“You’re pregnant.”
I nodded, hating the suspense of his looking at me like this.
“AGiovanniis carryingmychild.”
Bile rose up my throat and I swallowed the acrid taste right back down. My stomach pitched at the tormented rage in his voice.
“I… am,” I clarified, verbally agreeing that I was from a rival family. And that we had fallen so far in that desire and lust and my fantasy of love that our forbidden affair resulted in a new life.
A bastard, in his eyes.
An abomination and mistake, according to him.
But a sweet blessing for me.
“No.” He shook his head. Pacing again, he ran his hands through his hair and stared at the floor like a crazed man. “No. Fuck no.”
I laid my other hand on top of the one already covering my stomach.
If he was trying to tell me no as in this baby couldn’t be… he’d have to kill me before he thought he could harm it. I refused the concept of terminating or rejecting this life.
Frantic to survive and desperate to get back to that common ground we’d once had, I grew firmer in my resolve.
Try me.
Try it, Andre.
Idareyou.
I would be gone before he could attempt to order what should happen next.
Uncle Roberto never cared to enlighten me about politics, but I heard enough. I had been born and raised in a crime family. I knew how important heirs and bloodlines were. How a bastard could topple a fortune and legacy.
This new life inside me was ababy. And I would protect him or her with all my life.
That wasn’t my bleeding heart at play. This wasn’t my concern for someone else.
This was the first growing ember of motherhood that was taking root in my soul.
Try me, Andre.
The only way he’d get rid of this baby was to kill me first.
And that seemed inevitable with how he struggled to process all the bombshells I’d confessed to him in the last hour.
It’s all my fault.Rubbing my fingers over my stomach, I fell into a sharp, aching depression as I mentally spoke to my child. I took all the blame for this mess. It was all my damn fault.
For ever noticing him. For wanting to help him when he was wounded. For wishing I could save everyone and care about too many others.
For wanting to help, not harm.
Surrendering to what I thought had been magic between us was my only mistake.
“No.” He repeated it one last time, and I tensed.
Any second now, he’d raise his gun and kill me for being a spy. I’d witnessed him deliver “justice” just like that in another circumstance, when he saw that man in his office.
“No,” he growled.
