But he knew that chance had nothing to do with this.
He didn’t need to hear another word from this weasel of a man. He needed to hear it from Hannah directly. He needed toknow.
Because down deep in his bones, as if his DNA recognized what it was being told without a single shred of proof—he was already sure.
Hannah had a child.
And if Hannah had a child after the night she had given her innocence to him in New York, well.
He was absolutely certain, sight unseen, that it was his.
CHAPTER FIVE
Hannahmadeithome later that evening. The event had gone off without a hitch, and she was pleased about that, but she was even more pleased that she managed to get home in time to snuggle Dominic on his way to bed.
And then sit and have dinner with her neighbor and friend, as she got to do too seldomly.
“You never seem tired when you come home,” the older woman noted as they shared wine and broke bread together. “I think this job suits you.”
What Hannah thought was that her current companion at the job suited her, but she refused to say that out loud. It was tempting fate, surely.
More than that, it was entirely predicated on a lie of omission. If she was wise, she would stop pretending to herself that there was any way out of the situation she was in that wouldn’t leave someone hurt. Likely herself.
Just as long as it’s not Dominic, she thought fiercely.
But then, wasn’t she the one making sure that hewouldbe hurt? By drawing out the inevitable moment of truth with the one man who could hurt them all?
After Cinzia left, Hannah went in to check on Dominic—or, if she was honest with herself, to try to make herself feel better about the choices she was making. And the quicksand it seemed she was standing in.
“I need to tell him,” she whispered as she stood there, staring down at her perfect little boy in his crib. It was hard to imagine that soon—any moment now, really, and it was possible she was dragging her feet on this—it was going to be time for a bigger bed. It seemed like only a blink since he was red and wrinkled and new, and spent most of his time a hot weight against her body. And everyone said the time only went faster and faster.
Would she blink again and find her tiny baby boy a whole grown man?
Yet even thinking that made the guilt inside of her seem to swell and ripen, until she was terribly afraid something would burst. She knew she needed to tell Antonluca. She knew it, and every night she resolved that tomorrow would be the day—
But it never was, was it?
It turned out that Hannah really wasn’t the woman she’d always believed herself to be. The woman she’d been so sure she was, without question. She had been indiscreet with her friend in New York, yes, butshewasn’t the betraying kindherself. That distinction had always seemed critical to her.
And wasn’t it a bitter pill to swallow that she was, maybe, more like that terrible friend of hers than not?
In the crib he could already climb out of, Dominic shifted slightly. Hannah gazed down at his sooty dark lashes as they rested there against his round, plump cheeks. The urge to wake him up just so she could kiss him on those cheeks and love on him some more was almost overwhelming, but she was used to that. She suspected that it would never get any better or any easier to keep from adoring this child.
She suspected this was simply motherhood.
Why shouldn’t Antonluca get to feel the same way?she asked herself as she crept out of the room, her heart full.
And also aching a little bit, she acknowledged as she went back to the main room. But she didn’t know what to do about that aside from the obvious, first chance she got, so she busied herself tidying things up, though it wasn’t exactly necessary. Cinzia was always good about leaving things a bit cleaner than she found them.
Another way her neighbor was perfect, to Hannah’s mind.
She was contemplating whether to settle in on the cozy sofa with a book and a glass of wine, or whether she might take both of those things into the bath with her for a soak, when there was a sudden, loud,demandingsort of thumping sound.
It took her a long moment to understand that it was the door.
That there was someoneather door, which made no sense.
She stood where she was and stared at it, confused when the thumping started again. Until she realized that there had to be someonestanding there, pounding on the door with a fist.
