He gently kisses my forehead, lingering slightly. “I need to get back to meetings,” he says, pulling me close for a hug. “But I’ll check on you later, okay?”
“Okay,” I whisper, trying my best to not cling to him. If only I could make this moment last for forever. Instead, I let him release me. I watch him leave, and the moment the door closes I sink back onto the bed, my hands shaking.
I’m pregnant with Luca Marchetti’s baby, and I have no idea if that’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me or the worst.
20
LUCA
Gigi’s acting funny.
I can’t ignore it any longer during breakfast three days after our conversation about her father. She’s pushing eggs around her plate, creating patterns in the hollandaise sauce rather than eating. Her coffee sits untouched, steam curling up from the surface like accusatory fingers pointing at her complete lack of interest.
“Not hungry?” I ask, keeping my tone casual even though alarm bells are already ringing in my head. She hasn’t eaten much in the last few days and it’s worrying me.
She startles slightly, like she’d forgotten I was sitting across from her. “What? Oh. No, I’m fine. Just not feeling it this morning.”
Fine. That word again. The one people use when they’re anything but fine.
I study her face, noting the careful way she’s not quite meeting my eyes. The slight pallor to her skin that wasn’t there yesterday.The way her hands tremble slightly when she reaches for her water glass instead of the coffee she usually craves.
“You look tired,” I observe, which is an understatement. There are shadows under her eyes that speak of poor sleep, and her usual brightness seems dimmed somehow. “Did you sleep okay?”
“Yeah.” But she won’t look at me when she says it. “Just—you know. Restless.”
Except I was in bed with her all night. I would have known if she was restless. She slept fine. Better than fine, actually, curled against my side with that trusting contentment that’s become familiar.
So why is she lying?
The thought sends ice through my veins because I know what lies mean. They mean secrets. They mean planning. They mean the careful construction of false narratives designed to obscure true intentions.
They mean someone’s preparing to do something they don’t want you to know about.
“Gigi.” I lean forward, keeping my voice gentle even though suspicion is clawing at my throat. “If something’s bothering you?—”
“Nothing’s bothering me.” She stands abruptly, her chair scraping against the floor. “I’m just not hungry. I think I’ll go check on the animals.”
She’s gone before I can respond, practically running from the room like I’m a threat she needs to escape.
My hands clench around the table hard enough that I’m surprised I don’t rip a chunk out of the wood.
She’s lying. She’s definitely lying. The question iswhy.
Over the next two days, I watch her carefully. Not obviously—I’m too skilled for that—but with the attention I once reserved for enemies requiring elimination.
The patterns emerge quickly.
She’s avoiding wine. At dinner last night, when I poured her usual glass of red, she made an excuse about having a headache and asked for water instead. Tonight, she claimed she wanted to stay sharp for some research she’s doing on surgical techniques.
Two nights in a row. Two different excuses for the same deviation from routine.
She’s disappearing for stretches of time I can’t account for. Yesterday afternoon, she said she was going to the sunroom but when I checked an hour later, she wasn’t there. Danny found her in her old suite—the one she hasn’t used since the wedding—and she claimed she was looking for a book she’d left behind.
A book she could have asked any staff member to retrieve.
She’s being secretive with her phone. I’ve caught her typing messages with that careful concentration people use when they’re worried about someone seeing over their shoulder, then quickly closing out of whatever she was looking at when she notices my presence.
I’ve gone through her phone after she’s gone to sleep and there’s nothing. She’s wiped her history clean of anything incriminating. No texts. No searches. No nothing.
