The angled slant of his cheekbones cast shadows over his features and his mouth was grim and unsmiling. She had never seen his powerful body look quite so tense. The only thing about him which moved was a little muscle which was flickering at his temple. For a moment she swayed with the sheer shock of seeing him, but maybe he’d anticipated that kind of reaction for his hand reached out towards her. Strong fingers clamped around her forearm to steady her, and she could feel the burning warmth of his flesh digging into her icy skin. And God forgive her but her body instantly thrilled to that touch, even though it was more the touch of a captor than a lover. She could feel her shivering response to him, and she wondered if he could feel it, too.

‘What...what are you doing here?’ she demanded shakily as his brilliant gaze scorched through her.

Dante’s heart began to accelerate with anger as he looked into her white face. What did she think he was doing here? Doing a leisurely tour of the Far East and bumping into her quite by chance? Did she imagine he was going to ask her to the bar to join him for one of the hotel’s famous Singapore Slings?

‘You and I need to talk,’ he said grimly.

Justina bit her lip as distracted, crazy thoughts began to rush into her head. What if she called out and told the staff that she was being harassed? Wouldn’t that sound bad, coming from a heavily pregnant woman? Wouldn’t he instantly be ejected from the hotel, and probably from the country itself?

She wasn’t so sure that he would. Dante could smooth-talk his way through most things. She could imagine him turning the full force of his charm on hotel security and managing to convince them that it was her hormones at work. And when it all boiled down to it her hormones were the only reason he was here. He wasn’t here because he missed her or because he wanted her back in his bed. He wanted to speak to her about something which was glaringly obvious to both of them and she must accede to his wishes. She owed him that much, at least.

‘Not here,’ she said, her throat so dry that her words sounded strangled. ‘We can go and have coffee in the Writers’ Bar and—’

‘No,’ he snapped, imperiously cutting through her suggestion. ‘I don’t intend to have this conversation while you play to the crowd, Justina. Take me to your room.’ He saw the brief look which hovered in her eyes and his mouth twisted with derision as he lowered his voice to a deadly hiss. ‘Oh, please don’t worry that I’m about to seduce you. Because let me assure you that’s the last thing on my mind right now. In fact, let me put it even more plainly, just so that we can be very clear about where we stand. If you and I were alone on a desert island I think I’d gladly embrace celibacy rather than risk coming within two feet of you, you manipulative little bitch.’

The vitriol in his voice made Justina’s hand fly to her lips in horror as she looked at him. Did he really hate her that much? But even if he did he had no right to talk to her that way. She was carrying a baby beneath her heart, and even if he wished it wasn’t his baby it was certainly her baby, and she would defend it with every ounce of strength in her body.

So stop letting him intimidate you. Have the talk he wants—the talk you know you owe him.

Because wasn’t this what she had been expecting—and dreading—for months? Wasn’t this very meeting the reason why she’d taken on so many travelling commitments since discovering she was pregnant? Not daring to be in one place too long in case he found her, she had become a kind of bulky fugitive. A woman who was running away from the inevitable—only now the inevitable had caught up with her.

She shrugged. ‘Okay. We’ll talk. But it might be a good start if you stopped manhandling me like that.’ Pointedly, she glanced down at the olive fingers which were still gripping her forearm, and then up into the hard gleam of his dark eyes. But the terrible thing was that she liked him touching her. For all his cruel words, and her fear of what he wanted, she liked the way he made her feel. And, shamefully, it was deprivation rather than relief which washed over her when he let her go, and her footsteps were a little unsteady as she turned and headed for the staircase.

Justina was aware of people watching them as they made their way from the public area of the hotel towards the residential part and guessed they must make a bizarre couple. She was all damp and bedraggled after being caught in the tropical storm, and Dante looked so indomitable as he shadowed her, his savagely beautiful face and powerful body making every female guest in the building glance at him twice.

In silence they walked towards her suite, and the dark gleam of the wooden verandas, the raffia furniture and the scent of flowers drifting up from the courtyard garden failed to calm Justina’s mounting sense of anxiety. By the time she pushed open her door she felt like a piece of elastic which had been stretched so tightly that the faintest movement would violently snap it.

But she couldn’t carry on feeling frayed and vulnerable like this. She had to stay in control and remember that she was dealing with a man for whom control was key. Some primitive part of her wanted to leave the door open—but she knew that the sound of their voices would carry and she couldn’t risk that. With a heavy sigh of resignation, she closed it behind them.

‘I need to use the bathroom,’ she said.

It seemed almost too intimate a thing to say—which was a bizarre thought in the circumstances—but Justina needed to do more than relieve her pregnancy-weak bladder. Pride made her tug a brush through hair which was hanging down her back like rats’ tails, and to slick on some pink lipstick which seemed to be the only colour in her white face.

She still needed to suck in a deep breath as she prepared to walk back in and face him. She felt sick with nerves—the way she’d used to feel just before she went out on stage—only this was much worse. On stage, her crippling fears had used to vanish the moment she heard the first chord of music and professionalism began to kick in. Today she had no idea how she was going to react to what lay ahead of her. These were new and uncharted waters—and she’d never seen anything more forbidding than the expression on Dante’s dark face as she pushed open the door and walked into the lavish sitting room.

He was standing in front of the massive floor to ceiling windows which overlooked the veranda and yet somehow he made them look insignificant. His face was hard—like granite—and his eyes were cold as they flicked over the massive swell of her belly, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

‘You’d better sit down,’ he said heavily.

She shook her head. Damn him for trying to act concerned. If he was so concerned then he wouldn’t have leapt out at her like that, downstairs in the foyer. ‘I’d prefer to stand,’ she said.

For a moment Dante felt immense frustration shimmer over his skin. Wasn’t that typical of Justina? So damned independent that she’d refuse to do the sensible thing. Even though her face looked as pale as flour, she was stubbornly refusing to sit down simply because he had been the one to suggest it.

‘Have it your own way.’

‘I intend to. How did you find me, Dante?’

‘It wasn’t difficult. You don’t exactly blend into a crowd at the moment. I saw the erratic press reports about your...condition, and I worked out that the baby could be mine. I kept thinking that if that were the case you would contact me.’ There was a pause and his eyes burned into her. ‘I kept waiting for you to get in touch, and when you didn’t I thought...’

His words tailed off. He’d thought that maybe he’d been mistaken, that it wasn’t his baby at all. And hadn’t the thought of that eaten him up with jealousy? The idea that he might have been just one in a line of men who had graced her bed? But the feeling hadn’t left him, and neither had the strange certainty which had flooded through him. It had been certainty which had made him track her down. Which had made him board his private jet to Singapore, where he had been informed that she was staying alone in Raffles Hotel.