“Thank you,” she said and handed it to him.
Then she turned around and continued up the stairs as he stewed over this last comment. She said it as if she washumoringhim. This situation obviously needed some clarifications.
Ann-Sophie climbed the stairs, past the second-floor landing of the spiral staircase, and came to a stop on the landing on the third floor, lit by the overcast sky through the window in the stairwell. She keyed the door, and they stepped into a tiny hallway. The floor was filled with mail and newspapers, and as she bent to pick up everything, her full rear brushed against his thigh. His body stirred again, and Alessandro gritted his teeth. This woman had the power to take over his thoughts and make him act irrationally. It had already happened once, with disastrous consequences, and he could feel how easily it could happen again.
“I’ll get the mail,” he growled.
Everything he did from this point forward must be strategic, and from the moment he had registered her round belly, partly concealed by the billowy shawl she wore, Alessandro knew immediately what the goal had to be. He would never be a negligent father and treat his child like an inconvenience—or worse—the way his own parents had. And though Alessandro had never envisioned himself as a father, he had very strong ideas about how a child should be raised. He needed a solution that would give him some much-needed control over this…situation. Which required keeping the child and Ann-Sophie close. That’s what this strange, possessive urge was about, he told himself. The solution he had in mind did not involve intense emotions. As long as he kept himself under control, he could fix this situation into something that worked. He had succeeded with more delicate negotiations, and he always pursued his interests relentlessly until he was satisfied with the outcome. This would be no different.
He took a moment to evaluate her living conditions, which, on the whole, looked perfectly acceptable, though a little small. The apartment’s old wooden floors and high ceilings lined with flourishes marked the building’s age, but it had been kept up reasonably well. Alessandro hung his coat on a brass coatrack and followed her into a living room. The walls were white and decorated with a series of paintings that could have been Southeast France or Northwest Italy. The most notable feature was an old-fashioned, floor-to-ceiling stovelike fireplace, freestanding and entirely covered with tile. The rest of the room was decorated in the Scandinavian modern style that one might expect, with a low, white sofa and chairs and an area rug patterned in tan and white. On the whole, the room was tasteful and might have even felt a bit impersonal if not for the books. They were everywhere, in overflowing piles on the bookshelves and scattered on the furniture and the low tables, some bookmarked and others propped open.
Ann-Sophie cleared a book from the armchair and gestured for him to sit. “I’m putting on the kettle for peppermint tea. Would you like a cup?”
He shook his head. The drink he needed right now was significantly stronger.
She disappeared through the doorway, and he wandered through the room, inspecting the books that lay open, faced down, half-read and abandoned. There were a few in Italian and English that he recognized, but most were in what he assumed was Swedish. Ann-Sophie clearly loved to read, and Alessandro filed this information away for future strategic use. She returned moments later with a tray that held a cup of tea and a plate that held some sort of sugary bun, which she set next to a stack of older-looking books.
“Cinnamon roll?” She glanced longingly at the braided bun. “I split it in half in case you’re hungry.”
“No, thank you,” he said, and he was almost sure he saw a flash of relief.
Ann-Sophie reached for the sweet, giving it a reverent glance before taking a bite. She closed her eyes, and a look of sensual pleasure swept across her face. Alessandro’s body reacted immediately, memories mixing with seven months of self-denial in a surge of lust that for one, dangerous moment took over his thoughts with pure need, reckless and desperate.
“Where shall we start?” she asked a moment later with a tight smile. “Perhaps with the way you so succinctly made it clear you wanted nothing to do with me after a week together? And just so there was no uncertainty in your message, you felt it necessary to block my number. Yes, let’s start there.”
The new bite he had noted was back in her voice, sinking its teeth into him. A few days after their parting, he had found himself inexplicably checking his phone to see if she might have contacted him, despite the way he’d ended their liaison. Finally, he put an end to that impulse by blocking her number. But this was definitely not the time to get into these details.
“Or we could start with the current situation.” He gestured to her belly, but he was distracted by the way the pillows under her legs were propped in such a way that suggested she regularly sat like this. Did her feet bother her? Alessandro didn’t like the way that possibility sat inside him.
“Fine. Let’s start with today,” she said. “Why were you waiting outside my building?”
The question narrowed his focus. They were entering negotiation, an area where he excelled. Growing up as the disappointing twin, the troublemaker, it had been implied in every way that he would be the one who would surely bring down the family name his grandfather wanted so desperately to redeem. When he had finally shut off his emotions, he had learned to hone in on his useful skills.
All his adult life, he had talked his way through situations where his father had betrayed every last ounce of trust that people had in the family name. He had succeeded, winning back clients. Armed with the facts, plans and financial nuances Massimo had compiled, he had explained, flattered and negotiated, all with the air that in the end, it didn’t matter to him. That they had lists of investors clambering for access if this particular investor turned down their proposal. While his brother was good at numbers, forecasts and all the things that had plagued Alessandro at school, Alessandro knewpeople. He knew how to charm and enthrall, and he carried out each charm offensive with steely resolve because he had sworn that never again would their lives be out of control, the way that they had been during their childhood. So he ignored the questions about how she was fairing that brewed inside and started on this new campaign.
“I came to ask you the very same question,” he said, his voice a peak of equanimity. “Just this morning, my brother told me that he saw you in front of our office, looking ‘rounder.’ I believed that a pregnancy was out of the question because the woman I spent a week with seven months ago had a job that entirely depended on her integrity. So she would never, ever fail to reveal something as important as a baby.”
Ann-Sophie swallowed visibly, but her reply was cuttingly polite. “May I refer back to the email I mentioned?”
“Surely you could have tried a bit harder,” he said, ignoring the fact that she did, indeed, have a point. “After all, you managed to make it to the doorstep of our office.”
Her lips twitched down in displeasure.
“I’m sorry. I should have,” she finally whispered.
A rush of cool satisfaction ran through him. He had found a weakness. She felt guilty about withholding this information. So he twisted the knife further.
“But, as my brother has earned mytrust—” Alessandro slowed on that last word “—I felt it was my duty to verify that he had made some sort of mistake, that my trust in your honesty was not misplaced.”
Again, her guarded expression faltered, and again he ignored the twinge of discomfort this reaction brought and focused on the surge of satisfaction of having found a path forward. A path where he was in control. Alessandro told himself that even if he hadn’t made it easy for her, she still should have found a way to tell him about the baby.
“But now, I find myself here, having verified that my brother was not, in fact, mistaken. It was I who was so deceived into thinking that I could trust someone who has security clearances,” he said, finishing. Then, he waited.
Ann-Sophie was quiet for a long time as she looked out the window. Finally, she turned back to him. “So basically, you came here to scold me?”
Frustration flared inside him, but it was easy to tamp it down this time because he had her exactly where he wanted her.
“Oh, no,cara,” he said, softening his tone. “I didn’t come to scold you. I came to marry you.”
