“How?” she demanded.
“Because I will feature in its life, one way or the other. And because I will claim it as such.” His words rang with resolve. “It’s not a negligible thing. Now the whole world is going to wonder why you hid, and why I didn’t welcome you and this baby into our family wholeheartedly all these months. Santo and Pia’s marriage was a performative circus that dragged us all into the spotlight. Now this is like throwing fresh meat to hungry hyenas.”
“First of all, the baby isn’t here yet. Second of all, you’re a freaking billionaire. What the hell do you care what the media says about you or your family? Aren’t you all supposed be egocentric kings of your own little fiefdoms?”
“I care what our name stands for, since I built it up from scandal and ruin.” Mr. DiCarlo grinned as if to take away the gravity from that. Unfortunately for Mimi, it increased his appeal a thousand times. “Are you quite this colorful in your language with everyone, or do I bring out this particular talent?”
“It’s you,” she said, refusing to hold back. “I’m a sensible, caring woman with everyone else in the world.”
“How special that makes me feel,” he said dryly.
Mimi’s mouth twitched despite everything.
It was a rare sight to see Renzo DiCarlo so thoroughly put-upon, after all. When he looked at her, that tiny flicker morphed into full-blown laughter that made her chest ache and her ribs spasm painfully.
“Ouch,” she said, palming her belly as the baby went into high gear and kicked.
His hands reached for her belly instinctively, and he froze so fully that it was like a watching a pouncing predator come to a deathly stillness. “Is that…” he cleared his throat, his eyes intense on hers “…the baby kicking? Is it safe? Do you need—”
“Yes, it’s kicking. I laughed and must have jostled it too much,” Mimi said, pulling her hands back so their fingertips didn’t touch. “It’s very normal. If anything, I’d be surprised if the kicking didn’t happen once every hour at least.”
Hawkeyed as he was, he didn’t miss her pulling away. But his large palms stayed on her belly, covering so much more ground than hers could.
A strange intimacy wove around them, and Mimi fought it with every ragged breath. Attraction to him because of some age-old instinct was one thing. But being bound to him in any way because of the baby—her entire rational being revolted against the very idea.
She wanted to tell him to remove his hands, but the words refused to form. Something about the look in his eyes forbade them.
Now she felt stupid for retreating. It felt as if she had ceded ground. Which was ridiculous because this was a baby, not a battlefield.
And moreover, Renzo DiCarlo wasn’t interested in being a father any more than he was interested in tying himself to her in any way.
She needed to remember that.
It was like bubbles popping. Or like the flutter of tiny, fragile wings under his large, callused hands. Until it was a stronger tap that made his own breath punch out of his lungs.
Renzo stilled, stunned, eager to feel more of the tumbling, zapping feeling. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced. Awe filled him as the baby seemed to subside even as he waited, with a thundering heart.
Suddenly, the complete scope of what was happening in his life shone in technicolor. This was a child kicking its tiny feet or legs against its mama’s belly, making itself known.
With his brother gone, this was fully his child now.
His child…
An innocent, pure life that he was going to be responsible for, unlike the foolish, privileged, spoiled members of his family. No, that was two more lives he was responsible for now. And the second was pure and innocent too, in ways he hadn’t been exposed to in a long while.
She’d been hidden by the very large shadow that her stepsister cast, and with his vision blurred by what Rosa, the girl he had loved, had done so long ago, he hadn’t seen what kind of woman Mimi Shah was. And it unsettled him, as if his radar wasn’t in top shape.
He looked up and met the mutinous brown gaze and nearly burst out laughing.
A strange reaction to the most bizarre encounter of his life, but there it was. He had braced himself for anger, fury, frustration that he was going to be yoked to a woman he couldn’t tolerate, that he was going to be forced into a role he didn’t want…
Anything but this sheer wonder at what they had created. Convoluted though their route had been.
“Can you please move your hands away? It’s possible you have some rights to this child, but I’m not… I don’t think we should, that is…”
He removed his hands immediately, bemused by her unusual floundering. “That is?”
“We’re practically strangers.”
