My lips parted but no words exited my mouth. What the actual shit was I supposed to say to that? This was exactly why I hadbeggednot to come to this luncheon with the Ricci family.
When I didn’t reply, the girl just gave me a disgusted look. “Angelo could have had his pick of any girl in Siena, and he chose to put a baby inyou?” It seemed like a rhetorical question, so I just gave a small shrug in response. What else did she want from me? “If you had a shred of decency, you wouldn’t be parading that around here. EveryonelovesVee, so don’t go dreaming of a future as Mrs. Ricci. It’ll never happen. You’re just an incubator and nothing more.”
To emphasize her point, she upended her glass of red wine directly onto my medium-sized bump, soaking my pastel dress in claret.
“Oops,” she sneered. “Guess you need to leave now.Byeeee!”
I couldn’t even find it within myself to be mad about it, because Iwantedto leave. So I just started laughing and pushed back from my chair. “Thanks. It was nice meeting you…” I trailed off, looking her up and down the same way she’d eyed me. “Whatever your name is.” Not that I cared.
“It’s Jenna,” she snapped at my back as I walked away, but I didn’t respond. Seriously, why the fuck would I even care? She clearly thought herself more important than anyone else in the room.
When I reached the country club foyer, I gave a heavy sigh of relief. Just being out of that dining room had eased some of the pressure in my head. I wished more than anything that I couldactuallyleave… to crawl back into my bed at Angelo’s house where I’d been kept prisoner for more than two months now. But his car had been valeted, and I had no way to pay for a taxi.
“Ma’am, are you okay?” one of the club staff asked cautiously, giving me a concerned look. “Do you need help to clean up? Can we call someone?”
I glanced down at the mess of red wine soaking through my dress, completely covering the swell of my midsection. Great. “Um, no I’ll be fine,” I mumbled. “I just need the restrooms?”
The woman escorted me down the hall to the ladies’ room, then asked again if she could call one of my friends to help. It was with a bitter smile that I shook my head. “No, thanks. I don’t have any friends here.”
How truethatwas.
I locked myself in the restroom, then just stared at myself in the mirror. The dress was totally ruined; there was no point even attempting to clean it up. All I’d achieve was to soak myself through.
At a loss for what else to do, I just stood there. For ages. Just stood there, staring at my reflection and questioning what thefuckI was doing with my life.
Some time later a knock on the door startled me, and my heart raced with a surge of adrenaline from fright.
“Occupied, sorry!” I called out. Thankfully, the country club was fancy enough to have individual bathrooms, not just stalls in a larger restroom. It meant I could hide out here without having to sit on top of a toilet.
“Bella, it’s me,” a deep voice replied, “let me in.”
Groaning to myself, I crossed over and unlocked the door. “Hi, sweetie, did you miss me?”
Angelo’s scowl was dark enough to send fear ricocheting through me. Would he hurt me if I pushed him? I honestly had no idea. He was like a stick of lit dynamite these days.
“Seriously, Bella? I leave you forfive fucking minutes,and you—”
“Get assaulted by one of your wife’s friends and her glass of merlot? Yes. I did. Are you shocked? Because I’m not. Can we leave yet?” I was scared of him and what he was capable of. But I wasn’t physically able to hold back my attitude. Not with how deep our history ran.
He was so torn, scrubbing a hand over his freshly cropped hair. “Fucking hell,” he growled. Then he looked at my wine-drenched dress again. “Yes, I guess we have to. I’ve made an appearance, and you’ve been seen. That’ll have to do, for today.”
Relief rushed through me so hard my shoulders sagged, and I didn’t even protest when Angelo gripped my elbow harder than necessary as he escorted mequicklyout of the country club. We needed to wait a few minutes at the front door for the valet to fetch Angelo’s car, and neither of us seemed to know what to say. It was a deeply uncomfortable silence, even after the car pulled up and we climbed inside.
“So, um, what was it that your father wanted to announce?” I asked, curiosity winning out over awkwardness as we drove back toward the Ricci mansion on the riverside. Thankfully, the elder Riccis, Giovanni and Fiorella, lived in their country estate now, so we had the whole place to ourselves. No doubt that was how Angelo avoided me so effortlessly.
He glanced over at me as he drove, his tattooed hands tightening on the steering wheel like he was picturing strangling me.
“I have no idea,” he snapped. “We left before he made the announcement.”
I swallowed hard. “Um, will we be in trouble for that?” His family took this shitdeadseriously.
Angelo heaved a sigh. “Us? No. Me? Yes. But it’ll be fine. Just… let me get you home, and I’ll go smooth things over. You were probably right about this being a bad idea.”
Without meaning to, I laughed. “No shit.”
He glanced over at me again; this time a small smile curved his lips. “You’re gonna be the death of me, Bella.”
I bit the inside of my lip, shifting my gaze out the window to avoid replying. A horrible feeling swirled through my chest as I was too sure he meant that literally. I was in way over my head with Angelo Ricci, and all I wanted to do was run crying back into the arms of Bellerose.
