"It was less than that for Gio and me," she says, and I can hear her smile. "I met him one week, I was his personal chef the next, we went to Italy the one after that. By the time we got back, there was no going back for me; I was his.
"And honestly, Erica," she continues, "the way that man looks at you... he is well and truly smitten. He's a bit stoic, that one, but I think he'll be an amazing father."
I nod.
"And you don't have a problem with... what they do?"
She sighs. "I did. I really did. When I met Gio, he held my mother's debt. It's why I started working for him. Then I found out he was using that debt, along with a lot of his own money, to clean up the streets around Regalia. To make things better for people who couldn't do it for themselves. And it's not just him. They all do it. It's complicated."
My timer goes off, and I jump.
"Well," she says, standing up. "Time to face the music."
"Same time?" I say.
She nods.
We stand together in the tiny stall, then look down.
Two lines.
Two pink lines.
Bianca whispers, "Oh my God."
And I look at hers.
Two pink lines there, too.
Pregnant.
We're both pregnant.
I am pregnant with Nico Conti's child.
My knees feel weak, and Bianca must see it, because she grabs my arm and steadies me. I look at her, and she's beaming, tears in her eyes.
"We're pregnant," she says.
"We're pregnant," I echo, the words feeling strange and huge in my mouth.
She pulls me in for a hug.
Chapter Forty Four
Nico
Hours pass in slow, ugly increments.
Erica’s leaning into me now. Not asleep.
I can feel her fighting it.
The minute she’d come back from the bathroom with Bianca, I knew something happened. Her eyes were red. Not the raw, freshly crying red—more like she’d already scrubbed at her face,tried to pull herself together, and failed. Her mouth was tight, and she didn’t look anyone directly in the eye for a while.
And Bianca—Bianca looked… happier when she came back out. She just went back to passing food around.
Nobody asked questions.
