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Evidence. Proof she was mine.

Dangerous thoughts crept in. A real family. A child created out of something other than duty or revenge.

That wasn’t the fucking plan.

My hand shifted to cover her stomach. I could almost see it swelling with my child. The thought alone had my cock throbbing.

At my touch, she shifted and murmured in her sleep. Her hip brushed my cock. My teeth clenched.

I should flip her over. Spread her thighs. Remind us both what this was.

Instead, I pressed my face into her hair, inhaling the soft scent of soap mixed with the faint traces of her perfume.

Last night flooded back—her wet body in my arms, nipples pebbled, those small sighs when my hands found her curves.

But before that. Her head beneath the bathwater. Hiding from me.

My fists clenched, remembering how I’d hauled her up, water cascading down her body, her startled eyes meeting mine.

She’d wanted to wash away what I’d done to her. The opera box. Her dress hiked up, mouth open in a silent scream as I took her against the balcony railing. The way she’d bitten her lip to keep from crying out. The taste of her blood when I’d kissed her afterward.

Bit by bit, I was destroying her. And telling myself it was necessary. That the House of Diamanti demanded sacrifice. That protecting the legacy justified the corruption of someone…innocent.

The legacy. What a fucking joke.

My grandfather was christened Sebastian D’Ignoto. Thrown away. The unknown.

The bastard son of a prince and his Austrian mistress, dumped on convent steps like garbage. The nuns beat him until he bled. Starved him until he stole. Beat him again for the sin of theft. He survived by becoming harder than the hands that struck him.

It was only after he made his fortune in the diamond mines of Africa that he emerged christened through blood and sweat as Sebastian Rafaello Diamanti.

Diamanti. Diamond.

A legacy built on blood and arrogance. A legacy I was sacrificing Sabrina for.

But was it really sacrifice if I was the one who would suffer most when she discovered the truth?

My fingertips skimmed the curve of her hip. Even in sleep, her body responded to me, shifting closer, seeking my warmth.

Her resistance was crumbling. I’d seen it yesterday—the way her eyes darkened when I entered the room, the tremble in her hands before she surrendered in the opera box.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time.

The judge had added several more documents to the dossier he was preparing against the House of Diamanti. Two things I knew for certain:

There was a traitor inside of my company. When I found them—and I would find them—I’d make them regret the day they were born.

And the judge had damning evidence of our relationship with several mafia families. Particularly Dante Agnello in Sicily.

The judge hadn’t abandoned his attempts on Sabrina’s life. He was simply hedging his bets. If the Diamanti empire fell, any scandal about her mother would be buried in the wreckage.

I brushed her cheek, pushed her hair back to expose her throat.

My fingertips found the delicate pulse there.

So fragile.

Something in me wanted to protect that fragility. To shield her from the very game I was playing.