet, here you are.”

“No. Here you see Harumi Hitome. I will never be Alexandra again.” She would never allow herself to be vulnerable to the man she had loved as Alexandra again, either.

“You told me you were an orphan.” She felt twist cynically.

“No. That is what your agency told you when you had me investigated as a suitable candidate to be your lover. I just never denied it.”

“You created an entire persona for yourself.”

“Yes.”

“You lied to me every day of our association.”

Association? Was that anything like a relationship gone sour? “I did not lie to you.”

“You let me call you Alexandra.”

“Many models use a working name.”

“Only now you lived a life completely separate from this reality now I find. That woman, Chessie, she is your sister?”

“Yes. Hunter is her husband.”

His brows rose in mockery. “I had figured that out.”

She clenched her fists so she wouldn’t hit him. He laughed, but it was a sound without mirth.

“Don’t try it. Your sister already slapped me.” He lifted his plastered hand as a silent indicator of that wound. “I’m in no mood to sustain further injury.”

“Poor you,” she jeered.

“Keep pushing it and my temper will override my patience.”

Remembering the inimical fury he’d exhibited the day she told him of her pregnancy, she shivered.

“I used to think you were such a cool guy, no scenes, no temper tantrums, all sleek sophisticated male.”

“Do not forget rich.”

“I don’t care about your filthy money. I never did.”

“Yet it will be difficult for you to win against it, should you attempt to withhold my child from me.”

Fear tried to take hold, but she refused to give into it.

“You don’t scare me. This isn’t London. You can’t take my baby away from me just because you’re rich and male. Japan family law is heavily balanced in the mother’s favor.”

She’d looked into it as soon as she’d hit Japan. She’d known even then that if Seungri ever decided to claim her child, she would be facing difficulties ahead.

“Perhaps, but can you afford the constant legal battles? The draining expense of hiring top-notch lawyers to plead your case.” The picture he painted was a bleak one.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to keep my child.”

“Anything?”

“Yes! Anything.”

“Then come with your baby to my home.” That sent her to her feet in a hurry.

“You arrogant toad! Do you honestly believe I would go anywhere with you after everything that has happened?” Her stomach churned. Did he think she was such a dope that she would let him set her and their son up somewhere convenient while he lived happy families with Phoebe? Another ugly thought followed the last one.

“I won’t be your mistress,” she hissed with enough venom to slay him. He too shot out of his chair.

“I’m not looking for a mistress.”

“Good, because I won’t be one. Not ever. I learned all I wanted to know about having uncommitted with a guy so primitive he should be in a museum. The next time I have with a man, I’m going to have a ring on my finger and an a vowel of love to go with it!”

“Just who is this man?” he demanded in a near roar.

“I don’t know, but when I find him, he won’t be anything like you!”

“You think not?” Then he reached out and grabbed the lapels of his suit jacket again, yanking her to him.

“I think this mythical man will be just like me because he will be me. No other man touches the mother of my child.”

He’d said the words a breath above her lips and then closed the distance. And the electric current of desire was there, waiting, lurking in her deepest subconscious to come to the fore with the first touch of his mouth to hers.

She went under so fast, she didn’t even have time to despise herself for her weakness. His mouth moved over hers with truly possessive passion and she responded like a woman deprived of physical intimacy for years.

Her hands locked around his neck, her body stretched to press itself to his and opened in serious invitation. He took it and deepened the kiss even as his hands caressed her back, pressing her closer to him, letting her feel his heat and his excitement.

Blatant evidence of that excitement brought her to her senses and she shoved herself away from him so fast and so hard, she stumbled backward and fell flat on her bottom. He was on his knees beside in her in a second.

“You foolish woman! You could have hurt yourself. Are you trying to kill our son? Are you all right?”

His hands were doing a hasty examination of her and her body was getting the wrong message entirely from those impersonal touches. She slapped his hands away.

“Stop it. I’m fine.” Her bottom was sore, but she wasn’t about to tell him that.

“Babies are resilient. I’m not going to lose him from such a small fall.” Oh Lord, please let that be true.

“You would take such a risk?” He glared at her. “What other risks have you taken with our child?”

If she’d had a gun, she would have shot him, or at least at him…to scare him a little and wipe that condescending look of censure off his face.

“It’s not my fault you acted like a lecher and kissed me. What was I supposed to do, tolerate it?”

He swelled with affronted pride. “You have never merely tolerated my kiss in your life.”

She had no argument to that, so she didn’t try making one. “Married men are not supposed to kiss women other than their wives,” she said instead.

He shrugged. “I agree. Does this worry you?”

Was he for real? Of course it worried her. He was married to Phoebe and he’d just soul-kissed Harumi.

“Am I crazy, or are you?” she asked, feeling helplessly bewildered.

His mouth twisted in a grimace. “I have been crazy since the first report from the private investigators trying to locate you. They had not a single lead and you had disappeared in one of the largest cities in the world.”

He tucked the suit coat around her slender shoulders once again, then leaned down and lifted her in his arms. Was there something about imminent fatherhood that made the male of the species go all basic?

She could remember only one other time he’d carried her during their year together and that had been one night she’d had a little too much champagne and fallen asleep in the car on the way home. Yet, tonight, he’d picked her up like he owned her. Twice.

“Please put me down, SeungHyun.” It was a sign of how vulnerable she felt that she made it a request instead of a demand. Either way, he did not comply.

“I do not think I should. You are too volatile right now.”

She closed her eyes in frustration. “I’ll control myself if you keep your hands and lips to yourself.”

“I cannot promise this.”

“Poor Phoebe. Does she know what an unfaithful letch she is married to?”

“Phoebe is married to a man of absolute honor,” he replied, his voice laced with furious affront.

“You? Don’t make me laugh,” she scorned. “A man with integrity did not marry one woman after impregnating another.”

Seungri sat down, keeping Harumi pinned in his lap. His brown gaze scorched into hers. “You believe I am married to Phoebe? And you believe I have no honor?” The last was said with escalating anger.

“I suppose you’re going to try to tell me you’re not married to your little British paragon.”

“This is true. I am not.” Harumi closed her eyes. She didn’t know why, but she hadn’t expected him to lie to her. She opened them again and stared into his deceitful face.

“She told me she was your wife, so you can just forget about the smoothly exceptions.”

“She would not have told you she was my wife.” His voice was filled with such conviction that Harumi thought back to the devastating phone call.

“She told me she was Mrs. Lee.”

“But then she told you she was married to my brother.”

“What?”

“She told you she had wed my brother.”

“She did no such thing!” But she could have. Harumi remembered the voice still talking as she’d ended the call. Seungri wouldn’t let her look away from him, his compelling eyes holding hers hostage.

“She did.”

“But…”

“She also pleaded with you to tell her where you were.”

Harumi remembered that part.

“I wasn’t about to have a heart-to-heart with your new wife.”

“She is not my wife.”

“Prove it.” In his shock at her demand, Seungri grip loosened and Harumi extricated herself from his lap, this time much more carefully.

“You say you are not married to Phoebe. Well, I don’t trust you anymore, SeungHyun. If you want me to believe it, you’ll have to bring me proof.”

He shot to his feet again, all outraged male. “How dare you question my word?”

“You wouldn’t believe how easy it is,” she admitted. That seemed to shake him.

“I will get you the proof you require,” he said angrily.

“Fine. Until then, I suggest you go.”

“I am not letting you out of my sight again.”

“What do you propose, setting up camp outside my sister’s door and dogging my every footstep?”

“Count on it, but I have no desire to sleep in a hallway. You can come with me to my suite.”

“No way. I’m not staying in a hotel room with you.”

“There are two bedrooms, though there was a time you would not have required the other one.” She glared at his, to her mind, savagely insensitive reminder.

“Forget it. I’m not going.”

“Then I will stay here. It is a large apartment. I’m sure your sister has a spare room I could use.” She felt flummoxed.

“You can’t stay here. My sister would have a hissy fit. She hates you.”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Speaking of hissy fits, your brother-in-law implied your mother would have one if you were featured in a scandalous article.”

Harumi couldn’t prevent her eyes from rolling in exasperation. “Yes.” She’d spent six years living as someone else to protect her mother’s sense of family dignity.

Seungri was speaking again. “She would be most upset to see an exposé interview with her daughter’s discarded tycoon lover and rejected father of her child.”

Her body didn’t know whether to go faint or boil with fury at his implied threat and twisting of the facts.

“I didn’t discard you. You dumped me to marry Phoebe, don’t you remember?”

“I am not married to Phoebe.”

“You don’t have to have committed a murder to be guilty of a crime.”

Instead of getting angrier, he smiled. “Are you saying you believe I did not marry her?”

“No!”

“You still require proof?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’ll have to convince your sister to give me a bed for the night because I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

“And if I don’t, you’re going to make sure my family’s name gets a good smearing in the tabloids, is that it?” she asked with all the derision at her disposal. He didn’t even flinch.

“Yes.”

“I despise you.”

“Not hate?”

“No. I don’t love you anymore, but I refuse to hate you. Part of you is in my child and I won’t ever have my child believing there is anything about him I could hate.” Her son deserved better than a mother eaten up by bitterness. A look she could not decipher settled on Seungri chiselled features.

“That is commendable. Now, shall we talk to your sister about my accommodation?”

In the end, Harumi decided it would be better to accompany Seungri to his suite. The mere thought of trying to work out the current complications in her life with her younger sister breathing fire at Seungri left her cold.

Harumi not want Chessie and Hunter forced into a position of enmity with a man of Seungri’s wealth and power because of her. Going to Seungri’s suite was the only workable solution.

It wasn’t going to be all that bad, she decided. She didn’t need to worry about Seungri getting to her. She was well and truly over him. The kiss had just been physical reaction to memories and she wouldn’t let it happen again. All that was left between them was to determine how they would handle his role in her son’s life.