Peering up at me, she sniffled. “Can you forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive.” I leaned down to dust my lips over hers, already kicking my shoes off. “I overreacted. I should have been more mindful of your past and how that shapes the way you view relationships with men.”
“Thank you for understanding.” Pulling away, she laced our fingers together, tugging me back toward the bed.
After removing my clothing once more, I joined her under the covers, opening my arms for her to snuggle against my chest. With our bodies pressed flush, Rory let out a contented sigh, the tension she carried as a result of my little blowup melting away.
I hadn’t walked into tonight expecting to test the strength of her feelings toward me—that opportunity had fallen right into my lap—but I was glad it happened. It provided confirmation that Rory was firmly attached, having taken the bait that left her eating out of the palm of my hand.
It was up to me to maintain the status quo until my heir was conceived.
Chapter 5
Rory
“No,no,no,no,no. This can’t be happening.” The words came out under my breath as I paced the confines of the bathroom, unwilling to accept the reality of the two pink lines in the results window of the pregnancy test on the sink.
We doubled up on protection every time we had sex—between the pill and condoms—so it had to be a false positive. There was simply no other explanation. I just couldn’t be pregnant after only a few months of sleeping with John, when I’d successfully avoided an unplanned pregnancy with Gio for over five years.
A gasp tore up my throat.
Oh, God. Gio.
It was only a matter of time before he found me. If there really was a baby, it would be proof of my adultery, and I wouldn’t put it past him to kill not only me, but my child.
My hands clutched my lower abdomen, almost as if in doing so I could protect the tiny life—maybe—within.
A knock sounded on the door. “Ro? Are you okay? You’ve been in there for a while.”
Was I okay? Not particularly.
Best case, the test was defective and I earned my first few gray hairs from the scare. But worst case, the results were accurate, I was indeed pregnant, and I would spend every day terrified for my child’s life.
When I didn’t reply, the doorknob rattled before John’s panicked voice said, “Babe, you’re scaring me.”
Wry laughter burst past my lips. That made two of us.
“Open up and let me in, Ro.” There was a dull thud on the other side of the door, and I could almost picture John dropping his forehead to the wood. “Please.”
My eyes burned, and though I blinked furiously, I couldn’t stop the tears from falling.
This was such a mess I’d dragged him into. And the worst part was that I knew better than to get involved with any man while I was on the run. It was always going to end in disaster—or more accurately, bloodshed. I might as well have signed his death warrant the first time I let him put his hands on me. But if there was a baby? I shuddered to think of the type of torture he would be forced to endure before Gio allowed him the sweet relief of death.
Wiping the moisture from my face, I tucked the white plastic stick into the back pocket of my denim shorts and flicked the lock on the door.
Immediately, it was wrenched open to reveal John, his face etched with concern, on the other side.
Taking in the sight of my red-rimmed eyes and blotchy face, he pulled me into his arms. “Have you been crying?”
As if on command, fresh tears made my vision swim, and a sob bubbled up from my chest. Blubbering into his shirt, I confessed, “I’m late.”
John pulled away enough so that he could see my face. “That’s what you’re so upset about? I mean, sure, the later it gets, the harder it’ll be to find a prime spot to watch the fireworks, but if we leave now—”
“No.” I shook my head, reaching into my back pocket to produce the pregnancy test. Widening my eyes, I repeated, “I’mlate.”
“Oh.” His mouth dropped open, his gaze firmly fixed on the two pink lines. Tugging on the back of his neck, he cleared his throat a few times. “Uh, are kids something you don’t want?”
I blinked at him, caught off guard by his question. Honestly, it was the first time in my life that a man had asked my opinion regarding reproductive choices for my own body. You’d think, in this day and age, it would be standard to have a say in the matter, but unfortunately for me, the world I’d been born into hadn’t afforded me that right. Even as a young girl, it had been drilled into me that my worth as a woman, as a wife, would be determined based on how many sons I could bear for whichever powerful mafia man my father chose for me to marry. And if my husband wanted to breed me so many times that my stretched-out, overused uterus literally fell out, I was expected to let him without complaint.
